Ted Genoways, editor of VQR, wrote an impassioned call for action in Mother Jones. Essentially, he laments the decline of the literary journal and the explosion of creative writing programs and writers who don't read.
About those writers who don't read:
"Last summer, Louis Menand tabulated that there were 822 creative writing programs. Consider this for a moment: If those programs admit even 5 to 10 new students per year, then they will cumulatively produce some 60,000 new writers in the coming decade. Yet the average literary magazine now prints fewer than 1,500 copies. In short, no one is reading all this newly produced literature—not even the writers themselves."
The flaw in this thinking is that writers are either reading literary journals or not reading at all. "Newly produced literature" is a malleable term. As a writer, I read "newly produced" collections every year — a lot of them (20, 30). But I read few journals because I need more of a winnowing process.
There's a winnowing process — from unpublished manuscripts to literary journals, and from literary journals to Pushcart/BASS/Collections. I've read the unpublished manuscripts in slush piles, and I've read literary journals, and I tend to prefer collections (even more than Pushcart and BASS).
Why? Because for one, many stories in literary journals don't make it to collections. That winnowing process allows me to access a better bank of literature. Two, I like reading numerous stories by a single author, onhealthy pharmacy online without prescription because the stories connect more than many journals.
And three, because pragmatically, I have far too much to read (no, really — it's impossible to keep up). Everyone has far too much to read. Not only because we're bombarded with all sorts of flashy doohickeys like Twitter and DVR and Netflix and computer games and video games, but because the sheer amount of fiction produced each year is overwhelming.
In other words, while Genoways notes quite correctly the proliferation of creative writing programs and writers, he fails to take into account the impact of the proliferation of words. We're drowning. And we cope with that drowning by moving up the ladder: by choosing to read books, which offer a further winnowing process than literary journals.
I'm not saying that I don't like or read literary journals — I do. I'm just trying to trampoline off Genoways argument to show how and why things are the way they are. And I'm not saying it's right, just that this has been the pragmatic route many have slipped into.
I don't know the solution. But as the era of e-books dawns, I suspect that ten years from now, Genoways and other literary editors will be looking back on the '00s as the good old days. Because if you can't get anyone to subscribe or read journals now, just wait until there's an infinite amount of stories, novels and nonfiction available for free on e-readers.
12 comments
One main reason why I stopped reading literary journals, is that no matter which one I picked up, the stories/poems seemed to be the same.
Whether it was because most (if not all) of the writers had either some kind of MFA attached to their name or they taught creative writing/English/any kind of subject in college/university, the stories just seemed to me to be formulaic.
Just because literary journals are not being bought and/or subscribed to doesn’t mean that writers aren’t reading them. I usually go to the local bookstore and read them there.
G, I’ve observed the same thing, except for a select few literary journals at the top (VQR, Paris Review, Zoetrope, etc). I don’t want to name names, but especially any journal that sticks to minimalist realism ends up being extremely homogeneous.
Anks, that’s another good point. I’ve read journals at libraries and bookstores, but not bought them. Also, some lit journals I’ve bought secondhand. Lastly, at my MFA program, we had a whole shelf of literary journals, and I’d read probably thirty journals without buying one.
Usually when I buy journals, it’s a copy of the contest entry, because I’ve submitted to the contest. And though I’ve subscribed to a few journals as well, ones I want to support, I have read many, many more.
gonaways was being flippant in that essay. okay, okay, fewer national magazines publishing fiction. no more gq, no more elle, no more regular atlantic. but what about the sun (circ. 60,000) or commentary (circ. 30,000), american scholar (circ. 40,000) or NYRB (90,000), all of which run fiction and are not exclusively literary journals.
as for that commenting meme “nobody is publishing good fiction”. Please, are you really reading VQR, Paris Review, Tin House, Missouri Review, Zyzzyva, The Sun, Commentary, Granta, Agni, ASF, Glimmer Train, Open City, etc, etc? Some of those are hosted by universities, most of them not. There is a ton of great short fiction being published. Not every story in every journal is good, but in the top 20 journals there is at least one great story in each issue. saying otherwise is just sour grapes on the part of those rejected or just dismissiveness without investigation. and the range, from say, the urban intellectual stories in Commentary to the west coast grittiness of zyzzyva is still expansive, ambitious and as broadly American as Dos Passos to Miller to Burroughs. get out there and read, really read, pick up five great journals and go through them, some of the stories you flip past after a graph or two, but others will alert you to a new voice, connect you with another mind, remind you you are not alone. god bless
Anon, there are great stories among the best journals, in every issue. No doubt about it.
