NP: New Yorker Fiction / Lit Quarterlies

[Paul Mackin]

On May 9, 2006, at 1:50 PM, jd wrote:

> Yeah...  I own three McSweeney's, one of which was the comic edition,
> which was OK... one didn't have anything I liked except an excerpt
> from Rising Up and Rising Down, and the other was just OK, but
> generally had writing more engaging than most of the BS I read in lit
> mags.
>
> Great link...  I send stuff out now and again and was looking for more
> places to send my stuff so I'm sure it will come in handy.  Everyone
> always says buy & read the quarterlies to figure out where to submit
> but as mentioned above whenever I do (and I don't like the fact that
> the only reason I'm buying them is research, as opposed to pleasure -
> I wonder how many people read them for pleasure as opposed to research
> nowadays) I just get bored, give up, and submit randomly.
>

Kind of sounds like the problem may be that short fiction is in decline.

Perhaps these days the good writers are being asked to do non-fiction.

The New Yorker under Remnick is dedicated to good writing and good
writers. They just don't do fiction so much.

For example, when Toni Morrison (in today's news) wrote for the New  
Yorker it was in one
of the non-fiction categories. (piece about Bill and Monica)