Founded in 1975 by five writers in Illinois, SQ has discovered talents like New York Times best-selling author Lorrie Moore and Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri; earned countless recognitions from Best American Stories to Pushcart Prizes; and managed to stay in print, and relevant, in a time of publishing upheaval.
This latest chapter begins in Camden, where the venerable literary journal’s 43rd issue has recently been published from its new home at Rutgers University.
Some things remain the same, says executive editor J.T. Barbarese, an associate professor of English at Rutgers–Camden, where he teaches in the recently launched MFA program in creative writing. Key components like SQ’s size – “a robust 400-plus pages” –and its commitment to showcasing the work of the field’s most notable and most promising writers have gone unchanged.
The academic setting though has put forth new energy in leadership by veteran Rutgers novelists Lauren Grodstein, Jayne Anne Phillips, and Lisa Zeidner as senior associate editors; Zach Roesch as managing editor; and select Rutgers–Camden MFA students as editorial assistants.
Julie Strasser says working on the literary journal was a valuable experience for her as an aspiring writer. “It was interesting to hear the reactions of the other editors,” says the Rutgers–Camden MFA student of the review process. “It allowed you to know what in the story was working and what was not, and you could carry that lesson to your own work and take advantage of that advice.”
Former SQ editor M.M.M. Hayes credits Rutgers–Camden for furthering the life of the distinguished publication.
“What satisfaction now to see it go forward in Rutgers University’s and J.T. Barbarese’s serious, caring hands, because the question today is no less than, What is the function of literature in the 21st Century” says Hayes, who now serves as SQ’s senior contributing editor, in the journal’s introduction. “Now, more than ever, I see the important part literary journals play in addressing the hard questions, the ones that won’t go away.”
A vital component to SQ’s existence is Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Aregood, a 1965 Rutgers–Camden alumnus, whose $50,000 donation, matched by the university, has provided financial stability for the publication.
"StoryQuarterly will retain its creative independence while drawing on the institutional resources of the entire Rutgers community,” notes Barbarese, who has published four books of poetry, including The Black Beach, which won the Vassar Miller Prize. “Its acquisition, which would have been impossible without the generosity of Rich Aregood, is of huge importance to the Department of English, its MA and MFA programs, and to Rutgers–Camden as a whole.”This issue features 26 contributing writers, including noteworthy authors Julianna Baggott, Richard Burguin, and W.S. DiPiero. The spectrum of works range in style and scope, from a conquistador’s vivid play-by-play on the battlefield to a couple’s walking at night while their neighbors sleep to deal with their son’s death.
New writers on the scene include those homegrown and from oceans away. First-time U.S. published writer Ranjan Adiga explores the careful interactions between a middle-aged Nepali father and his barber in “Haircut.” Betwixt an excerpt of Madison Smartt Bell’s forthcoming novel Devil’s Dream and “The Poodles of My Childhood” by Lawnboy author Paul Lisicky is a story by Rutgers alumnus Evan James Roskos. “When You Know You’re From Somewhere Else” details a New Jersey mechanic’s strained retirement to the Philippines. Roskos wrote the piece after he earned an MA in English from Rutgers–Camden in 2006 and workshopped it extensively while enrolled at the Rutgers–Newark MFA program, which he graduated from in 2009.
“New Jersey will probably be my setting for just about everything I write until I find a setting that inspires and frustrates me as much,” notes Roskos of Collingswood. “The novel I’m finishing now is about a fictional New Jersey suburb named Benadryl and involves a blueberry field by the Pine Barrens. Can you find that kind of stuff elsewhere? Sure. But I’m from New Jersey, so that’s what I use.”
Following tradition, a fall edition of SQ will be published in 2010. Forging new tradition, submissions are accepted only digitally. To submit writing, read or listen to samples of the current publication of SQ, visit http://storyquarterly.camden.rutgers.edu/index.html.
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Media Contact: Cathy K. Donovan
(856) 225-6627
E-mail: catkarm@camden.rutgers.edu