Literary Magazine Analysis Essays - Communication Design, Writer

Literary Magazine Analysis For the purposes of this literary magazine analysisation project, I reviewed three publications; being The Denver Quarterly, Poets and Writers Magazine and Writers Digest. After reviewing these publications, Ive found that literary magazines and journals are useful to help writers get their material published and also to keep them informed on opportunities that are available to them, to improve their writings and to help them gain exposure. The first two publications that I looked at were Writers Digest and Poets and Writers Magazine. These publications were quite similar in mission, although, they are marketed to two very different audiences, which makes their layout and content information very different. The April 2001 issue of Writers Digest, had Stephen King on its cover; that alone categorizes this publication as something that writers who esteem King works and style would purchase. This publication focused mostly on mass-market writings and how to pump out quantity rather than quality. The advertisements in this publication were flashy and some were even in color. There were advertisements every few pages that were typically a full page in length. They ranged from ads from publishers; to ads from people who claimed they could help you improve your writing, to mail order writing seminars. This publication definitely focuses on lowbrow stuff that could probably be found in the isles of your local super market. There were also some very helpful information included, such as an article on helpful hints, on how to choose the right words for you stories and poems. There were four sections of columns. The first titled inspiration, consisted of five medium sized articles about how to make your first book successful and on how to survive in the world of writing. The next column section was titled business and focused solely on publication and different methods that can be used to get published. The third column section was titled technique and contained four short articles on different methods of writing that might be helpful to writers in various genres. The last column section was titled FYI and had information about up and coming writing events. The features section of this publication revolved around such things as why its important to have an agent and questions an author should ask before signing contracts or agreements. The feature article in this edition was a piece produced by Stephen King about how its important to write everyday and on him sharing techniques he uses to write at least ten pages a day. Kings perspective on writing was that, once a project is begun, one shouldnt stop writing until the work is complete. This article optimizes what Writers Digest is all about; creating best sellers rather classics and producing as much as possible as soon as possible. From these observations, I believe the editorial stance of this magazine is to provide resources and helpful information to aspiring writers and to accomplished authors who are working on perfecting their style and technique as mass-marketed authors. The second literary magazine that I review was the March / April 2001 issue Poets and Writers Magazine. This publication focused more on stylistic nit-picky things. I like this publication because it has a very large resource section in which there is information on various grants for writing and different contest for stories and poetry that are being held all around the country. This publication is defiantly an aspiring writers best friend. This publication was similar to Writers Digest, in that the majority of what was contained in it revolved around exposing writers to what good writers should or shouldnt do. Although the category of dos and donts was quite different since these publications are aimed at slightly different crowds. Another big difference in these publications is in that Poet and Writers Magazine doesnt have any color advertisements in it. Also the types of advertisements are very different. Poets and Writers only contained ads on writing schools, conferences, writing programs, other writing publications and books on things such as new approaches to characterization. The ads in this publication were also very small in comparison to those in Writers Digest, in that, Poets and Writers contained no full-page ads. There were also four column sections in this publication. The first