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Literary Journals & Webzines

One of the best things about the Web is the sheer volume of journals and zines available online. John Labovitz's massive e-zine-list is testimony to this. One area of interest for writers is the popularity of online small magazines devoted to literature. The small magazine has traditionally been a home for the developing writer and many succesful authors were first published in this way. However, the costs involved in producing even a small circulation magazine are high. This is where online publishing is increasingly important. It is now possible to produce, at little expense, a high quality journal that will be seen by thousands. Already there are a lot of interesting publications on the Web and these can only get more numerous. It is also worth mentioning that you can easily email the editors and authors of most of these journals and zines which makes for easier networking. Submitting work to overseas markets using email is much less hassle than using snail mail and obviates the need to track down International Reply coupons too. 

Alt-X
This has the reputation as a first-class Webzine with plenty to read - most of it challenging and interesting, which is what you'd expect "where the digerati meet the literati". For example, there are interviews in the Amerika on-line columns with Ginsberg, Ken Kesey and Amira Baraka. There are reviews of Kathy Acker, Douglas Coupland and Jeff Noon as well. Plenty of quality new writing can be found in the Black Ice section. There is plenty more to investigate too. 

Arts & Letters Daily
Book reviews, essays and articles culled from the literary presses online. This is a daily site and catalogues so much content that it is probably impossible to read an edition in its entirety. Visually, it looks like an old-style newspaper, with the first paragraphs of stories on the web acting as links to the full text. The ads embedded in the columns are refreshingly unobtrusive.

Aurora Australis
Not so much a literature Website in itself as a promotion site for Australian literature. Worth a look if you're interested in that particular scene. The site features poetry, recent books (fiction and non-fiction), book extracts, reviews, interviews, author homepages and gossip. 

BBR Directory
Penetrating the inner core of the small press and seeing what is available for writers and readers is often difficult. For SF, fantasy and horror fans and authors it's easier than most with the online version of Chris Reed's BBR directory. Originally a feature of Back Brain Recluse magazine, it has been online since 1997. Weekly updates on news, e-zines, awards, and magazine and story collections received are posted on the site. Information is also available by email and in print. Although based in the UK, it is not limited by geography. An excellent starting point for exploring the diversity of the small press scene. 

The BeeHive
This is a new hypertext literary journal - issue one went out in Spring 1998 - that is academic and theoretical without being shy of commercialism. There's a collaborative examination of the "acephalic man" as outlined by Georges Bataille and Andre Masson, poetry and fiction too. Equally meaty, an extract from Steven Shaviro's theoretical fiction about post-modernism "Doom Patrols" looks at the connections between Kathy Acker, Georges Bataille and the Body Art Culture. Encouragingly, it makes innovative use of Javascript (which didn't once crash my machine) but also has more mundane links to the authors Web site, that of his publishers Serpent's Tail and an online book store where you can buy his books. 

Bloc
It's tempting to say there is no excuse for Writers' Bloc when you're working in the far south west of England at the College of Arts in Falmouth, Cornwall. Students of the Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Writing are definitely suffering from no such thing, as this site proves. As part of their course, they're responsible for this e-zine which is slickly designed (nice mouse rollovers, that are informative as well as decorative) and covers a range of bases of interest to writers, readers and anyone who has a cultural life. Topics encompassed European Objective One funding for Cornwall to chat room hell. Content is slated for regular updates, so try visiting at regular intervals. 

Born
An interesting online publication that is as concerned with design as much as with literature - specifically, how the Web allows creativity to become multi-tasked and multi-threaded. Load your flash plug-ins and get ready to respond (no room for passivity here, that's the province of tv land). The update schedule is bi-monthly at present. 

The Bridge Review: Merrimack Valley Culture
This magazine is just one part of Lowell: The Flowering City an impressive multi-media environmental initiative based in Lowell, Massachusetts. The larger Web site is an interdisciplinary community forum that centres on a 25-year plan to build the city’s environment. The magazine, addressing "the environment; bioregionalism; cultural  heritage, and the interwoven concepts of place, nature, and culture", is open to submissions from authors, poets or artists whose work relates to the Merrimack Valley. The Bridge Review: Merrimack Valley Culture. 

