As a writer, it’s easy to feel adrift in a sea of literary magazines. Especially if you’ve been to AWP.
I went last month for the first time and am still recovering. Every morning, I see the same AWP tote bag in the corner of my room, overflowing with bookmarks and pens and magnets, reminders of the journals I vowed to submit to.
Although some of the magazines were upstarts or relative unknowns, there were certain journals that commanded every writers’ respect, publications with lofty traditions and ironclad reputations: if you get published here, you’ve arrived.
The editors of two such journals will join us for our latest Conversations @ Efroymson event at 7:30 tonight. Mid-American Review editor Abigail Cloud and Ninth Letter editor Jodee Stanley will entertain a dialogue about lit mags, something destined to benefit any aspiring writer in the MFA program who dreams of being published in a top-tier journal.
Like Butler’s own literary magazine Booth, Mid-American Review and Ninth Letter are journals associated with Midwestern MFA programs. Mid-American Review is produced by the students and staff of the Bowling Green State University MFA, where Cloud received her degree and now teaches. Ninth Letter is the pride of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign MFA, a program with Stanley installed as its director.
Both Cloud and Stanley are accomplished writers as well, which means they’ve seen both sides of the aisle, been both rejector and rejected. Cloud’s poetry has appeared in Gettysburg Review, Cincinnati Review, and Copper Nickel. Stanley’s prose has graced the pages of Mississippi Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Hobart.
Before you submit to Mid-American Review and Ninth Letter, submit to your writerly urges and join us tonight at the Efroymson Center. It certainly couldn’t hurt your chances.