In the January/February issue of MotherJones magazine editor and writer Ted Genoways reviews the usefulness of literary magazines and where the impact of the craft of writing today. Genoways is the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review (a magazine that’s doing well right now). He makes many good points in the article including:

In the midst of a war on two fronts, there has been hardly a ripple in American fiction. With the exception of a few execrable screeds—like Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint (which revealed just how completely postmodernism has painted itself into a corner)—novelists and story writers alike have largely ignored the wars.

Genoways is right on the money with this article. It brings up some very good points about what the conventions of writing has done to writers and literary magazines over the last 2 decades. Little commentary is made by writers these day on the world. Most contemporary writing tends to much more self-centered. I believe Genoways makes some very good points.

EWR is here to promote writers and literary magazines, but much of what Genoways points out must be address is the craft of writing and writers want to reinvigorate the world of literary magazines and small presses.

http://motherjones.com/media/2010/01/death-of-literary-fiction-magazines-journals