The Gettysburg Review

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Autumn 1991 issue of The Gettysburg Review
Autumn 1991 issue of The Gettysburg Review

The Gettysburg Review is a quarterly literary magazine featuring short stories, poetry, essays and reviews. Work appearing in the magazine often is reprinted in "best-of" anthologies and receives awards.

The little magazine "is recognized as one of the country’s premier journals," according to a description at the Web site of the New York Public Library.[1] The 2007 U.S. News guide to the best colleges described the review as "recognized as one of the country's best literary journals."[2] According to a Web page of the English Department of the University of Wisconsin Colleges, the Gettysburg Review is considered a "major literary journal in the U.S."[3]

Founded in 1988, the magazine is published by Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Its quarterly issues come out in January, April, July, and October.[4]

The magazine won't run previously published material, but it is open to running both short and long poems, excerpts from novels and sometimes fiction even longer than short stories. "Essays can be on virtually any subject, so long as it is treated in a literary fashion — gracefully and in depth," according to the magazine's Web site.[5]

The Gettysburg Review is one of the most frequent sources of poems for The Best American Poetry series and The Best American Short Stories series. Other anthologies that have run work in the magazine: The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, The Best American Essays, The Best American Mystery Stories, New Stories from the South, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. Other work has been reprinted in publications such as Harpers.[6]

Writers who have appeared in the magazine's pages include E. L. Doctorow, Rita Dove, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Wilbur, Mary Hood and Donald Hall.[6]

The periodical has won awards including the Best New Journal award, four Best Journal Design awards from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, and a PEN/Nora Magid Award for Excellence in Editing.[7]

In a 1994 review of the magazine, Ron Tanner wrote that the stories in the 1993 issues were widely varied in style, but "are clearly in the mainstream of contemporary American fiction — you will not find 'experimental' work in The Gettysburg Review."

He also found the stories have a common "concern for character, and an examination of the emotional and psychological distance one might travel when faced with a problem. [...] each compels the character to make a decision, to make an effort, to make a move. Consequently, things happen in these stories. Which is to say that we end in a place very different from the story's beginning. In no resolution of a Gettysburg story, however, do we find ourselves living Happily Ever After. Life is more complicated than that, these writers assert."[8]

The quarterly gets about 6,000 submissions per year and does not solicit work except for occasional reviews. "[W]e work hard not to have a regular stable of writers or favored persons of any kind", according to Peter Stitt, the editor. "We are most proud of publishing writers who have never before appeared in a nationally-circulated journal. But we do not actively search through the slush pile for anything but good writing."[9]

The magazine is supported financially by Gettysburg College, for the most part, although it also receives grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the NEA, along with some revenue from subscriptions.[9]

Contents

[edit] Appearances in The Best American Poetry series

[edit] Appearances in The Best American Mystery Stories series

  • The Best American Mystery Stories 2008, Kyle Minor, "A Day Meant to Do Less"
  • The Best American Mystery Stories 2006, Emily Raboteau, "Smile"
  • The Best American Mystery Stories 2004, Christopher Coake, "All Through the House"


[edit] Masthead

The magazine's masthead, as of February 2007:[4]

  • Editor: Peter Stitt
  • Assistant Editor: Mark Drew
  • Managing Editor: Kim Dana Kupperman

Advisory and contributing editors:

Advisory Board:

  • Fritz Gaenslen
  • Fred Leebron
  • Kathryn Rhett
  • Jack Ryan

[edit] Trivia

  • ISSN 0898-4557

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ [1]Web page titled "Literary Magazine Editors Introducing Emerging Writers at The New York Public Library" at New York Public Library Web site (the description does, however appear to have come from the magazine itself; nevertheless, it was approved for publishing at the respected library's Web site), accessed June 10, 2007
  2. ^ [2]Web page titled "America's Best Colleges 2007 / Gettysburg College", (given the similarity in wording, the phrase, slightly reworded, may have come from some promotional material from the college; nevertheless, the magazine's editors endorsed it by publishing it), accessed June 10, 2007
  3. ^ [3]Web page titled "Literature & Writing Web Sites" at the University of Wisconsin Colleges Web site, accessed June 10, 2007
  4. ^ a b [4]Web page titled "Masthead" at The Gettysburgh Review Web site, accessed February 8, 2007
  5. ^ [5]"Submissions" Web page at The Gettysburg Review Web site, accessed February 8, 2007
  6. ^ a b [6]"NewPages.com" Web site, information originally from the magazine, according to the Web site, accessed February 8, 2007
  7. ^ [7]Web page about The Gettysburg Review at the Gettysburg College Web site, accessed February 8, 2007
  8. ^ [8]Tanner, Ron, "The Gettysburg Review. - periodical reviews" a review in Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1994, accessed February 8, 2007
  9. ^ a b [9]Web page titled "Interview with LitJournals / Conducted by Dan Wickett on 1/19/2005", at Emerging Writers Forum Web site, accessed June 10, 2007

[edit] External links

  • [10] The Gettysburg Review Web site