U.S. literary journals thrive with low overhead and dedicated audiences

A couple of weeks ago poet Michael Lista got the attention of the publishing Twitterverse with his National Post essay “Why literary magazines should fold.”

Now, we don’t need another American TV sitcom to point out the differences between our two cultures, but here’s an interesting article about the financial health of U.S. West Coast literary journals. Turns out, boutique publishers like The Threepenny Review, Zoetrope, and McSweeney’s Quarterly are doing just fine these days, but not for the reasons you might think. According to The New York Times:

If literary journals “are poised to do well,” as Laura Cogan, editor of San Francisco-based ZYZZYVA, said, it may be because they share qualities with many successful online ventures: skeletal staffs, low overhead and specialized audiences.

The article suggests journals associated with academic institutions have financially suffered the most over the last couple of years. Not that the successful print publishers are sitting around counting their money bags — they’ve been investing in the online side of their businesses by overhauling websites and promoting online subscriptions. McSweeney’s even hired a digital media director.

But, as the article concludes — and here’s where Canadians can nod in agreement — if these publishers are doing well, it is relative to their notions of success:

“No one has ever been able to make a good living writing or publishing literary fiction,” Stephen Elliott, a writer and founder of The Rumpus, said. “It doesn’t matter that there are exceptions. The rule stands.”

In the April 2011 issue of Q&Q: Susan Musgrave talks to Lorna Crozier

It’s been more than a decade since the iconic – and iconoclastic – Susan Musgrave published a new collection of poetry. In the April 2011 issue of Q&Q, Musgrave discusses her new collection, Origami Dove (McClelland & Stewart), with fellow B.C. poet Lorna Crozier, whose collection Small Mechanics also appears this spring with M&S. Also in April, a profile of overlooked short story author Clark Blaise, a special report on B.C. publishing, and a feature on the financial struggles facing Canadian literary journals. Plus reviews of new books by Julie Booker, John Furlong, Joe Ollmann, Chester Brown, Nicola Winstanley, Elisa Amado, Mélanie Watt, and more.

FEATURES

On poetry and prose
Two of B.C.’s leading poets – Susan Musgrave and Lorna Crozier – discuss writing, self-doubt, and Al Purdy’s birthday cake

Special report on B.C. publishing
Industry newcomer Randal Macnair brings new life to Oolichan Books; B.C. BookWorld’s Alan Twigg on surviving lean times; New Society carves out a distinctive niche in D&M’s growing eco-book empire; B.C. booksellers find solidarity at this year’s provincial book fair

Rough cuts
A year after the Department of Canadian Heritage slashed funding for small-run periodicals, many venerable literary magazines are struggling to adapt

FRONTMATTER
Clark Blaise’s return to form
An insider’s take on the collapse of H.B. Fenn and Company
Snapshot: Books for Business CEO Sean Neville
Best short stories: Alexander MacLeod on Alice Munro
Cover to cover: Gil Adamson’s Ashland
Guest opinion: Carmine Starnino on rebooting the CanLit canon
Kirstie McLellan Day’s hockey-book hat trick

REVIEWS
Up Up Up by Julie Booker
Patriot Hearts: Inside the Olympics That Changed a Country by John Furlong with Gary Mason
Mid-Life by Joe Ollmann
Paying for It by Chester Brown
Touch by Alexi Zentner
Esther: The Remarkable True Story of Esther Wheelwright, Puritan Child, Native Daughter, Mother Superior by Julie Wheelwright
Underground by Anatanas Sileika
PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and poetry

BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Cinnamon Boy by Nicola Winstanley; Janice Nadeau, illus.
What Are You Doing? by Elisa Amado; Manuel Monroy, illus.
You’re Finally Here! by Mélanie Watt
Banjo of Destiny by Cary Fagan
PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and picture books

THE Q&Q/BOOKNET CANADA BESTSELLERS

THE LAST WORD
Cynthia Holz on a writer’s search for inspiration between novels

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Canada Periodical Fund guidelines unveiled, with no exception for litmags

The application guidelines for the Canada Periodical Fund were released late yesterday, and it looks as if no exception is being made for small literary magazines. The new fund, unveiled last February to replace the Canada Magazine Fund, is restricted to magazines with annual paid circulation of more than 5,000 copies, a threshold that will exclude most Canadian literary magazines. From the industry blog Canadian Magazines:

The rules are undoubtedly going to be a major disappointment to the many groups who lobbied hard to have the draft changed, including Magazines Canada and the Canadian Business Press and the ad hoc group of small literary and cultural magazines that mounted a concerted Facebook campaign to get the floor on funding lowered or eliminated.

Indeed, the new funding guidelines put the very existence of small literary magazines in question. Their publishers and editors are now facing a dire situation: either raise annual circulation (a proposition many claim is impossible) or do without a substantial source of revenue. (See Q&Q‘s past coverage.)

