Literature Lives in Print

Note: This article first appeared in the print edition of the Press-Enterprise on December 15, 2013, in the Inlandia Institute’s weekly column. Last month San Antonio, Texas, opened Bibliotech, America’s first bookless public library, which allows patrons to borrow inexpensive e-readers and download electronic books from home. For us writers and lovers of literature, the mission before us …

After Reading Fifty Poems From the Best Literary Magazines

AFTER READING FIFTY POEMS FROM THE BEST LITERARY MAGAZINES 1. Either I have very good taste or very poor taste or there’s no such thing as taste at all. 2. Most poems are bullshit pinned with apocalypse and pinafore lit up like a damn beer sign but this poem says it’s bullshit which means it’s …

Oh Contrarian

On Sunday, I sat on a panel of editors talking about “How to Stand Out in a Slush Pile.”  Whenever I do these things, I can’t help feeling like an arrogant iconoclast.  Like the class show-off, asleep with his feet on the desk, because he breezed through another mid-term exam.  That was me in high …

Falafel Salad Soup

Back in the 1930s, magazines like the Yale Review or VQR saw maybe 500 submissions in a year; today, we receive more like 15,000. This is due partly to a shift in our culture from a society that believed in hierarchy to one that believes in a level playing field. This is good—to a point. …