Computers And Texts
Computers And Texts, sponsored by the Oxford Text Archive, is one of the online journals edited and published by the CTI Centre for Textual Studies. As a taster for what's on offer, Issue 16 covers everything from reviews of Julius Caesar on CD-Rom to features such as "IT's Challenge to Literature and Cognitive Dissonance" and "Digital Variants and The Writing Process". The latter paper is about an archive in the Italian Department of the University of Edinburgh where students are introduced to drafts and authorial variants of published writers, aiding their understanding of the process by which a creative work goes from idea to publication. The students reflect on the development of written style and the influences of the word-processor. 

Contentious
In the creative buzz generated by and about the Web, it's amazing how often writers are eclipsed by the so-called stars of the HTML firmament - designers, coders, those who can make Java do something other than crash your computer... This monthly US Webzine, aimed at those who write the words that fill cyberspace, sets out to redress the balance. It's about the issues facing writers who are adapting to the new medium - such as honing necessary skills, electronic copyright, getting paid, contracts, networking. There is also an associated Online-Writing mailing list which pulled in 500 subscribers in its first week. Looks like a good community to get involved with. 

The Cortland Review
Recent Real Video poetry readings viewable with the Real Player G2 are online at The Cortland Review. They're part of the ongoing schedule of this online audio literary magazine specialising in Real Audio. It's strong on event tie-ins in the United States - there is video footage of the 1999 Associated Writing Programs Conference in Albany, New York, that took place from April 14-18. Audio interviews are part of the package, and as well as looking at CD audio and music releases, it has links to some interesting archives sound files, including the likes of Seamus Heaney and Robert Creeley. 

Crash Media
Welcome signs of a professional split personality here. Crash Media, based in Salford and London, is a bi-monthly tabloid newspaper and an online publication too - for and by its readers. Encouragingly it's not interested in reproducing its paper-based version verbatim online, instead it is actively exploring the medium of the Web. Media activism, electronic disobedience, music and literature (including hypertext) are some of the things it carries.  If you crave lively discussion threads and a "low-interference editorial policy", try this one out. 

Cybering
A fascinating new ezine with a focus on mediated relationships and communities is worth checking out by anyone with an interest in how being online changes or confirms life style and choices. Submissions, from rants to "hauntingly wrought prose" covering topics from online gaming to webcams and subcultures are being sought. The first articles online covered notions of virtual geography on the net and virtual identity.

Duct Tape Press
Everything you'd expect from an e-zine, and then some. It comes as no surprise to find literary links, fiction and poetry, but drama and non-fiction are also on this site and they're looking for screenplay submissions too. The opportunity to review submissions online makes for some interesting debate about whether the pieces are as close to the cutting edge of writing on the Web as the zine claims - "We particularly welcome writing that is formally and/or thematically challenging and unconventional" their guidelines say. If you have original online writing on your own Web pages and are interested in joining a Web ring to share your work with others, there's a form to enable that. 

ducts
Ducts is a quarterly Webzine that encompasses art, literature, humour and criticism. The frames-based design is strong and the content far from one-dimensional. Literally in the case of multimedia, which is something the editors are keen to include more of. 

Empire:ZINE
This monthly zine, which is especially strong on biographies, profiles and links, covers all sorts of literary forms and styles from traditional novels to poetry. It's well laid out and authoritative (there are even footnotes to make the academic feel at home) in a print-style sort of way. It is definitely not staid, however. In the September and October 1998 issues there were pages on standard literary figures such as Emily Bronte, Jorge Luis Borges, and Louisa May Alcott. But, more eclectically, there was also a piece on Nine Inch Nails rock'n'roller Trent Reznor, whose music graces the soundtrack of Quake. 

Event Horizon
When Omni online went terminally offline, the award-winning fiction editor Ellen Datlow gathered her team and became involved with this project instead. Leading edge fiction is part of the mix in the webzine, along with columns designed to provoke a reaction. But going beyond what is possible with print, Event Horizon also deals up a weekly chat program featuring big names in science fiction, fantasy and horror. There's the chance to eavesdrop on Superstrings - a collaborative short fiction experiment in which a team of four professional writers create a short story on site. The first team of writers for October includes: Scott Baker, Garry Kilworth, Gwyneth Jones, and Susan Casper. A feedback form on this very public work in progress awaits the onlookers. 

