Contrary Magazine
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Information about your publication:
Contrary is a quarterly literary journal that publishes fiction, poetry, commentary, and especially work that dances contrarily across those categories. We also publish book reviews. Founded in 2003 by graduate students and alumni at the University of Chicago, Contrary is published independently on the South Side of Chicago and features work of writers throughout the world.
From the site: Contrary® was founded in 2003 at the University of Chicago by students and alumni of Chicago’s Master of Arts Program in the Humanities. It was quickly embraced and has been abundantly nourished by graduates of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program. It now operates independently and without a thought of profit on the South Side of Chicago and publishes writers from throughout the world.
What type of submissions you are looking for:
From the Mission Statement: … we hope our magazine expresses contrarities that otherwise might go unexpressed: writings and images that confront entities, voids, and the edges of their own categories. Fiction We ask our fiction writers to imagine their readers navigating a story with one finger poised over a mouse button. Can your story stay that finger to the end? We have published long stories on the belief that they succeed, but we feel more comfortable with 1,500 words or less. Some people call those short-shorts. We call them concise. We favor fiction that is contrary in any number of ways, but our fiction typically defies traditional story form. A story may bring us to closure, for example, without ever delivering an ending. We seek fiction as poetic as any poem. Our fiction editor is Frances Badgett. Poetry, We believe poetry is contrary by nature, always defying, always tonguing the tang of novelty. We look especially for plurality of meaning, for dual reverberation of beauty and concern. Contrary’s poetry in particular often mimics the effects of fiction or commentary. We find ourselves enamored of prose poems because they are naturally ambiguous about form – they tug overtly on the forces of narrative, but prose poems remain the minority of all the poetic forms we publish. Please consider that Contrary receives vast amounts of poetry and that we can publish only a very small percentage of that work. Please submit no more than three poems per issue. Our poetry editor is Shaindel Beers. Commentary – We favor lyrical commentary, often narrative and always poetic. We seek commentary that delivers a message less through exposition and more through art. Our view of the genre is broad. “Commentary” is our word for the stuff that others define negatively as non-fiction, nominally as essay, or naively as truth. Examples from our own pages include “Plum Island” by Andrew Coburn, “Ascension” by Kevin Heath, and “A Spring Sunday” by Heywood Broun. Examples from the world include Annie Dillard on weasels, Barbara Kingsolver on hermit crabs, Nelson Algren on Chicago, James Baldwin on France, EB White saying goodbye to 48th Street. Our commentary editor is Jeff McMahon. Reviews – Contrary has a stable of regular reviewers, but we welcome new recruits when we can. Please note that payment is not guaranteed for reviews; it depends upon fundraising. If you would like to review for us, please review our Rules for Reviewers first and query the editor at chicago at contrarymagazine dot com.
Information
Editor: Jeff McMahon
Mailing Address:
Email: Please visit our contact page
Circulation: 2.6 million hits in 2008
Submission Guidelines:
Approximate Response Time 90 days
Publishes: Quarterly
Year Founded: 2003
Online Submissions? Yes