It’s a tough industry when a magazine as amazing as Freeman’s can’t make it.
I said the same thing about Tin House, The Believer, and Bookforum too—the latter have resumed publication recently—and I don’t subscribe to them all myself.
In the recent Lithub piece, “On the Ending of a Literary Journal, John Freeman Says Goodbye to Freeman’s”, Freeman speaks about the importance of this kind of magazine.
“One of the great powers of a little journal is that, even when it is geographically pinned to a place, it opens up an alternate imaginary community to the ones of a nation, or at least of the nation as it is defining itself currently.”
We all know one of those magazines; we remember the first time we lit upon it, the first time we read it, the first time we subscribed (if we were lucky), the first time we shared a copy of it (or the first time someone shared it with us). Freeman writes:
“What is one person’s choice is another person’s livelihood, and this is one of the challenges of working in a form that requires money, since virtually all literary magazines lose it, some of them quite a lot of it.”
Some of my friends also publish in and work for magazines, small and large, so I try to subscribe when I can, or I purchase an occasional copy off the newsstand. Others do the same for me.
But throughout the past year, my reading has been atypical and sporadic and all these magazines have been quietly breeding in a corner and I need to catch up. I would like to subscribe to more, but that doesn’t make sense if I’m not enjoying the ones I have.
Here are some of the articles in magazines that I’ve enjoyed recently (who knows which issue, or whether it was last week’s or last year’s, but if you’re desperate to know about one in particular, I can look it up):
The interview with Ross Gay in Poets & Writers, which sent me on a search for everything-all-at-once. Something about how he describes his motivations and struggles, his inspiration and his daily life, made me feel as though his work was essential. (Fun fact, when you look up “Ross Gay” in the digital catalogue for the northern library I frequent when I’m not in Toronto, Ross Matthews’ essay collection Name Drop comes up; yes, he’s gay, and the book is very funny!) P&W is also an excellent source for new little magazines and journals discussed in their pages.
The holiday gift guide in Bust that includes the newest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. This cracked me up, but the really funny thing is that I do actually want the newer edition, because when you’re having an editorial back-and-forth, you can’t refer to the exact page in the latest and must admit you’re literally out-of-date with the language you speak (and work with) daily.
In Herizons, a Canadian feminist magazine, Evelyn C. White’s “The Blossoming of Alice Walker” about the publication of Alice Walker’s journals in Gathering Blossoms Under Fire in 2022, just a few months after the death of Valerie Boyd, who worked with Walker for years on that project (gathering material from 1965 to 2000). You can also contribute subscriptions for donation in women’s shelters and prisons across the country.
Illustoria is a new-to-me magazine, taglined “For Creative Kids and Their Grown-ups”, which came to me via a Kickstarter (or similar) campaign to fund The Believer. At first, I thought, maybe it’ll be fun for awhile, and now it’s a bright light whenever it arrives in the post; the artwork is varied and diverse stylistically, but consistently interesting. References to illustrated books always catch my eye and, in the Mystery issue (perfect for October) I learned about Frances Yip on last.fm (about her, and also about last.fm—cuz…YT gal).
And although The New Yorker is not a little magazine, if you want to read current issues, and you live in a small town/city, a subscription is the solution. Ayşegül Savaş’s short story “Notions of the Sacred” (link, maybe only for subscribers though?) caught me up so thoroughly that I immediately requested and read her novel Walking on the Ceiling (also great reading for those who appreciate a flaneuse-driven, so-much-in-your-own-head love story).
It’s late-in-the-year to make a readolution, but I’m going to start thinking of magazines as reading, instead of as magazines that require a different kind of time (time in shorter supply it seems).
The first step for me? Gathering them and putting them all in one place rather than scattering them around, as though, if I ever have two unoccupied minutes in “this” place, I’ll have something to do! (One might wonder whether this was a technique employed to brush past the reality of how many issues there are, awaiting a reader’s attentions.
Which of these do you read, or, which do you think you would enjoy most?
Are you interested in a near-the-end-of-the-reading-year tidy of your periodicals?
Does it bother you when they pile up or do you stealthily disperse them so it’s hard to see the true accumulation?
There are lots of amazing little and large magazines, though: which are your favourites?
It’s a real shame when lit mags can’t make it, but it seems to happen a lot unfortunately. I used to subscribe to quite a few when I lived in New York and London, but I let them all lapse when I started travelling, and I don’t seem to enjoy them so much when I read online.
