14 Literary journals for Los Angeles writers

los-angeles-literary-journals

Get to know your local literary journals, and you’ll get to know your local literary community. Literary journals not only publish the work of local writers, but also hold readings where you can meet the readers, authors, and editors — as well as offer opportunities to get involved. Here are fourteen literary journals for Angelenos to watch:

Faultline. Published by UC Irvine’s English department since 1992, Faultline comes out annually, thanks to the MFA students who put it together. A sizable percentage of the contributors are local, though the journal features writers from all over. One bummer about this journal is that it still seems stuck in 1992; to get a copy, you actually have to mail a check to UCI.

Santa Monica Review. Founded by Jim Krusoe back in 1988, this well-established and respected literary magazine published some of Aimee Bender’s earliest works. The all-fiction print zine is published twice a year out of Santa Monica College. More: An interview with Santa Monica Review’s Andrew Tonkovich.

Los Angeles Review. Once a biannual print journal, LAR launched a new online format in 2017, becoming a weekly online journal with a best-of annual print edition. Its goal to publish “the voice of Los Angeles, and the voice of the nation.” LAR is published by Red Hen Press; sign up for the press’ email list to find out about launch readings for each issue.

Rattle. Based in Studio City, this all-poetry print journal prides itself in getting almost all its work from its slush pile. Rattle holds poetry readings every second Sunday Rattle at the Flintridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse.

Joyland: The West. The web lit zine Joyland divvies up its sections by city or region, with different editors dedicated to each spot. Read The West section for stories about LA or by LA writers or both. This is an especially good zine for discovering new writers.

Sublevel. CalArts’s longtime lit magazine Black Clock folded, but in its place a newer, even edgier literary magazine launched. Sublevel is “devoted to the nexus of literature, poetics, art, criticism, philosophy, culture, & politics.” In addition to (mostly experimental) writing, the zine includes conversations and art. The main issues go up online, but Sublevel also publishes a supplementary print edition — called B-Sides.

Angels Flight Literary West. Founded just a few years ago, this online zine seeks specifically to “explore uncharted stories of Los Angeles and beyond.” AFLW occasionally calls for contributions for timely special issues and hosts literary salons.

Exposition Review. Until a few years ago, University of Southern California offered a Master of Professional Writing Program with its own print lit journal, Southern California Review. That program’s now defunct, but its spirit lives on via the alums of the MPW program who founded Exposition Review, an online lit zine very involved with the local lit community. Visit its lively blog.

Westwind. Produced by the English department at UCLA for over 50 years now, Westwind publishes online issues in the fall and winter, along with an annual print issue in the spring. The journal has a strong focus on UCLA specifically and the LA-area more broadly. Submissions are open only to “UCLA students, faculty, alumni, and members of the greater Los Angeles community.”

Lunch Ticket This biannual online lit journal’s put together by the MFA community at Antioch University Los Angeles and has a special focus on social justice. More: Lunch Ticket interviewed me about Cake Time.

Ghost Town. The national literary magazine of the MFA program at California State University San Bernardino, Ghost Town publishes a couple online issues a year — combined into print annuals.

Prism Review. The literary journal at University of La Verne, Prism Review is put together by undergraduate creative writing students under the leadership of novelist Sean Bernard, the review’s faculty advisor. The journal publishes poetry and fiction — and holds an annual contest in both genres (I judged fiction for the 2018 contest).

The Ear. This newly-resurrected lit zine out of Irvine Valley College seeks to publish “some of the best work in Orange County.”

Muse. This print annual literary journal of Riverside City College is involved with many local events both on and off campus.

____

This list is far from exhaustive. I’ve excluded many lit zines that may have a base or editors in LA but aren’t particularly L.A. focused — e.g. The Nervous Breakdown, 7×7, The Offing, and Drunk Monkeys. But if there are other literary journals I should know about, please do let me know in the comments!

Lastly, I have to mention Los Angeles Review of Books. LARB is an online daily and a print quarterly that was created “in part as a response to the disappearance of the traditional newspaper book review supplement.” Read it for great book reviews and thought provoking essays.

Originally posted 9/26/16; Last updated 1/1/18

Santa Monica Review’s Andrew Tonkovich on dream jobs, dream worlds

Every month, I interview an author I admire on his literary firsts–except this month, I’m interviewing an editor.

Editing a literary journal, I think, requires a certain level of masochism. We’re talking, after all, about publications with teeny tiny readerships that nonetheless get deluged with thousands of submissions from would-be contributors, most of whom haven’t bothered to pick up a single issue of the journal. Editors have to slog through this massive slush pile day after day — usually for little to no pay — with few thanks and many complains from writers, both accepted writers who think they should be paid or paid more for their contribution (but with what money?) and rejected writers who decry your form rejection notes as impersonal and callous and demand personal letters that explain why you said no to their work (but with what time?).

Or maybe editing a literary journal just requires a lot of commitment–to writers, to readers, to literature, and to the community that, over time, coalesces around the journal.

Santa Monica Review‘s one journal that’s been sustaining its community for nearly 30 years now. And since 1998, Andrew Tonkovich, editor and sole employee–save the occasional volunteer–has been reading nearly every submission.

