While this may not exactly be a literary journal, everything that is inside the covers of this anthology was originally published by varius literary journals. This year Michael Chabon guest edited the collection, reading over 120 stories, filtered down from over 3000 by series editor Katrina Kenison. From these, he selected 20 efforts as the stories that entertained him the most, and another 100 that were considered distinguished stories.
The 120 stories that find their titles listed in this anthology come from 39 different journals, with the New Yorker leading the way with 6 of the Top 20 and another 24 in the distinguished stories. I'm not sure of exactly how many stories the New Yorker published last year, but that's got to be a rate of right around 60% finding their way into this collection in one way or another.
17 other journals had multiple titles listed in between the covers: Tin House with 8 (none of the Top 20), Ninth Letter with 1 and 5 for a total of 6 - same for Conjunctions, The Paris Review and Virginia Quarterly Review. Both Ploughshares and Zoetrope saw five efforts in the 100 distinguished stories. Harpers had 2 Top 20 efforts, The Idaho Review had 1 and these two plus One Story all had 4 stories total. Granta saw 1 plus 2, Polyphony had 1 and 1. Lastly, McSweeney's, Esquire, TriQuarterly Review, Swink and The Southern Review all had 2 stories in the 100 distinguished stories.
Another 21 journals had single stories: Post Road, Atlantic Monthly, Salon.com, and Harvard Review all had stories in the Top 20 and the following saw efforts in the distinguished 100: StoryQuarterly, Agni Review, Antioch Review, The Sun, New England Review, Transition, The Georgia Review, Final Edition, Argosy, Bomb, Zyzzyva, Daedalus, Prairie Schooner, Cincinnati Review, The Bellingham Review, Black Warrior Review and Glimmer Train.
If just a few of those sound familiar to readers of this blog it's because the editors of 12 of these 39 journals have participated in Literary Journal Editor E-Panels so far this calendar year: One Story, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Cincinnati Review, Southern Review, Georgia Review, McSweeney's, Swink, Idaho Review, StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner and Harvard Review (which is participating in the forthcoming October version).
Congratulations go out to many EWN members for their personal inclusions as well:
For stories in the Top 20:
Charles D'Ambrosio - The Silence of Things
Tom Bissell - Death Defier
Alex Ohlin - Simple Excercises for the Beginning Student
For stories in the Distinguished 100:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Ghosts
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - A Private Experience
Steve Almond - In Hoboken When I Was Young
Brock Clarke - The Reason Was Us
Peter Ho Davies - The New Corporal
John Fulton - Hunters
Rattawut Lapcharoensap - At the Cafe Lovely
Rattawut Lapcharoensap - Farangs
T.M. McNally - The Gateway
Alex Ohlin - The Tennis Partner
Pauls Toutonghi - Thomas Hardy's Heart
These last two both come from the aforementioned One Story. There were two others written by non-EWN'ers. Those of you who have been involved with the EWN for the last three years or so may have heard this from me once or twice, but for the sake of your reading pleasure, subscribe to this journal. That's 4 stories out of the 17 they published. Nearly 25% - while not New Yorker numbers, considering the difference in size, distribution, funding and name recognition of the authors published, they are doing an incredible job.
Congrats to all involved - I look forward to reading the stories I've not encountered before today!
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