FEED Magazine
Coverage of hi-tech and the arts is prominent on Feed with news reports on events such as the Flash Film Festival where Web animation meets Hollywood, journalism and ethics, Stephen King and e-publication etc. Plenty of essays too on a wide variety of subjects, from hypertext to the impact of thirty years of feminism, and the Microsoft anti-trust trial to postmodern fiction. 

Geek
"Geek is an online magazine entirely devoted to words, and the different ways that words can be sculpted into poetry, prose, literature, performance art, etc... Call it what you want; geek is NOT about categorising writers and it is NOT the next Granta. Geek is about the power of words and those who use them." 

This is a friendly, unpretentious journal which is not short on quality or content. There are interviews here with Jeff Noon, JG Ballard and Ian M Banks, plus plenty of prose, poetry and book reviews. 

geekgirl
Geekgirl, the world's first cyberfem webzine, is consistently challenging, stimulating and downright good fun. As an example, the July 98 issue  came up with an antidote for standard error messages with indecipherable references to internal stack overflows and the like - haiku error messages. 
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
Not only aesthetically pleasing, but just as informative as anything thrown up by MacOS, Unix or Windows. 

Grist
Although the main page interface is a triumph of design over content, it's worth checking out every active link your mouse can find. There's a lot of modern poetry to be found here plus some criticism and essays. 

Hackwriters
Hacks writing for free is a strange concept, but Hackwriters doesn't pay contributors. Then again it doesn't charge its readers either. There is a healthy catalogue of work in the archives ranging from fiction and travel writing to essays. All topics are up for discussion in this forum with the rider that they have to be analytical or questioning and not be sexist, racist or so forth. Submissions are welcomed.

The Hefty.com
Based in Brixton, London, but aimed at an international market the Hefty.com is a charity run Website that offers, among other things, writing competitions and cheap web publishing. 

Ixion
An online art and literary magazine featuring novel extracts, short stores, non-fiction and artwork. The subject matter is eclectic and the standards are high. Back issues are indexed on site.

Jagged
"We are aimed at a crowd craving content a little off the mainstream," says the developer of this online magazine. No reason for them not to get it either. Jagged looks at contemporary culture via entry points such as books, films, music, sex, travel and technology - which covers most bases. Literary people might want to check out Robert Towell's exploration of the fate of the writer in the 21st century: "Wu-Tang Killed The Poetry Star". The magazine has a cleanly designed interface with articles that are thought provoking and archived via an easy to use search facility.

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
JCMC is a quarterly journal of new media that's been on the Web Since June, 1995. Previously it has looked at topics such as Network and Netplay, Electronic Performance, Virtual Organisations and Collaborative Universities. Volume 4 Number 1 turns the spotlight to Online Journalism. It addresses such questions as who pays for content, what the future of newspapers is, the persistence of traditional cultures as old media makes the transition to cyberspace, and, of course, the changing roles facing online journalists. 

Kairos
This specialised journal sets out to provide a forum for teachers and tutors of all sorts of writing disciplines at university level. It aims to incorporate the traditional practice of juried academic publication with a wholesale adoption of the metaphysics of hypertext. There is an extensive and fascinating FAQ about the rationale and methodologies employed. And then there's the journal itself covering issues as diverse as video conferencing, design, and performance and the Web. Anyone with an interest in education, writing and the Web should investigate further. 

Keystrokes
A monthly magazine aimed at helping established and new writers to improve their work and sales potential, it covers a wide variety of subjects. The September 1999 issue, for instance, contains articles on craft matters such as using "unreliable narrators" in fiction, the ins and outs of technical writing, a writers slant on photography and more. There is also a comprehensive obituary section noting the passing of writers in various genres around the globe. If checking each month to see if a new issue is online is too much trouble, there is an email notification list to join. 

Lexikon Publishing
Fiction and poetry are the key to this UK-produced zine. It's available in print, on disk and in audio cassette format as well as in PDF and HTML formats online. It isn't free, but subscriptions start at only £4. Throughout 2000, it intends to showcase new writing, with particular emphasis on work by writers who are women, members of ethnic minorities, and gay or lesbian. The design is graphically clean, but there are some disconcerting roll-over effects on the navigation sidebar which might send you scurrying to get your glasses prescription checked. As well as a vehicle for writing, the site also contains resources for writers, such as a small-press database, literary festival calendar, book reviews etc. 

