#LitMagLove Giveaway!

Our magazine collection includes, among other periodicals, a selection of literary magazines. The writers among us know how important literary magazines are to our reading culture. For writers, literary magazines are often where they cut their teeth and where they are first noticed by readers. Even for established or famous authors, literary magazines offer an opportunity to practice their craft in a different setting and in front of a different audience. For readers, literary magazines are a source of surprise and discovery, a chance to get in on the ground floor of an author, genre, or movement. They also provide an opportunity to read the weird, experimental, and innovative work you don’t see much of in mainstream publishing.

Publishers send samples of new lit mags on a regular basis to make us aware of what is available in the hope that we will carry them. Space limits what we can offer though we do try to rotate various titles in and out. We are still left with a large collection of individual titles which we would like to share with you.

We'll be giving away two sets of 6 (six!) lit mags each. For your chance to win, just tweet why you love lit mags to @PorterSqBooks with the hashtag #LitMagLove. The 2 (two) tweets with the most retweets by August 1st will be the winners. (In the event of a tie, we will randomly select winners from the top tweets.)

Best of Young British Novelists

Martin Amis, Pat Barker, William Boyd, Ian McEwan, Salmon Rushdie. Iain Banks, Alan Hollinghurst, A. L. Kennedy, Will Self, Jeanette Winterson. Monica Ali, Sarah Waters, Nicola Barker, David Mitchell, Hari Kunzru, Zadie Smith. These major British Novelists were all included in past Best of Young British Novelists issues of Granta. Each issue is a unique anthology, a snapshot of the taste of a particular time, a statement about what constitutes quality in the novel, and a portrait of some of our best writers in the English language at the beginning of their careers. Thanks to our event for The Best of Young British Novelists 4, we have a limited number of Best of Young British Novelists 1, 2, and 3. You could think of these as collectors items, a full set would look very nice on a shelf indeed, but they're also a really cool reading experience, a chance to look back in time and see what some of our favorite authors were writing, ten, twenty, and thirty years ago.

McSweeney's San Francisco Panorama

After a several month delay, Porter Square Books now has copies of McSweeney's Issue #33, San Francisco Panorama. McSweeney's has always tested the limits of what it means to publish a "magazine," but they've managed to outdo themselves with this issue. San Francisco Panorama is formatted like a Sunday edition newspaper, complete with a full color paper, a magazine, and a book section.

The format itself is interesting enough to check out, but they've also gathered an amazing list of contributors; Michael Chabon, Stephen King, Nicholson Baker, William T. Vollmann, Chimamanda Adichie, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Jessica Abel, Alison Bechdel, John Ashberry, and Junot Diaz to name a few. Originally priced at $24 (which is how its listed on our website) the issue is now only $16. Get here quickly if you're interested. Given how long we had to wait the first time around, there's no telling when we'll get more when we've run out.

Shonen Jump

Good news for all you manga fans. Porter Square Books is now carrying Shonen Jump, the most popular manga magazine in the United States. For fans of manga its a great way to stay on top of the genre and for people interested in learning more about manga its a good resource for getting your feet wet. It is also the original source for a couple of my favorite anime cartoons, Cowboy Bebop and Trigun. You'll find it in our two graphica sections.

Distinctive Lit Mag Designs

There are thousands of literary magazines and it's almost impossible for any one of them to stand out, especially since there are only so many ways that one can present short stories, essays, poems, and graphics bound together in something that is not a "book." Which means that, unless you have the design budget that McSweeney's has, it is almost impossible to visually distinguish one lit mag from another.

Two smaller lit mags, one local to Cambridge, have come up with brilliant original designs that distinguish them from the masses and present creative expressions of the characters of the magazines.

The first is a bi-annual magazine called Conduit. The magazine and its website have a cool edge and the current issue themed "Last Laugh: black humor in deadpan alley," has one of the best selections of poetry and art I've seen in any journal or magazine lately. The distinguishing design is simple: it's taller and thinner than all the other magazines. I especially like it because it can fit in a back pocket on walks.

The second is Tuesday: An Art Project, a local poetry and art lit mag that has done away with binding all together.

Instead it presents each poem and art print on a postcard size piece of card stock. This design emphasizes the singular nature of each piece and prevents an artificial editorial narrative constructed by the order in which the pieces are presented. By turning each piece into an individual item, the design allows readers to spread the magazine out, on their walls, in their journals, to their friends, or keep it together in its folded cardboard envelope. The design has the simple brilliance that leaves one shocked no one has thought of it before.

Both journals present innovative, and I think just plain cool, ways of getting art and literature to readers.