“non-filmmakers go crazy over Sundance, non-musicians read Pitchfork daily, but non-writers don’t read indie lit.”
A good discussion on Annalemma magazine’s blog—spawned from a discussion about editor/writer/journal relationships on HTML Giant and continued on Big Other—about indie lit community and (lack of?) connection to readers who aren’t also writers.
‘Small’* magazines, online and in print, are having a blog-powered renaissance, turning out beautiful publications with smart writing, yet, Annalemma Editor Chris Heavener writes:
the writing that we produce and publish, the stuff that all this wall head beating is for, is being marketed by us, right back to us. We are the audience and we are the producers. It’s created a very clear niche…
[…]
The problem: We, as an indie lit community, aren’t connecting to readers. Independent film has had its boom, and was shortly followed by a boom in independent music. It’s time independent literature had a boom of its own.
If you’re not a fiction writer or poet (aspiring or otherwise), do you read ‘small’ magazines, online or in print? Do you find yourself dissatisfied with The New Yorker and maybe Esquire or Granta but wonder where to find alternatives? (The Faster Times guide to literary magazines is a good starting point).
