On Magazines and Presses

Hello, readers. It's Monday and there's a small rabbit next to my monitor who's whispering secrets. I would tell you what he's saying, but it's a secret.

It has to do with turnips and velcro.

Also, for those of you interested in the world of literary magazines and small presses, here's a couple of cool links.

Gavin J. Grant, editor at Small Beer Press and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and also a co-editor of the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, talks at length with Bibliophile about matters of editing and publishing, including the money to love ratio of small presses and the impact of internet things like podcasting and the creative commons license. Chocolate gets a brief mention as well. Gavin loves the Maya Gold from Green and Black.

Elsewhere, a tweet from largeheartedboy led me to Perpetual Folly and their 2009 Puschart Prize Rankings. The site is run by one Clifford Garstang, who every year scores literary magazines based on the number of Pushcarts or Special Mentions in Fiction they have received since 2000.

Here's the top 5 (hit the link for the rest).

1) Ploughshares 118
2) Zoetrope: All Story 75
3) Conjunctions 71
4) Paris Review 67
4) Southern Review 67

Kelly Link Interview

What a day yesterday. Cubs lost, felt sad. Read at Broken English, felt happy. Came home and found out that Kelly Link had agreed to an interview with us for the upcoming issue, felt absolutely scrumtrilescent.

If you've been paying attention, readers, you may have already noticed Kelly Link's name popping up in this blog before: here and here, for example. She's the author of a new collection of short stories for young adults, Pretty Monsters, as well as two previous short story collections, Stranger Things Happen (a Salon Book of the Year and Village Voice favorite) and Magic for Beginners (winner of the 2006 Locus for Best Short Story Collection). Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories. They've won the World Fantasy award, the James Tiptree, Jr. award, a Hugo, and three Nebulas. Salon described her writing as "an alchemical mixture of Borges, Raymond Chandler, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Michael Chabon said her books were evidence the world was worth saving. Neil Gaiman offered up the suggestion she be protected at all times by a cadre of marines.

In her spare time, Kelly co-edits Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, edited an original anthology, Trampoline, and co-founded Small Beer Press.

Go here to watch her appearance with Karen Joy Fowler in the Authors@Google series. Check out The Boston Phoenix's just published profile of Kelly here. And also, you know, read her stories if you haven't before. Many of them are online, and so are you. Get to work.