What is the future of literary journals? with Travis Kurowski

The Book I HAD to Write

Last fall, administrators at Gettysburg College announced the shuttering of the prestigious Gettysburg Review. This just seemed like the latest in a long string of magazines and journals that have closed the past few years.

Curious about what’s going on, I called Travis Kurowski, a leading expert on literary magazines, to help me understand what was happening. Today’s podcast features the interview we recorded in the immediate aftermath of the news last October.

But, Kurowski, who has also appeared on CNN.com and elsewhere, was able to shed light on broader themes and trends. We discuss why an entire ecosphere of literary journals—supported for nearly 100 years by institutions of higher ed—may also be in deep trouble.

And we explore the ways in which recent tech has changed reading habits, and why that will continue to doom some journals, even as others are adapting themselves to stay relevant to 21st century literary culture.

This conversation is well worth listening to for anyone who wants to publish in—or is concerned about the well-being and future of—literary magazines and journals.

Some of my biggest takeaways from this interview

* Outside prestige isn’t enough to save storied journals like The Gettysburg Review.

While many writers took to social media to point out that most of the world wouldn’t know about Gettysburg College if it wasn’t for the Review, that argument didn’t seem to matter much to administrators.

The problem was, rather, one of economics…and the readiness with which both college administrators and corporate interests are willing to cut arts funding.

As with pretty much every business in the world, the pandemic gutted operating revenues at Gettysburg; it has been running significant deficits recently—a $6.7 million deficit in 2021 alone.

When the college was looking for expense lines to cut, they focused on those (like the Review) which, they claimed, didn’tdirectly enhance student life.

That last argument is a highly dubious one, by the way. Plenty of students learned a ton about literary publishing thanks to helping to produce the Review over the years. But this is the story that the administrators told themselves and the rest of us.

* The sustainability of literary journals—especially those connected with colleges and universities—feels more fragile than ever.

Literary journals have been associated with higher ed for almost a century. Often these journals were seen as prestige projects, aimed at enhancing the institutions beyond its walls—even as these journals were often subject to the vagaries of institutional budgets, priorities, and department allegiances.

"Literary journals have been on higher education campuses for...almost 100 years now...and sometimes they get cut from the budgets," Kurowski says.

The difference today? Higher ed is facing greater economic pressures than ever before. Bloated administrations and a major decrease in enrollments—what Kurowski calls “the cliff of 18-year-olds”—are shrinking budgets.

And with college and university budgets facing bleak prospects for the foreseeable future, the days of university-funded literary journals and similar prestige projects may be behind us.

* Many literary journals haven’t adapted to the digital “literary economy”…and they’re getting left behind.

It won’t be news that the way we consume media has radically changed even in the span of a decade or two.

With the advent of the internet and mobile technology, readers have migrated, en masse, to the digital landscape.

And that has major implications for old-school print literary journals:

“You walk down any hallway, anywhere in your house, right? And we're just staring at their phones. We’re reading differently, we’re writing differently, we’re talking differently online. But our literary journals kind of look the same as they did 50 or 70 years ago,” Kurowski says.

By way of example, Kurowski points out that when he went to look at the Gettsyburg Review website to prep for our interview, he wasn’t able to click on any of the poems or short stories.

So it’s really necessary for journals to reassess how readers today (and beyond) are accessing their content.

* Readers are no longer reading cover-to-cover…and journals need to embrace that change.

The problem goes beyond clickable websites. The very way we consume print magazines has profoundly shifted—something that publishing expertJane Friedmanhas explored extensively.

In her book The Business of Being a Writer, Friedman argues that the digital revolution has brought about the “disaggregation” of media. She means that journals are no longer consumed whole, cover-to-cover, but experienced in pieces, sometimes on platforms or in environments disaggregated, or pulled out, from their original format.

Today, you can engage with the New Yorker through its website, podcast, app, or even live, as with its New Yorker festivals. In other words, the magazine has unbound—or disaggregated—itself.

Similarly, lit journals may have to learn to move beyond their print editions if they want to connect with new readers today. “You don't want to focus too much on the container but rather the content,” Kurowski says.

* Additionally, journals need to do a better job of “community building” …and those that are doing so are succeeding.

Kurowski underscores the importance of creating community beyond the physical pages of the journals. The value of literary journals today goes well beyond the content they feature…and has a lot to do with the cultural experience they can offer.

“If a journal is not doing that, if they're not creating a brand, creating a community, creating an experience…it's going to be hard for them to fit into the 21st century, where content is essentially expected to be free,” he says.

He cites publications like The Georgia Review and even the newly-revived The Believer magazine as examples of journals that have successfully reconceptualized what it means to be connect with readers today.

About My Guest

Travis Kurowski is an associate professor of creative writing at York College. He’s the editor of Paper Dreams: Writers and Editors on the American Literary Magazine, winner of an Independent Publisher Book Award, and co-editor of Literary Publishing in the Twenty-First Century (Milkweed).

Further reading/discussed on this episode

* Paper Dreams: Writers and Editors on the American Literary Magazine, edited by Travis Kurowski (Atticus Books)

* Literary Publishing in the Twenty-First Century, coedited by Travis Kurowski, Wayne Miller, and Kevin Prufer.

* The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, coedited by Ian Morris and Joanne Diaz.

* “Are Literary Journals in Trouble?” by , July 18, 2023.

* Get the latest updates about literary magazines and journals from the wonderful by

* Check out my own essay, “What is the future for literary journals?”

Credits

This episode was edited and produced by Chérie Newman at Magpie Audio Productions. Theme music is "The Stone Mansion" by BlueDot Productions.

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