The Main Street Rag :: NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines

The Main Street Rag

About The Main Street Rag: Not for the faint of heart. Our literary magazine features some of the best writers in the small press alongside up and coming voices.

Publisher’s Description: The Main Street Rag is an independent small press literary magazine that features poetry, short fiction, essays, photography, reviews and interviews. It is produced by the Main Street Rag Publishing Company which also publishes books and produces projects for other small press publishers. Because we own the production equipment, we have greater control over quality and costs.

Our magazine is eclectic, but we favor edgy material for poetry and fiction—even in the humor we publish. Essays we feature are more often sociopolitical commentary as opposed to the how to of writing. Over the years we’ve interviewed such people as Gwendolyn Brooks, Anthony Bukoski, Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, Yusef Komunyakaa, & David Slavitt. Our Spring issue usually features the MSR Poetry Book Award winner.

Each year we sponsor both a Chapbook Contest and a full-length poetry book contest. From these we will select as many as 25 books for publication during the following year. Most of the titles selected for publication under the Main Street Rag label are juried in this manner.

Additional information is available on our website and all Main Street Rag titles and back issues can be purchased through our Online Bookstore.

Recent issues:

Spring 2013 - This issue includes a featured interview, “Jonathan Johnson, Voice of the Upper Peninsula,” by Ron Riekki. Also included in the issue is fiction by Ed Davis and Sean Jackson, an essay by Sue Farlow, and poetry by Jonathan Johnson, Jeffrey C. Alfier, Diana Anhalt, Donna Belchar, Kevin Brown, Christina Clark, Cathryn Cofell, Noel Conneely, Robert Cooperman, Peg Bresnahan, Steve Cushman, Mike Faran, Joel Ferdon, Allan Garry, Clifford Paul Fetters, Gerald George, Elton Glaser, William Greenway, Cleo Griffith, Herb Guggenheim, Patricia L. Hamilton, Jonathan Harrington, Rich Heller, Ann Howells, Victoria Kelly, Gary Metheny, Kyle Laws, and many more.

Winter 2012/13 - Featured is an interview with MSR Poetry Book Award Winner Colin D. Halloran; fiction by Mackenzie Evan Smith, Terresa Haskew, John Christopher Lloyd, and Eric V. Neagu; and poetry by Steve Abbott, Phillip Barron, Llyn Clague, Joan Colby, Lyle Daggett, Davis Enloe, Robert Gamble, Logan C. Jones, Mike Jurkovic, Dan Memmolo, Leland March, Brady Rhoades, Maria Rouphail, Scott Vanya, Travis Venters, and more.

Fall 2012 - This issue features two interviews by Jane Andrews with Edith Pearlman and Laura Kasischke; an essay by Sean Thomas Dougherty; fiction by Kathie Giorgio, Hans Burger, and Eric Rawson; photos by M. Scott Douglass; book reviews; and poetry by Ace Boggess, Barbara Conrad, Patricia Cole, Randy DeVillez, Daniela Buccilli, Kenneth DiMaggio, Marguerite Keil Flanders, Jason Ford, David Manning, Carol Hamilton, Joan Payne Kincaid, Warren M. Harris, Lyn Lifshin, John N. Miller, Karen Loeb, Kaili Markley, Dave Michalak, Mark Mitchell, Michelle Miller, Paul Nelson, Dawn Schout, Jonathan C. Stillerman, Marie Kelly, E.D. Roberts, Bill Roberts, Timons Esaias, Robert Tricaro, and Kobina Wright.

 

last updated 05/20/13