Litmag funding should be administered by Canada Council, MagsCan says

Despite strong words to the contrary from Canadian heritage minister James Moore, there may still be hope for Canada’s small literary and arts magazines. In a pre-budget submission delivered to the federal finance committee earlier this month, Magazines Canada, the industry lobby group, has recommended that funding for the sector be transferred to the Canada Council for the Arts, which already administers the Grants to Literary and Art Magazines program.

From the report (via Canadian Magazines):

Magazines Canada has proposed that responsibility and budget for small circulation arts and literary magazines be clearly designated to the Canada Council for the Arts, which already delivers an effective program to arts and literary titles. The budget amounts to approximately $620,000 based on 2008-09 contribution amounts.

This would ensure that this investment continues to be directed to arts and literary titles. While this is a relatively modest level of the overall CPF [Canada Periodical Fund] budget, it is substantial in its benefit to these small titles. This also has the advantage, from a program streamlining point of view, of consolidating all arts and literary investment under ‘one roof.’

The new Canada Periodical Fund, announced by minister Moore last February and due to take effect in April 2010, maintains funding for the magazine sector at current levels, but will no longer fund magazines with annual circulation of less than 5,000 copies. According to the MagsCan report, the new funding floor would affect 42 publications currently receiving Canadian Heritage monies. (See Q&Q‘s past coverage.)

Meet John Freeman, Granta’s new acting editor

Granta has posted a lengthy online interview with its new acting editor, John Freeman, who stepped into the role last week after the abrupt departure of previous editor Alex Clark. The former president of the National Book Critics Circle, Freeman has been with the renowned literary magazine for less than one year. Described in a recent New York Observer profile as an energetic booster of literature and, in his book reviews, as “the ultimate generalist, writing solid if not always revelatory pieces on fiction, history, poetry and anything else he [feels] like,” Freeman promises to simultaneously “reconnect with the vibrancy of American writing” and bring to the magazine a more global outlook. From the Granta interview:

Culturally, financially, and metaphorically, we don’t live in an Anglo-American world anymore, but even the best magazines – Granta included – do not fully reflect this…. Our culture has become dangerously detached from the world at large. We need to do a better job of finding writers outside of the English language, from all parts of the world – but especially the Middle East, Africa, and Asia – and call on them to tell stories, rather than sending someone from the Anglo-American world to ferry back the news.

Are litmags facing more funding cuts?

Canada’s beleaguered literary magazines, which could see significant funding cuts as early as April 2010, could be faced with further cuts as a result of an ongoing strategic review of the Canada Council for the Arts. In a recent post, magazines expert and blogger D.B. Scott speculated that the council may be asked to reallocate up to 5% of its budget – about $9 million – and suggests that one of the likely victims could be low-circulation literary and cultural magazines.

The government-mandated review requires the council to identify the least efficient or redundant aspects of its spending, which will then be reallocated either within the department or to another government agency.

It’s still too early to be certain where those cuts will be made, but Scott suggests that the current administration has already expressed its low opinion of small art and literary magazines. When the Department of Canadian Heritage underwent a similar review earlier this year, it resulted in the new Canadian Periodical Fund, which shuts out any publication with an annual circulation of less than 5,000 – a figure that effectively excludes just about every literary magazine in the country. (See Q&Q‘s past coverage.)

For his part, Magazines Canada CEO Mark Jamison remains optimistic that the magazine sector will be untouched by any future Canada Council cuts. “My assumption is that the funding for art and literary magazines should be relatively secure,” Jamison told Quillblog. Jamison pointed out that the council partakes in “very careful and robust” reviews of its spending each year, and that its program for litmags is anything but redundant. “It is not a program that is anything close to undersubscribed, and the demand is far greater than [the council] can fulfill.”

As for the new Canadian Periodical Fund, Jamison told Quillblog that Magazines Canada is still lobbying the government to make exceptions for publications that have low circulation but that are culturally significant. “I remain optimistic that a flexibility will be applied to the issues.”

Coalition fights new litmag funding restrictions

Last week, Q&Q reported on new federal funding guidelines that could imperil Canada’s small literary and arts magazines, by limiting Canadian Heritage money to publications with annual paid circulations of at least 5,000. Now, a growing number of people are expressing their anger in an oh so timely fashion – by forming a Facebook group. The Coalition to Keep Canadian Heritage Support for Literary and Arts Magazines has been online for less than 24 hours, but already more than 700 concerned citizens have joined the group. You can lend your support to the cause by signing up here.

From the group’s Facebook page:

By joining the Coalition, readers and writers everywhere send a strong message to the Honorable James Moore, the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the Canada Periodical Fund that we believe in our literary and arts magazines and feel that they should continue to do so by supporting them through well-deserved and sustained financial support.

To do so [...] would be the cheapest economic stimulus package the Government of Canada could initiate. Every single dollar granted to us or paid to us by a subscriber or a newsstand buyer goes back into the economy.

Put it this way, when Canadians get into their Chrysler and GM cars, they have to drive somewhere. A lot of them drive to their newsstands and bookstores to buy a literary or arts magazine.