Working tirelessly to bring a robust, insightful array of otherwise unavailable international literature to grateful readers—and publishers—Words Without Borders has singlehandedly expanded the breadth of the contemporary literary conversation.  This is writing that places you inside a culture. In focusing on translators as artists, it plays an essential role in the publishing ecosystem. With translations from more than a hundred languages now available in its archives, and through its organizational partnerships and other readership-building endeavors, the project stands as a monument to international collaboration and a shared belief in artistic possibility.

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.

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.