Literary Kicks
The zine with beatitude. Basically loads of material on all things beat. Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Snyder, Corso, McClure, Kerouac etc. Also articles on related films, Buddhism and latter day beats. It's well presented with good photos. 

Masthead
"Masthead is a manifestation of a hope in possibility. It has been made in the certainty that it is better to speak, no matter how futile that speaking might be, than to suffer the complicity of silence." Noble sentiments and a noble venture into the bargain. In Australia and New York you can pick up print copies. Back issues are archived online - fiction by Alison Croggon, poetry by Les Murray, plus drama, activism and an interview with German avant-garde composer Mauricio Kagel. 

Metajournals
"The art of online journalling" is the sub title to this e-zine which launched in July 1998 and intends to update and change its features and essays every couple of weeks. Keeping an online journal goes right to the heart of what the Net can offer - a way for people to publish their hopes, dreams, fears, and daily joys and strife to a worldwide readership. Metajournals aims to foster and encourage that by becoming the ultimate source of information on the topic for practitioners of the art and those curious to know more about it. If you need to know how to use HTML to build navigation systems for your journal's site, or you want to explore Web rings and take part in online discussions on journal keeping, try it out. 

Minetta Review
"The Minetta Review is a corpus representing the best and only the best of literary matter that the NYU student body has to offer. Drawing upon the literary works of tomorrow's writers today..." There is some excellent writing here in NYU's longest running literary publication. The Web archives however are a bit time-lagged (in May 1998, the last available entries were for 1995). 

thenetcurtain
An online webzine out of Manchester that concentrates on art, film, tv, music and theatre as well as the Web. The tone is informal but bright. Looks like a good place to visit if you want to be kept up to speed on some the odder things happening in cyberspace ("informed silliness" they call it). Issue two's Net News had a piece about a competition for scanning cats. The competition organiser claims it's not cruel, I'm unconvinced. Cats do seem to like sleeping on top of warm monitors, printers and photocopiers, but I've never seen one lift the lid of a flat-bed scanner to get a better view of the flashing lights. 

OnCue
From Ohio, USA, comes this online magazine. A home for poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, essays and anything else with a literary flavour. It carries original work as well as reviews and is not overly concerned with length. They say they're even willing to consider posting novels. It's worth seeing if your tastes mesh with the editor's. 

Pif Magazine
Pif is a monthly literary ezine that runs fiction, comment, poetry and reviews. Often it runs theme issues (issue 24 was devoted to humour), and advertises the fact beforehand so that contributors can get ahead of the game. The variety of voices is strong and varied, the focus is wide - too covering graphics, movies and music as well as the written word. It hosts Pilot-Search - a useful literary search engine incorporating a directory structure. Categories include: anthologies, awards, online writing, literary agents, writing retreats, journalism and so forth. It also collates book reviews from a variety of sources such as Salon, New York Times, etc. 

Pitch '99
1999 brought a change in name from Anatomy to Pitch for the annual anthology of new writing edited by students on the MA in Writing at Nottingham Trent University. There was a change in the print format too, from A4 to A5. The content is as strong as ever, though. An exclusive interview with Iain Banks, an extract from Graham Joyce's new novel Indigo and Mahendra Solanki talking about writing and MA courses are backed up by poetry, fiction and non-fiction, largely contributed by MA students. 1998's magazine, on the theme of unsuitable behaviour is still online. 

Proof
Published three times a year, Sheffield Hallam university staff and students are prominent in this zine, but contributions are accepted from a wider audience. Submissions are judged by a committee. Poetry, prose and multimedia all feature.

RealTime Australian National Arts Online
Real Time is an Australian print journal dedicated to the arts and performance. It also has an online presence. It's exhaustive in scope and will appeal to artists working in any number of fields. There's a regular slot looking at writing and the Web. In issue 29, there's a review of trAce's Noon Quilt project. There is also an account of the interplay between text and art in the context of online video gaming based on Alex Hutchinson playing Ultima Underworld in a rather more reflective frame of mind than is usual for gamers. He draws parallels between online games and MOOing, arguing that "Hypermedia should give the user a new way of interacting, not merely a new way of reading." 

Rivative
Derivative used to be a print zine in New York, Rivative is the online successor. It's difficult to pin a label on it in terms of content. "Literary and animated excursions for your amusement" is its own strap line - which seems to sum up its fiction and artwork quite well.

