PUBLICATIONS FEATURING ROCHESTER WRITERS

Rochester's writers have been published thoughout the world. But a number of local publications feature work by Rochester writers too.

 

DOUBLE ROOM

Double Room, while technically not a Rochester-based publication, has Peter Conners as one of its founding co-editors, and Peter Conners is one of Rochester's leading literary figures -- a poet, writer of fiction, and Fiction Editor and Marketing Director for BOA Editions, Ltd.

Double Room devotes itself to prose poetry and flash fiction. Those who like fast reading may find it to their taste.

HAZMAT REVIEW

Hazmat Review (the term is short for 'hazardous materials') is probably Rochester's leading literary publication. Led by novelist Nick DiChario of Write Book and Gift Shop in Honeoye Falls, and poet Norm Davis (Editor and Publisher), Hazmat publishes poetry and short fiction in the classic small press tradition. Selections from Hazmat Literary Review can be read online.

Metropolitan

Metropolitan regularly covers the Rochester cultural community, and occasionally features writing by and about local literary figures. Metropolitan is available at libraries, shops, arts facilities, restaurants and retail establishments throughout the region.

 

Its parent web site, the Arts and Cultural Council, is also worth visiting, not least because of its superb Cultural Events Calendar, which covers local literary events as well as other events in the arts.

PRODIGY REVIEW

Prodigy Review is a publication for younger writers. The Prodigy Review accepts poetry, prose and nonfiction by high school students in the greater Rochester area, but is produced in association with writers from Writers & Books. Archived issues are available online.

SIGNATURES

In terms of sheer visual professionalism, Signatures is undoubtedly the best produced literary journal in Rochester, and arguably one of the best produced journals in New York State.

 

RIT's graphics students lavish world-class skills on the production of Signatures, and while the actual content isn't always up to the packaging, sometimes it has an underrated strength all its own. Words and images come together in Signatures with a strength that does Rochester credit, and that too few people notice.

UNREAL CITY

Unreal City first began as a venue for a number of workshop writers attending Writers & Books, but has gone on to win international praise for its poetry selections, and also to attract a strikingly diverse range of writers' voices from around the globe. It accepts contributors by invitation only, and invitations are few and rare.

Unreal City is the least 'Rochesterian' of Rochester's literary publications, arguably the one highest in literary quality, and certainly the one with the most unexpected juxtapositions -- translations of Michaelangelo rub shoulders with Westerns and postmodern pop follows Soviet socialist realism without a blink.

Uneven, formidable, transnational, and cryptic, Unreal City is also, a technical sense, the most cutting-edge local publication of the lot, since it exists in digital form alone. You can read it, in toto, at www.unrealcity.us