Yes, Andrew himself reads the 50 or so submissions that come in each week. From those, he picks 30 a year to publish in the journal’s fall and spring issues.

In this interview, Andrew talks about how a literary mentorship changed his life and what commitment means to him.
___

Siel: So — how does one become the editor of a literary journal? Or more to the point — What was your journey to becoming the editor of Santa Monica Review?

Andrew: I was, with my wife Lisa Alvarez, a student-writer in Jim Krusoe’s legendary (!) creative writing workshop for many years in the eighties. It was, continues to be, the best thing that happened to me (and, I believe, so many) by way of mentorship, careful reading, urgent engagement with all kinds of literature and of course encouragement from a terrific writer and committed, serious students.

After entering the MFA program at UC Irvine, I eventually moved to Orange County (where Lisa had accepted a Senate faculty position at a local community college) and reluctantly left the Santa Monica College workshop. Weirdly, I started team-teaching a class in Sociology at Santa Monica College (another story). Anyway, my office hours were in the campus cafeteria. One evening Jim walked through and said hello, holding a big bag full of submissions. Lee Montgomery, who had edited the magazine for a few years, had relocated, resigned, and the position of editor was unfilled.

Jim seemed frustrated, and indicated that he was sitting on hundreds of mss. On seeing me, and being a spontaneous fellow, Jim asked me to be the editor, no kidding. I assumed he was kidding, sort of. I went home, told Lisa, and sent a submission to the magazine, a story.

The next week, same scene. Jim walks through, with more mss. Sees me. Is happy, but explains that sending a submission was a fine thing, sure, and no doubt he would like my story but, Andrew (he said), there is no editor and I want you to be the editor.

I finally got it, conferred with Lisa, who knew that this was a dream job for me, and called Jim the next morning and, finally assured that he was not putting me on or kidding, became the editor.

This is more a good story about Jim, who put some real trust and responsibility in me. I also think he understood that I had experience as a community organizer, grant writer, activist, was a pretty committed reader and would surely do my best, or try my hardest — how to put this? — to make my hero, mentor proud. That was in 1998.

What would you say most distinguishes Santa Monica Review from the hundreds of other literary journals out there? Do you make it a point to focus on writers or themes related to Southern California?

I notice I use the word committed a lot. The magazine’s size is small but its reputation perhaps big. I am pleased when, a few weeks after an issue is out, I get queries from agents and editors asking to be put in contact with specific contributors. That is a very satisfying occurrence and, indeed, many of our contributors have gone on to public collections, novels and more. And we’ve been included in nearly all of the end-of-year prize story collections, too. Finally, I have a few shelves at home of stories and novels with some variation of the phrase “first appeared in Santa Monica Review…” That’s also gratifying.

We try to feature a majority of West Coast or what used to be called Pacific Rim writers, but not to exclude others. I have fudged the boundaries of the West considerably, frequently finding amazing writers from well beyond the Rockies or even the Mississippi River because, well, if you get a submission that is remarkable and fine, and the writer sees herself in your wheelhouse, excellent work, then any editor would jump on it.

How have your own literary tastes changed in your years of editing Santa Monica Review?

Jim advised me in only two specific ways. First, drop poetry. Mostly because he wanted us to establish a niche. Also, we did not have a poetry editor, or funds to pay one. Just salary, as it were, for the equivalent of teaching a class, for the editor. Me.

Second, to be as idiosyncratic as I wanted to be. This has been not all that hard. My own taste and interest tends toward word and voice-driven narrative, the fabulist or dream-world, political allegory or fable, poetic language, and ecological and scientifically-informed work. I admire wit and humor. I don’t mind long sentences, in fact adore them.

My own tastes are secondary to the direction of the magazine, but of course easy to spot. But I really am open to both experimental work and solid realistic writing. I’d like stories to start right away or, alternatively, to be captivated, engaged by the voice or premise. Not a lot of time to read through pages of set-up and situation and back-story.

Beyond reading and responding to submissions, what does the job of being a literary journal editor entail?

The job entails bragging about the magazine, as I have done, above. But also maintaining the database, answering queries and correspondence, representing the magazine publicly, promoting it at conferences and workshops and in classes. I respond to subscriptions and organize the mailing, answer requests for back issues. I write thank-notes to especially generous supporters and send free copies of the journal to incarcerated women and men. I visit creative writing workshops, have been hosted at numerous local colleges and university, as a sort of “visiting editor.” This year I organized four readings, including our usual at the Edye but also at Beyond Baroque and both LA and SF LitQuake.

I am on the staff at annual summer workshops at a writers conference, the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. I find participating there and visiting colleges and occasional writing conferences to be helpful in finding work, meeting writers. So in addition to the CoW, I of course I look at a lot of submissions from UC Irvine MFA grads, Krusoe students, Antioch and other workshops where my reader and friend Dawna Kemper and Jim and others have taught.

Many lit journals — especially those of the online variety — seem to pop up then disappear every year. What advice do you have for would-be lit journal editors on keeping things going for the long haul?

