Bennington Review

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Bennington Review brings together writing that is as playful as it is probing through a geographically broad and culturally rich array of voices, whether prominent, up-and-coming, or new. First published in 1966, it relaunched in 2016 as a faculty-edited teaching publication that gives undergraduate editorial assistants at Bennington College hands-on experience working on a distinctive national magazine. This biannual print journal publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and film writing that is at once innovative, intelligent, and moving, under wonderfully elastic themes such as “Misbegotten Youth,” “Kissing in the Future,” and “Return to a Meadow.” It celebrates the unique pleasures of a bound print journal as an intimate, immersive reading experience.

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With an editorial vision that is razor-sharp and whimsical all at once, Bennington Review foretells the future of literary magazines. Each issue is a jewel box of unabashedly intelligent and singular fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, not to mention an uncommonly ample devotion to film criticism and work in translation. Its design is handsome and bold, its impact on readers and writers profound. Literary talent will radiate out of Bennington Review for years to come.

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Bellevue Literary Review

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Bellevue Literary Review publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that probe the nuances of our lives both in illness and health. By bringing together the perspectives of patients, caregivers, family members, healthcare professionals, and creative observers, BLR highlights a diversity of voices from all communities and all walks of life.  The first literary journal to arise from a medical setting, BLR has published two volumes of literature annually since 2001. As a newly independent literary arts organization, BLR engages its community of readers and writers through readings and events exploring the intersection of art, medicine, and science.

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Born in a legendary city hospital as the brainchild of writers and healthcare professionals, Bellevue Literary Review captures—with great intimacy and concision—the experience not just of pain, or treatment, or healing, but of day-to-day life itself, deepening our understanding of the human body and literature’s role in exploring it. Bellevue Literary Review is loyal to its theme but never constrained by it, uncovering boundless tonal and narrative possibilities as it contemplates the body as a physical entity, probes the manifestation of mental illness, or reckons with how the racialized and gendered body is perceived.

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Conjunctions

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Conjunctions has propelled literature forward for four decades by publishing groundbreaking fiction, poetry, plays, and creative nonfiction that marry visionary imagination with formally innovative execution. Each issue illuminates a complex theme—such as exile, desire, the body, or climate change—in a book-length format that gives space to long-form work and a multitude of perspectives. From its home in Bard College, Conjunctions and its founding editor, Bradford Morrow, have earned recognition for uplifting both new writers and contemporary masters who challenge convention.

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Every issue of Conjunctions is a feat of curatorial invention, continuing the Modernist project of dense, economical writing, formal innovation, and an openness to history and the world. Its longevity is a testament to its cultural staying power. Organized around a unifying idea, each issue stitches together work by storytellers and scholars to create a fluid and expansive survey of our most pressing human concerns.

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American Short Fiction

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American Short Fiction publishes stories that dive into the wreck, that stretch the reader between recognition and surprise, that conjure the world with delicate expertise. Founded in 1991, ASF has earned a national reputation for first-rate fiction and a commitment to fostering the careers of a diverse range of writers. Each issue, assembled by coeditors Adeena Reitberger and Rebecca Markovits, publishes works by well-known authors alongside emerging voices that enrich our understanding of ourselves, our world, and the possibilities of the form.

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Thirty years after its founding, American Short Fiction continues to build on its legacy of artful innovation. Budding talent appears in company with venerated masters, and the magazine’s deep investment in its Austin community gives it a strong foundation for creating national resonance. It remains urgent and fresh, its purpose clear: to shake us awake and bring the peculiarity of existence into full focus.

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Fence

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Fence is a biannual print journal of poetry, fiction, art, and criticism. Founded by Rebecca Wolff and in continuous publication since 1998, their mission is to maintain a dedicated venue for writing that speaks across genre, socio-cultural niches, and ideological boundaries. Fence publishes largely from unsolicited submissions, and is committed to the literature and art of queer writers and writers of color. Fence encourages collective appreciation of variousness by showcasing writing that inheres outside of the constraints of opinion, trend, and market.

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If American contemporary literature can  be described as a site for novel language experiments, we owe a great deal of that to Fence and the writers it’s championed. Fence burst on the scene twenty years ago, changing the landscape of work published by literary journals. The magazine remains as vital now, and its campaign against literary homogeneity as urgent. Open an issue at random and you’ll find something vivid, strange, and beautiful, something joyfully pushing at the limit of poetic form and trusting its readers to keep up. This pioneer remains central to the canon.

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