I like the point you made about thinking of magazines as reading, instead of competing with books. I always feel as if I have limited time for reading, and I want to prioritise books for the time I have. But I do enjoy lit mags and other magazines when I read them, so perhaps I should rethink.
Maybe there are readers you know, with more stay-put lives, who would appreciate subscriptions to make special occasions that come and go? Heheh
It would be much easier, I think, if, when I picked one up, I was depressed or bored, but instead, I nearly always finish an article excited or inspired.
Maybe it’s like exercise, it takes years to learn that it actually does make you feel better and it’s not only an interference with reading time (I don’t have a treadmill, I actually can’t read while I exercise, although I envy those who can) lol
I appreciate having online access to the contents of a number of periodicals directly or through libraries because I’ve always read bits and pieces from them, at least the literary ones. (I’m more likely to read art magazines more thoroughly.) The literary pub that sometimes gets read pretty comprehensively is World Literature Today.
This element of browse-ability, I think that’s key. When we pick up a novel, we do so with the idea we’ll begin it and then finish it: I’m not sure that’s a useful approach for magazines? I’m curious what you would count among your favourite art magazines? Years ago I subscribed to Canadian Art; it would likely bring a fresh element to my stacks. Oh, WLT’s one of my favourites for sure and even though I’ve tried to become accustomed to passing along the periodicals that’s one I keep.
Sigh, reading magazines is one of those things that I never get to. I subscribe to Chatelaine because I want to support them, but I honestly never read the print version they send me – really just the newsletter, but I don’t have the heart to cancel my subscription. Biblioasis has a small lit journal they occasionally publish that they send me with my review copies, but I have never actually read it. I’m a books kind of gal and I need to branch out when I have more time 😉
I can’t tell whether you actually think they’re interesting or think you should think they’re interesting. I’m wondering that too…maybe I’m NOT actually interested, I only think I am? If you know you don’t actually want to read them, that might be simpler: you could view your sub (particularly to C) as a donation, instead, and immediately deposit it at a neighbourhood salon/medical waiting room/coffee shop (with permission) or in a LFL. TBH, I love that Biblioasis mag so much I’ve gotta purchase the first to replace the ARC of it I lost (like it’s a boxed set or something LOL) but I will say that I’ve barely touched the past four McSweeneys issues (I read the intro, get all excited, and then they SIT) and they’re similar. #makesnosense
That’s a good idea re: the Chatelaines!
I try to subscribe to one literary journal a year–which varies, Rattle most recently. It’s getting harder to go to a news stand and browse for an interesting new journal, the selection is getting less. There’s so much good stuff out there, and you’d like to keep up. But one (plus my New Yorker & New York Review of Books) is about all I can manage to actually read anyway.
Oh, I like that idea. Sampling something new but consistently! Last time we were there, I visited the Presse at Bloor and Bathurst and picked up a few things (only one of them was new-to-me) but there just aren’t as many, I agree. The NYRB I’ve not subscribed to, but mainly because it used to be so readily available at my local branch; do you find it a cover-to-cover read or a dabble-in-it read?
The thing about magazines is that I really don’t have time to read them if I want to keep up my usual reading, which I do, for now. So I try not to even look at them, most of the time, cuz when I do I definitely want to read it. I feel the same about articles online. I try not to see them, so I won’t feel the desire to read them. I do, however, subscribe to Atlantic Books Today (even though you can pick these up free at the library). And I often read articles from the Walrus, either online or from the copy at the library. And I’ll read anything you send me! 🙂
You can get ABT for free in your library?! Or you mean it’s always an option to borrow in your system? I remember seeing The Walrus free at one point in Toronto libraries, but not for long and not recently. Maybe that’s part of some provincial program/s?
Yeah, I know what you mean. It definitely feels like there’s a competition: books vs. magazines. But I’m not sure whether that’s even true or whether I have this weird idea about what reading magazines should be (i.e. like reading books) or what. When I’ve got this package ready to mail, I’ll stick a couple of mag’s in there too. Hee hee
I’m with Naomi: magazines (and newspapers) just take away from precious reading time. In the past I’ve paid for one-year subscriptions to, e.g., the London Review of Books with the best of intentions, but I never end up reading the issues, just recycling them after many years have passed. Now the only periodicals we get are wildlife ones, which come with membership to organizations so I can just consider it part of the donation, and free local ones.
Right?! But why is that, I wonder. How did it develop that we see books as “real reading” somehow and magazines as the supervillains. Heheh They’re out to steal our reading time, really!?
