ZYZZYVA

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ZYZZYVA was founded in San Francisco in 1985 to give West Coast poets, writers, and artists – many of whom were overlooked by an East Coast-centric publishing world – a much-needed platform. Over 35 years later, it has established itself as an acclaimed, nationally distributed publication that showcases contributors from all over the world while staying true to its regional roots. Each issue offers audacious work across genres while amplifying emerging voices, and examines ethical concerns as urgent as labor, the environment, borders, and technology. A single artist’s work features throughout every issue and guides its overall design, to elegant and cohesive effect. ZYZZYVA also fosters community in the Bay Area by offering writing workshops, partnering with local bookstores and organizations on literary events, and hosting free public readings with the release of every issue.

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ZYZZYVA has for years been a shepherd to a capacious community of West Coast writers. Masterfully edited and sharply cerebral, this place-based journal dazzles readers with formal innovation and an appetite for adventure, diving deeply into its regionality while ushering the world onto its pages. As a print object it has exquisite presence and dignity, featuring gorgeous full-color prints at the center of every issue. Out of a rich history rooted in San Francisco, a stalwart, world-class magazine has emerged.

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The Massachusetts Review

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The Massachusetts Review promotes social justice and equality, along with great art. Committed to aesthetic excellence as well as public engagement, MR publishes work that provokes debate, inspires action, and expands our understanding of the world. Since its founding in 1959 by professors from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, and Smith Colleges, MR has published and promoted emerging and established artists from the US and internationally. Each year, MR publishes a special issue highlighting an underrepresented community or a critical social topic; past issues have addressed civil rights, the cost of war, and queer identity, and have showcased work by Caribbean, Asian American, North African and Middle Eastern, and Native American writers.

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Can a magazine stay at the forefront of literary culture for over 60 years? The answer is in the read, and the Massachusetts Review has proved it deserves its place. This rigorously edited magazine publishes lucid, risk-taking writing with flair and exquisite judgement, featuring work by emerging writers and Nobel laureates that revels in formal experiment and traditional narrative. Delving into this journal is an act of discovery and a reminder of great literature’s timeless value.

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One Story

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One Story is built on a singular vision: to publish one short story at a time. Each month, subscribers receive a single work of carefully curated fiction, printed in a pocket-size chapbook designed to give readers a chance to slow down and think deeply. To spotlight new voices, One Story only publishes authors once. It extends its devotion to nurturing talent with One Teen Story, a magazine featuring teen writers. Since its founding in 2002, One Story has worked to increase and expand the readership, creation, impact, and value of short stories in the world.

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Over the last two decades, One Story has become a standard-bearer for elegance in magazine publishing; each lithe issue, its design an homage to zine culture, contains a single riveting short story. This form is often likened to the sonnet, being short and perfectible, but the fictions in One Story create sumptuous, almost novelistic worlds. The magazine has assiduously built a warm and vital community of writers and mentors.  Favoring new and untested writers and never publishing the same one twice, One Story is a critical port of arrival. 

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The Common

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The Common is a print and digital literary journal with a mission to deepen our individual and collective sense of place. Based at Amherst College and under the direction of founder and editor Jennifer Acker, it features literature and images suffused with the particularities of place, including portfolios and works in translation from vital literary communities around the world. Through its print issues, open access website, public programs, and mentorship of the next generation of writers, readers, and editors, The Common serves as a space for the global exchange of ideas and experiences.

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In the pages of The Common, “location” is understood as a roving artistic and intellectual GPS point. Stunning portfolios, sophisticated design, and an intuitive sense of literary connectivity give readers access to a deep reservoir of global perspectives, and unite them as students of the human condition. The Common’s exemplary resources for teachers and its devotion to elevating new writers will help bring into being a new generation of readers and thinkers. 

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A Public Space

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A Public Space welcomes voices and conversation unheard elsewhere. In print, online, and in person, the singular literary, arts, and culture magazine nurtures writers and readers, too, expansively challenging them to move beyond borders. Under the direction of founding editor Brigid Hughes since 2006, A Public Space is committed to excavating archives of distinction, and devoted to nurturing new talent through its fellowship program as well as dynamic events for everyone.

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Every issue of A Public Space juxtaposes finely wrought, carefully edited pieces, putting them in dynamic conversation with one another. An expertly assembled mix of contributors includes emerging talents as well as writers rediscovered through a kind of archival derring-do. Through its sought-after fellowships, meanwhile, APS extends to out-of-the-mainstream writers an admirable level of editorial support. It stands as a paradigm of what literary magazines can be: a gorgeously curated collection we experience as a cabinet of wonders.

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