NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines

Brick

A Literary Journal

Publisher’s description: Called “one of the best, if not the best, journals of ideas published in the English-speaking world” by Russell Banks, Brick is one of Canada’s oldest and most respected literary journals, edited by Michael Ondaatje, Michael Redhill, Linda Spalding, Esta Spalding, Michael Helm and Rebecca Silver Slayter. Since its inception in 1977, Brick has played a unique role, both in Canada and beyond, gathering a cross-section of national and international, known and new literary voices in a wide-ranging discussion of arts, culture, and literature. Publisher Michael Redhill describes the magazine as “a dream dinner party where writers and readers share a sumptuous feast of ideas.”

As the late poet Robert Creeley said, “Brick is a reader’s and writer’s magazine, that rare ground of a common interest and exchange. It's a remarkable bastion against the blurs and distractions of the all-too-familiar alternatives. Here reading always wins.”

Recent issues:

84, Winter 2010, includes interviews with Geoff Dyer and Yiyun Li, a homage to poet Deborah Digges by W. S. Merwin, a tribute to Merce Cunningham by former company member Douglas Dunn, Jim Harrison’s musings on food and music, and a full-colour feature on Afghan war rugs.

83, Summer 2009, features an excerpt from Eduardo Galeano’s latest work, Mirrors; a rollicking homage to Harold Pinter by Patricia Rozema; Francisco Goldman on Roberto Bolaño and grief; an unpublished interview with centenarian Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia about her life among the Dadaists; Colm Tóibín on poets Michael Donaghy and Don Paterson; Michael Ondaatje on Donald Westlake; interviews with José Saramago and Terence Davies; patron-baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter’s intimate photographic portraits of jazz greats; poetry by Don Paterson, and Jim Harrison.