New Letters :: NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines

New Letters

Magazine of Writing and Art

About New Letters: The international magazine of writing and art. Essays, poetry, fiction, interviews, reviews, features, and special issues delighting readers for over 75 years.

Publisher’s Description: For over 78 years, New Letters has been discovering and publishing new stories, poems, essays and art that have, in many cases, defined great writing in the 20th and 21st centuries. William Carlos Williams’s statement, “No ideas but in things,” appeared first in a poem published in this magazine in 1944. In 1946, before he published Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger published a controversial short story in this magazine, “Go See Eddie.”

New Letters has always been the magazine of literary superstars and also the magazine of talented newcomers. More recent issues have included the work of some of the greatest international literary artists, including Sherman Alexie, Annie Dillard, Richard Wright, Margaret Atwood, Allen Ginsberg, Andrei Codrescu, and Rita Dove.

The word “Letters” in the title New Letters refers to written discourse, and the word “New” means that the magazine publishes writing that is newly created or newly discovered, and, even more important, writing that stays new.

Recent issues:

79.2 features an essay by Willis Barnstone that offers readers scenes from a close friendship with prolific writer Jorge Luis Borges. The issue also features the poetry, fiction, and essays of the New Letters annual literary awards contest winners, new poetry from former U.S. Poet Laureate Maxine Kumin, an interview with Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort, the oil paintings of internationally exhibited artist Eric Zener and an essay about the lives of real-life counterparts to the characters of television’s Mad Men by James McKinley, among other great literature and art.

79.1 features an essay, lithographs and paintings by late nature artist William Wind McKim and digital prints by artist Leonard Koenig;  an interview with Don Lee, author of The Collective, and fiction by Kim Addonizio, Wendell Mayo, and Brian Doyle. Poetry in the issue is by Carolyne Wright, Steve Davenport, Albert Goldbarth, Adrian C. Louis, and John Olivares Espinoza, among others.

78.3-4 features an essay by former Poet Laureate of the United States Donald Hall, which depicts Hall’s life in literature through his re-occurring visits to Washington D.C, and additional essays by Judy Blunt, Mariko Nagai and Kaare Scheuer Pedersen. The issue also features poetry accompanied by historical glass negative by Trish Reeves, William Trowbridge, and Vénus Khoury-Ghata; as well as fiction by Brian Doyle, Gary Gildner, and Maggie Harrison. Artwork for the issue is by Gloria Baker Feinstein, Kimbra Hess, and Rolf Brommelsiek.

 

last updated 05/20/2013