Alaska Quarterly Review :: NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines

Alaska Quarterly Review

Publisher’s Description: Alaska Quarterly Review is one of America’s premier literary magazines and a source of powerful, new voices. AQR publishes short stories, short novellas, novel excerpts, short plays, poetry, and literary non-fiction in traditional and experimental styles. The magazine also features photographic essays and interviews.

Praised by The Washington Post Book World as “one of the nation’s best literary magazines,” and "fresh treasure" in the Sunday New York Times Book Review, works from AQR have appeared in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, Pushcart Prize, Beacon Best, Best American Mystery Stories, Best Creative Nonfiction, Best American Fantasy,  Best American Essays, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and Best American Poetry. John McNally in Literary Magazine Review observed that "When all is said and done, Ronald Spatz and his crack team of editors put together one hell of a magazine."  Laura Furman, the series editor of the Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, wrote that “Alaska Quarterly Review is playing an impressive part in our national literature.” Library Journal concluded AQR "is highly recommended and deserves applause."

AQR contributing editors include Stuart Dybek, Maxine Kumin, Amy Hempel, Patrica Hampl, Stuart Dischell Nancy Eimers, Pattiann Rogers, Dorianne Laux, Peggy Schumaker, Michael Ryan, Jane Hirshfield, and Billy Collins. We note with great sadness the passing of long-time Contributing Editor, Grace Paley, on August 22, 2007. AQR is published twice a year by the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Recent issues:

Alaska Quarterly Review’s Spring & Summer 2010 book-length issue presents an anthology of new, emerging, and established writers compiled by contributing editor Amy Hempel titled, “Innovative Fiction: 21 Writers.” In non-fiction, Arnold G. Nelson’s “How to Write a Good Sentence: A Manual for Writers Who Know How to Write Correct Sentences” is a study of the nature of language, literature, and personal observation. Exemplars range from John McPhee and Gertrude Stein to Philip Roth, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, and William Least Heat-Moon. Rounding out the issue is a collection of poetry by 18 new and emerging poets including Todd Boss, Jeanne Emmons, and Amber Flora Thomas.

Vol 26 Nos. 3&4, Fall & Winter 2009 features nonfiction by Dennis Lang, Joan Marcus, Margaret MacInnis; and fiction by David Lawrence Morse, Karen Heuler, Warren Slesinger, and more.

Vol 26 Nos. 1&2, Spring/Summer 2009 features nonfiction by Nancy Lord, Timothy Irish Watt, Josh Gamel, and Kim van Alkemade; new and selected poems by Robert Davis Hoffman; drama by Laurence Klaven, fiction by Ben Brooks, Adam Dunham, Charles McLeod, Ann Geldor, Marjorie Kemper, and Melinda Moustakis.