And thanks for pointing out the bright circulating spots among our darkening short-fiction world.
Good post, although you seem to be agreeing with Genoways more than disagreeing with him. I have to say, though, I read probably thirty journals, and the quality of fiction is extremely low. Minimal realist fiction? What journals are you talking about? Realist fiction, sure; realistic minimalist fiction, not so much (although I’d be interested to hear a few names). And Genoways should talk–he publishes very mediocre stories by Iowa graduates, the kind of stories that are sinking the industry anyway. The stories in his issue two issues ago were both cheap and fake in the worst sense. If literary journals bomb it will (mainly) be their own fault. But I also think the doomsday predictions are a waste of time. Things will keep limping along, we’ll all keep complaining.
Next, what I was doing was trying to give a explanation for WHY people might prefer reading other forms of newly produced literature rather than literary journals. It’s just an explanation that Genoways didn’t explore. Doesn’t mean it’s the right or best move for people, just that this might be the pragmatics behind a cultural shift. If we can at least figure out why people read the way they do, we’re one step closer to figuring out how to proliferate good reading material.
And really? You don’t find minimalist realist fiction fairly prevalent? Sure, there’s a number of journals that go the awkwardly experimental route, but there’s also a good number of those sticking to the tried and true (which ends up, after reading thousands of these stories, somewhat formulaic, as the commenter above noted).
Oh, and to clear up confusion — I don’t fall into the Submitted-To-VQR-But-Never-Subscribed category. I was a subscriber, and I think they’ve published some absolutely amazing fiction.
Agreed on your point about WHY we might not read journals.
As for minimalist realistic fiction, I agree about the realism, not about the minimalism, if you are talking about the minimalism promoted through Carver and, for a while, Ford etc. You don’t see that very much anymore. You see a lot of sentimental realism and similar-looking sentences that strive to conjure up emotional landscapes (whereas minimalist fiction, to me, leaves everything implied; less a rose garden than an empty parking lot). At least, that’s my experience.
And I agree that VQR has published some great fiction. But, like with many journals, its hit and miss. Hence your point about us rather reading collections is good.
i think styron made the right reply to gonaways, way before gonaways:
A critic nowadays will set up straw-men, saying that Mailer had Ahab in mind when he created Sergeant Croft, that Jim Jones thought of Hamlet when he came up with his bedeviled Private Prewitt, stating further, however, that neither of these young men have created figures worthy of Melville or Shakespeare; they do this, or they leap to the opposite pole and cry out that no one writing today even tries to create figures of the tragic stature of Lear. For a writer, God forbid either course. I still maintain that the times get precisely the literature that they deserve, and that if the writing of this period is gloomy the gloom is not so much inherent in the literature as in the times. The writer’s duty is to keep on writing, creating memorable Pvt. Prewitts and Sgt. Crofts, and to hell with Ahab. Perhaps the critics are right: this generation may not produce literature equal to that of any past generation—who cares? The writer will be dead before anyone can judge him—but he must go on writing, reflecting disorder, defeat, despair, should that be all he sees at the moment, but ever searching for the elusive love, joy, and hope—qualities which, as in the act of life itself, are best when they have to be struggled for, and are not commonly come by with much ease, either by a critic’s formula or by a critic’s yearning. If he does not think one way or another, that he can create literature worthy of himself and of his place, at this particular moment in history, in his society, then he’d better pawn his Underwood, or become a critic.
I meant a looser interpretation of minimalism. Maybe not the extremes of Carver and Ford, but the general direction of simplistic diction, short sentences, and a paucity of description, leaving out a good deal.
Compare it to maximalist fiction like a David Foster Wallace short story or even the thick, full fiction of Jonathan Lethem, and you’ll see a marked difference.
If you want another take on the Genoways article in Mother Jones, check out Dan Green’s take.
https://noggs.typepad.com/the_reading_experience/2010/01/in-a-recent-essay-in-mother-jones-ted-genoways-blames-the-decline–both-in-numbers-and-in-influence–of-university-affiliate.html