Literary Magazine

The name of the literary magazine I read is called, "Poets and Writers." It is published by Poets and Writers Inc, a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation organized for literary and educational purposed and is supported publicly by the New York State Council of the Arts, the National Endowments for the Arts, and many more. It is based out of New York City. The website of this literary magazine can be found at www.pw.org. This magazine is published bimonthly, and I read the March/April 2009 edition, which also happens to be the Volume 37 second issue.

In every issue one can find short stories, poems, and advertisements for retreats and groups for the type of people this magazine attracts. In addition, each issue has a theme. For example, the next issue will be based on literary life abroad and will have a collection of stories by four people and challenges they face all over the world when it comes to trying to publish their work. There are articles comparing different types of writing in this issue. For example, there is a story of creative nonfiction vs. journalism. People can publish advertisements in this magazine, but unlike other magazines that have a wide range of information in them, this certain magazine only focuses on writing. So there is an advertisement for the Pushcart Prize, which is a book that is made of stories, poems, essays and memoirs selected from hundreds of small presses. It is apparently quite an honor to appear in this book.

This magazine is very neatly presented, in color glossy paper and is bound tightly, presenting an appealing look. The information is new and up to date, and the front of it looks like a normal magazine found at grocery stores etc, so it looked like it would be easy to navigate through and that there would be a few different types of stories/poems/etc. in it. I spent a long time looking and although I found a certain charm in the old tattered literary magazines that many people obviously enjoy, I wanted to find a more current issue.

This magazine seems to give a voice to writers in this world who may face challenges when it comes to writing. The next issue will be all about people facing challenges in the publishing world! However, just because these writers are somewhat undiscovered or not as well known, at least to me, I was intrigued by their writing and totally sucked in by their stories.

There is no real common theme tying every story together, but there were a few in this issue of writers sharing their views on what is truly important to them in life. A story that stood out to me was by Nina Shengold who writes about Mary Gaitskill's stories about what it means to be alive. Another story, by Kevin Nance is about a Cuban American novelist and her journey back to her homeland, a place that she has not visited in a while, but is still very important to her and she realizes this on her journey back. There are quite a few stories that writers wrote about other people.

I really enjoyed the story called, "The Voyage Many Returns." It is about a six year old girl, Achy who escaped Cuba at the young age of six and traveled to America in a wooden boat with her family and forty four other people in a violent storm. Her last memories of Cuba were not pleasant ones, but as she grew older and became a writer she felt the need to get in touch with her roots and so she did so. This long story is about how she came to return to Cuba, her feelings before and after and during the journey, and her life in America. It was inspiring and even made me tearful as I related to not being in touch with my own heritage as I wish I was!

I think I would like to publish my work in a journal like this if I ever became comfortable enough to publish my work because something that Kathy Park Hong and Theo said in class once was that publishing is extremely hard, and this magazine even spoke to the challenges some writers face when it comes to publishing. Since this magazine recognizes this and is a nonprofit organization, I feel like it gives voice to the people that are not well known and I feel like I might have a chance if I tried sending a piece to this magazine!