The Persistent Journal (As A Form)

Small literary journals are a precarious enterprise. “Circulating only in the low thousands (most of them), subsisting more on donations and patronage than subscription income, kept viable largely through low-paid or even unremunerated labor by devoted staffers, these quarterly or biannual compendia of fiction, poetry, essays, and art are showcases of idealism begotten upon unlikelihood. Yet for all this, in spite of the myriad ills that under-funded ventures are heir to, in spite of the fact that our info-environment is now so paced to the fleeting quick fix, the double-barreled snort of gloss, these journals do survive. Better, they persist.”