Literary Magazine Blogs

As if I weren’t already way behind in reading the stacks of novels and story collections I’ve acquired recently (in, say, the last decade or so); as if I weren’t already behind in reading the numerous literary magazines to which I subscribe (so far 5 have arrived this week); as if I ever take the time to visit the websites of literary magazines for anything other than checking submission guidelines or confirming that a particular magazine is, for the moment, still breathing; now it turns out that many literary magazines are running blogs on their sites, to communicate with readers between issues, to vent their frustrations, to attempt to be more topical than a quarterly magazine could ever hope to be. (To, possibly, occupy themselves with an activity other than reading through the thousands of submissions they receive each week . . .)

A new such literary magazine blog I discovered this week—because they very kindly linked to me here at Perpetual Folly and someone actually followed that link, thereby alerting me to its existence—is the Phoebe Magazine Blog. It’s early days there so the blog doesn’t yet have much content, but I expect it will. Another blog I recently came across is the Ploughshares Blog. I like the playful tone of some of those posts. During the November election, there was a discussion there about the criticism James Webb, our Democratic candidate for Senate here in Virginia, was getting for the language in some of his novels. For a more serious blog, check out the Virginia Quarterly Review Blog. Another one that I’ve visited a few times is the Sycamore Review Blog. The Missouri Review Blog looks terrific, as does their recently redesigned website. Not long ago, ZYZZYVA Blog had an entry about my Pushcart Prize rankings, so that’s another one that’s worth a visit.