Luna Digest, 4/13

For many of us, the main reason to go to AWP’s annual conference is that it is the greatest grouping of lit mags this side of early 20th century Modernism. Not even Powell’s Books has as many lit mags in one room (not even with their small press shelf and magazine racks combined). The following are some mags and editors I ran into at the event:

The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review is back. Not that it ever left actually, only now it has shifted gears with new editor Nathaniel Perry (who also edits Lyric).

Booth, formerly only published online, produced an elegant print edition of its first issue for conference swag.

The editors at PANK—M. Bartley Seigel and Roxane Gay—are some very nice people, who also seemed to have a good time at the event.

TriQuarterly availed itself of the opportunity to unload some of its fantastic back issues, unparalleled by most contemporary lit mags—such as the special Vladimir Nabokov issue (of which I bought the last copy they had). Browsing, I couldn’t help musing on the fact that these were the last of the mag’s print life.

Editors from Juked, Hobart, Lamination Colony, NOO, Tuesday: An Art Project, and Memorious joined together for an inspired Indie Lit Mag panel discussion about why we should publish, well, anything at all (a discussion that included Blake Bulter’s quotable bit of advice for publishers: “Do whatever the fuck you want”).

For Ninth Letter‘s latest issue they brought some of the past designers back, and a large chunk of artwork, “Immovable Property (U. S. A.),” can be downloaded on the mag’s website.

And Lumberyard magazine’s new book publishing expansion Typecast sounds pretty awesome. (They also seemed to have a fantastic time.)

Every Tuesday, Travis Kurowski presents Luna Digest, a selection of news from the world of literary magazines. Travis is the editor of Luna Park, a magazine founded on the idea that journals are as deserving of critical attention as other artistic works.