Tuesday, June 06, 2006

LitMag Survey Results

You will recall that I asked readers to list, in order of preference, the 5 literary magazines they would subscribe to if they subscribed to none currently and money were no object. I failed to take poets into account when phrasing my question and I can tell you that of the 26 people who answered the question, 4 were known or suspected poets. Because Poetry was high on the lists of 3 of the poets, that magazine is in the top 5; also, FIELD, a poetry magazine previously unknown to me, comes in at number 12 for the same reason. In all, 57 different magazines were named by the respondents.

If you are looking to add to your current subscriptions or to make some changes, maybe this list will be helpful to you. Here's the top 25:

Tin House
Paris Review
VQR
Ploughshares
Poetry
Zoetrope: All Story
Kenyon
McSweeneys
One Story
Southern Review
Georgia Review
FIELD
Black Warrior
Hobart
Missouri Review
Swink
Shenandoah
Spork
Epoch
Ninth Letter
Alaska Quarterly Review
Black Clock
Chiron Review
Cincinnatti Review
Fence
Minnesota Review
Narrative
Ontario Review
Open City
Threepenny
TriQuarterly

[Note: I've updated this list a few times as new lists come in and I guess I'll keep doing that, so feel free to send in your votes; the "top 25" is expanded, since there's a big tie at the bottom . . .]

6 comments:

Myfanwy Collins said...

Interesting! I forgot to send you mine. Sorry about that!

Unknown said...

Myf, it's not too late . . .

Katie said...

Thanks for putting this together!

Anonymous said...

"Suspected or known poets"?

How about "alleged poets"?

Unknown said...

Tom, I considered "alleged" but thought it implied a judgment about quality; didn't want to be accused of that!

Jim said...

Today's another day and I'd probably vote a different top five. I'm literarily fickle. Still, it's a useful list, one worth pondering.

Thanks Cliff!