I can’t really give advice regarding the organizational or financial or administrative angle, as SMR is so lucky to be sponsored by Santa Monica College. Except for asking people to subscribe, offering ads for sale and occasionally inviting a big donor to donate, I haven’t had to do much fundraising. On the one hand, we will as a result likely never get too much bigger, or print more than twice yearly. On the other, the school has been sponsoring us for nearly 30 years!

We participate in the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, where for most of the life of that festival Santa Monica College has hosted a booth featuring us, and we distribute a couple of thousand free copies. That makes me happy too, being able to offer people a gift from the college, as part of its mission to promote literacy and the literary arts, and support writers. The only year I missed was when my wife went into labor the night before. Some really good pals, students of Jim’s, writer-contributors and fans of the magazine stepped in for me. So, more commitment.
____

Enter to win a Santa Monica Review prize pack by signing up for my newsletter. Already joined up? Then you’re already entered. Good luck!

Earlier:
* Jim Krusoe’s workshop: Legendary (and affordable!) westside creative writing class
15 literary journals for Los Angeles writers

Photo by Brett Hall Jones

Sublevel and Westwind: Two more journals for Los Angeles writers

Just eight months ago I wrote about 12 literary journals for Los Angeles writers — and since then, I’ve discovered two more! Read, enjoy, and submit —

Sublevel. CalArts’s longtime lit magazine Black Clock folded a little while back, but in its place a newer, even edgier literary magazine has launched. Sublevel is “devoted to the nexus of literature, poetics, art, criticism, philosophy, culture, & politics,” and its editors “make no hard distinctions between creative and critical enterprise.”

In addition to (mostly experimental) writing, the zine includes conversations and art. The main issues go up online, but Sublevel also publishes a supplementary print edition — called B-Sides. The first issue was edited by Maggie Nelson and Janice Lee — but both of these CalArts faculty members are leaving the institution this year, Maggie heading to USC and Janice to Portland State University. It’s unclear who’ll head up the second issue. In the meantime, enjoy browsing the first —

Westwind UCLA journal of the arts

Westwind. Unbeknownst to me until two weeks ago, the English department at UCLA has been publishing Westwind, UCLA’s journal of the arts, for over 50 years now!

These days, Westwind publishes online issues in the fall and winter, along with an annual print issue in the spring that you can pick up from UCLA’s English department office — or read online too. The journal has a strong focus on UCLA specifically and the LA-area more broadly. Submissions — which will reopen in the fall — are open only to “UCLA students, faculty, alumni, and members of the greater Los Angeles community.” Send in your fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, and music then —

Earlier: 12 Literary journals for Los Angeles writers

Photo of Westwind courtesy of Westwind

Angels Flight • literary west Salon: Cocktails, cafeteria food, and literary conversation

Get your favorite cafeteria food and drink your fancy cocktails too — while enjoying literary conversations. Come to the next Angels Flight • literary west Salon — where I’ll be chatting with fellow author Lilliam Rivera!

But first about the salon: Put together by local literary journal Angels Flight • literary west, these monthly events happen at Clifton’s Republic in the second-floor Ballroom — a lovely historic space with idiosyncratic decor, including a lion that looks over the proceedings! Each event brings together a pair of featured writers who read a bit and discuss their work in conversation. Below are Matthew Specktor and Tyler Malone who talked at the February event.

Matthew Specktor and Tyler Malone at Angels Flight Literary West salon

Afterwards, a handful of writers recently published in the journal give lively readings. Then, attendees mingle, eat, and drink — since after all, Clifton’s has a cafeteria and a handful of bars with fancy cocktails.

In case you’re not familiar with Angels Flight • literary west, this online zine seeks specifically to “explore uncharted stories of Los Angeles and beyond,” with a new issue coming out every six months.

Want to read at a future salon? Submit your work to the journal for consideration! Want to attend future salons? Follow AFLW’s Facebook page to find out about the events.


And please do come to the next event: Angels Flight • literary west Salon With Lilliam Rivera & Siel Ju. Themed “The Good, the Bad & the In-Between: Choices & Redemption,” the event will feature me and Lilliam in conversation, reading and discussing our new books — my Cake Time and her YA novel The Education of Margot Sanchez.

There’ll also be readings by Patrick O’Neil, CLS Ferguson, Chris Daley Tod Goldberg, and Stephanie Zhong.

I’ll have early copies of Cake Time for sale and hope to see you there —
__

Earlier: 12 Literary journals for Los Angeles writers

Top photo by Grant Palmer

Vaseline: My new text-collage collaboration for 7×7 LA

Up on lit zine 7×7 LA now is “Vaseline,” an experimental text-collage story I co-created with Kevin Sampsell.

The piece is about shady sleep studies and sinister experiments and sexy dreams. It was created following 7×7 LA’s surrealism-inspired artistic constraints: Kevin and I went back and forth seven times, reacting to each other’s works by responding within 24 hours with a new text or collage, each created within a few hours.

I’m so excited and honored to have been able to collaborate with Kevin Sampsell, a writer I admire. Read my Five Firsts interview with Kevin, and my review of his novel, This Is Between Us.

Hope you enjoy “Vaseline“!