In theory, I believe I will simply read them but, in reality, I obviously prioritise books so consistently that the subscriptions pile up, even though when I do pick up an issue I always find something good and interesting. I want a world stuffed with newsstands stuffed with creative and journalistic work with the capacity to inform and change minds and hearts (like books), as browsable as a bookstore’s shelves, but that’s not reflected in my reading choices…
A tough world, indeed! I spent a decade working in contract magazines as a book reviews editor, specifically on two titles, and even they didn’t manage to stay afloat. In that world, it’s advertsing that pays the bills – the cover price is a mere drop in the ocean of costs. I’m glad you’re still able to find entertaining and stimulating literary magazine content.
You raise a good point; for while we are lamenting rising cover costs, the subscription costs reduce the magazine’s overall intake even further (although in Canada, at least, there are some grant opportunities based on subscriber counts, but with so few Canadian magazines it’s hard to believe this matters for m/any). I’m just reminded now of how shocking it was to hear that Life Magazine was going to cease regular publication, but they have gone to theme issues instead, which are often quite appealing, especially for collectors.
It’s hard for magazines to compete with the plethora of online reading, and I confess to having cut back on my subscriptions as I just wasn’t reading them. Mind you, I haven’t found a mag that really speaks to my reading taste, which might have something to do with it…
It’s hard when there are just so many other things to read around us. #greatproblemtohave At various times I’ve fallen all along the spectrum, from Too Many to None, so now I’m trying to find a balance that allows me to believe I’m helping sustain some without being foolish (after all, it’s all print–for me, because I must limit my screentime–and I do love trees, so that’s complicated).
Magazine subscriptions have gotten so expensive! I wish I could subscribe to a pile of them because I think they do important work, but I have neither the time nor the money for all of them. That said, over the summer I subscribed to Orion Magazine, first time in ages I have had a magazine coming to my house. And thank goodness it’s only quarterly otherwise I’d have pile! My public library and the university where I work provide digital access to many magazines and journals from Poets & Writers, to Knitters, to Paris Review and New York Review of Books. So I’m lucky in that way and can just browse the latest issue and not feel obligated to read the whole thing all the time 🙂
Ooooo, Orion is on my list of desirables: such a fabulous publication. You’re/We’re fortunate to have library access to some of the key publications (I have that via the Toronto library but not up north) but I wonder whether they are fairly compensated for that usage, as that can be tricky digitally. Maybe someone else reading this will know more about how that works, particularly for the smaller journals that are included in the library’s offerings (but often appear for a few issues and then disappear). I think there’s something to this idea of how we define reading a magazine; I’m sure I wouldn’t be so far “behind” if I didn’t imagine that I must read the whole issue like a book! lol Isn’t there a Weaving magazine you should be subscribing to? hee hee
This week a literary magazine for Welsh publishing announced it was closing down because the grant funding they receive has been cut. That was the only one I read – it’s not as pretentious as a lot of other titles I’ve sampled.
It sounds like an important publication; I’m sorry to hear that they’re ceasing publication. I don’t think many people realise just how precarious the industry is, even for the ones that seem to be “doing fine”.
When there’s one that you haven’t enjoyed, do you ever try another issue? I’ll try again, but after some time has passed (which probably doesn’t help them at all)!
For years the one subscription I maintained was Australian Book Review, they would sit on the passenger seat glaring at me as they piled up. But ABR slowly drifted into reviewing more and more (big publisher) overseas, mainly US books, and fewer and fewer Australians and so I chucked it in. Now I have a digital subscription – which it is much easier to notice you haven’t read – for Australian Literary Studies Journal and that’s it. I don’t rate newspaper reviews at all and am happy by and large to rely on bloggers.
Ironically, they probably drifted into that coverage for monetary reasons and, yet, have lost you as a subscriber as a result (but, hopefully, gained some others, as I assume you would want them to continue to publish?)!
I find myself in that position too, wanting to support a publication but not actually finding it personally valuable/interesting after a particular editorial change or decision. #torn
Are there newsstands where you can browse for new and intriguing magazines or literary journals there?
Probably not newstands, certainly not my local newsagent cum post office cum chemist. But yes, in bookshops. I should probably take Westerly, which is Perth/WA based. Another option would be Griffith Review but, Time!
Those sound intriguing: I’ll look into them. Anything with Review sounds delightfully browse-able but maybe that’s misleading.