Duluth-area Literary Vibe: Zines, journals and other lit publications from the region

David Beard Jan 15, 2014 7 Comments

I was at the Prøve Gallery last week and was happy to see a blossoming collection of literary magazines beside the small press books from Holy Cow! and the fine art. I thought it might be fun to catch folks up on the literary publications in our community.



Kathleen Roberts edits Prøof: Prøve Gallery is a contemporary and experimental art gallery located in downtown Duluth; Prøof is its literary and artistic (including multimedia) magazine.

Laura Gapske points us to Minerva zine, a favorite of mine that sets out to empower women, educate others, and encourage consciousness raising on issues relevant to us by the use of art, collage, images and words. Minerva’s second anniversary party will be at Prøve, and the wonderful zine library will be there, along with a makeshift reading lounge. Party will be at the end of February. Come one, come all literary enthusiasts!

Ed Newman offered a list of Minnesota literary journals.
Know Your Minnesota Lit Mags | The Review Review

Ashley S. Kolka, of the MacRostie Art Center in Grand Rapids, notes that she is one of two art editors for Dialogist.

Kathleen Roberts points us to Aqueous, a literary and visual art journal for the Lake Superior region. This publication is released quarterly on the solstices and equinoxes throughout the year.

Crystal S Gibbins pointed me toward Split Rock Review,an online literary magazine dedicated to publishing innovative work by writers and artists.

What else did I miss?

Recommended Links:


Art

7 Comments

adam

about 11 years ago 

Anti-Valentines: Thursday, February 13, 2014

Paul Lundgren

about 11 years ago 



UW-Superior's student literary journal is The Namadji Review. I've never actually seen a copy of it anywhere, and the website hasn't been updated since the first issue, but I'm pretty sure it still exists.

jasonrmcdowell

about 11 years ago 

I was the editor for the first edition of the Nemadji Review. They did publish a second edition last year. I'm not sure if there will be a Spring 2014 issue or not, since I moved to NYC and most who I worked with on the 2012 journal have graduated.  

As far as finding copies, it's a student organization, so they are only allowed to distribute them on the UW-Superior campus (which is why they put them online). I will follow up with them to see if someone can get the Spring 2013 issue online, and see if there will be a Spring 2014 issue.

Paul Lundgren

about 11 years ago 

I'd like to highlight a few local lit publications that no longer exist, for the sake of posterity. I'll start with the grandaddy of them all -- North Coast Review.



It was published by Poetry Harbor out of Duluth during the 1990s and early 2000s and partially funded by the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council. (There is now a publication of the same name serving as the literary journal of Lorain County Community College in Ohio.) 

It's a shame such a journal doesn't exist anymore in Duluth. Back when I was a dirtbag writer in my 20s it was cool to get published next to Bill Holm, Barton Sutter, Denise Sweet, Philip Dacey, etc. and receive that fat check in the mail for $20.

Paul Lundgren

about 11 years ago 

 

Wistera was UWS' literary journal in the mid 1990s. I think there might have been only two issues.

 

Jessica Hall published Milk on an ambitious monthly schedule in 2005, but I think it only lasted for six issues. (It was mentioned in the early days of PDD in this minimalist post by -Berv.) (And for back-to-back parenthetical notes, I just noticed the September issue has a letter to the editor congratulating the publication for being "7 months Paul Lundgren free!" Apparently I was overexposed at the time.) 

Duluth Independent Zine is circa 2007. I only have one issue. It seems to have been maybe published by Harbor City International School students.


 

Time Killer/Filler spanned 2008 and 2009 and was put out by Seth Feralin.

Feralin switched focus in early 2009 and produced Souled Out, which was more of a music zine to promote Michigan Street Productions, a recording studio and internet radio station at Harbor City International School.

I think that's all the dead lit pubs in my basement, but more might turn up later.

CLeTa

about 11 years ago 

You cannot forget "And The Heroine Screams Help" (sorry I quoted because I don't know how to change the font for the title). I believe Matt O. and some other local, art folks published this zine. It is still one of my favorites because they used a paper puncher, screws, and nuts to bind their zines. It felt like literary hardware in your palms. Not sure how many issues they made but there were more than a few.

Paul Lundgren

about 11 years ago 

ATHSH! was a music zine, as was High Plains Drifter and a number of others. I thought it might be best to not include those here, lest things get too complicated, although there is certainly crossover appeal, and ATHSH! did include some poetry here and there. So maybe a separate post is in order, or maybe we should lump them all into this one.

Here's an old story I did back in 2007 about various Minnesota music zines:

A Guide to Independent Music Media in Minnesota

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