Salon Magazine
Salon has earned itself a high-brow reputation, with columnists such as Garrison Keiler and Camille Paglia sounding off on not always high-brow subjects. It has plenty of material on books, reviews and literary news with some rich archives, especially of interviews with prize-winning authors. 

Salt Hill
A well-designed and easy-to-navigate online version of a literary journal that's strong on fiction, reviews, poetry and hypertext. The pages are pleasantly unfussy yet elegant, the content meaty. Issue six also contains the winners of the journal's first hypertext competition. The top prize of $500 being a collaborative hyperfiction work, water always writes in plural, by Josephine Wilson and Linda Carroli. Details too of next year's competition aimed at putting "the most innovative hypertext written today in a forum where it can be recognized, acknowledged, gushed over, and read seriously." 

*spark-online
This is a useful Webzine to check out and will probably find its way onto quite a few bookmark lists. Its rationale is to discuss anything related to electronic communications: all aspects of digital culture from the sale of human eggs online to what it means when we let storytellers into our home via the medium of digital TV. This is the sort of forum that could become more and more important to keep up on as the Internet is poised to move sideways from being a computer-based medium to one accessed through all sorts of digital devices. The tone is accessible and submissions are asked for. The November 1999 issue has a short story by Mark Amerika. 

Stirring: A Literary Collection
A monthly that specialises in newer writers. Short stories, poetry and play scripts are published - traditional and experimental work share Web space. It's not a paying market, but it does offer free critiques of work. Contests, writing and photography, are another feature that might make it a site worth visiting. 

Switch
The new media art journal of the Cadre Institute of the School of Art and Design at San Jose University aims to encourage critical dialogue about art and the impact of technology on emerging art forms. The political and cultural stance it champions is well illustrated by the interview in issue 12 with a member of the anarchic etoys art activist group that was dragged into a court case in 1999 by the eToys outfit. The interview is couched in terms of "the struggle of the rhizomatic, decentralized Internet community vs. the overwhelming forces of e-commerce that have taken the net by storm". The design will prove over-fussy to casual surfers who want to navigate the archives quickly. 

Telepolis
Telepolis is an e-zine on Net culture, electronic art and music, and contemporary criticism. It is based in Berlin and London. It has been going for a couple of years and has redesigned itself to streamline access to its data - no animated gifs, no frames. The content is all and it is impressive too. As a taster of the sort of thing it carries, there's Mark Amerika discussing temporality and identity (and contributing a short story too), John Horvath analysing Islam and the Net, and a section on festivals, conferences and workshops. 

Web Del Sol
Certainly one of the finest literary sites on the web at the moment. There's always plenty of interesting material here and heaps of links to other quality sites. 

The Writers' Mirror
This UK-based Webzine for writers should be of interest to traditional print-based writers - those who are likely to subscribe to publications such as Writers News or Writer's Market. Content is light at present, with only one issue available. It features a selection of articles about the practicalities of life in the freelance lane. The launch issue, for example, adopted a "how-to" approach to writing historical articles, an introduction to self-publishing, and strategies to cope with writer's block. There is a market reports section which is sparse now but will be added to and updated as future issues come online. A useful set of links to resources for writers with an emphasis on Internet libraries is provided. For the commercially minded there are plans to run an online bookshop where authors can sell their books over the Web The plans is for the first two chapters to be posted in HTML format with an option for purchasing the full work in bound, or electronic formats. 

Writers Write
If you are going to have a one-stop resource for writers on the Web, it has to be a large one. Writers Write is large, and its range is wide. Apart from how-to articles in fields as disparate as songwriting and technical writing, it has links to book reviews, interviews, e-commerce sites, writers' homepages, conferences and lists of paying markets. The focus is on writing as a commercial activity, and the information in that regard is useful, but it could be even more so. The initial lists are of market titles only, and they are not always self-explanatory, so if you don't want to miss a possible lead, you could end up clicking on everything in sight - which can prove time-consuming. On a site as ambitious as this, the chances are high that something of interest regarding writing for print or ezines will be found. 

Zip-Zap
"A collection of contemporary poetry, fiction, art, interviews, commentary, music and poetry readings." This is a well produced zine with work of high quality. The fiction and poetry are fine and Issue 2 has an interview with Jeff Noon.