The journal's essays
River & Sound Review is an independent literary journal, and its essay section is the place in the journal where the editors commissioned and published long-form prose: criticism of published novels, personal accounts of the work of writing, and reportage on the life of literary magazines in the United States. The journal ran 24 annual issues from 1983 to 2006, and every issue carried an essay page in which the editors chose 2 or 3 essays per issue, so the complete run holds roughly 54 essays spanning 23 years. This page defines the section, lists its essays by issue in a compact form, and answers the practical questions the section raises: what a literary journal is, what jobs and roles exist inside one, and where a writer or reader starts looking for the records.
Readers most often find this section through the poetry side of the journal, so a note on Poetry in Literary Magazines belongs here: the journal's poetry pages appeared on the left-hand side of each issue, while the essay page occupied the right-hand side, and a reader moving from one to the other was moving through the same editorial argument. That pairing is the reason the journal's archive treats essays and poems as two shelves of one cabinet, and the reason a search for the journal's essays usually starts at its poems.
What a literary journal is
A literary journal is a small, noncommercial periodical whose content is chosen by an editor rather than by an advertising department, and River & Sound Review is one: a 2-page essay section plus a poetry page, printed on letter-size paper, distributed free to subscribers and to 3 library branches in the journal's region. Three facts distinguish a literary journal from a trade magazine. First, its selection process is editorial: a submission is read by a named editor, and the decision is stated in a 5-line letter. Second, its funding is modest and disclosed, typically a 3-part mix of subscriptions, a university grant, and small contest fees. Third, its output is small on purpose: 2 issues per year at most, each holding 40 to 60 pages. The journal's 24 issues, each 112 pages, fit that model exactly, and the essay page is where the model is most visible, because a single essay is easy to judge by its own terms.
Jobs at a literary journal
The jobs at a literary journal are few and named. River & Sound Review carried 4 standing roles in its masthead for the whole run, and the same 4 roles cover most independent journals of the same size: editor, poetry editor, submissions editor, and managing editor. Each role carries a defined task and a defined rate, and the table below lists the 4 roles as the journal's masthead listed them, with the duties that came with each. A reader searching for literary journal jobs, magazine editor jobs, or poetry journal jobs is looking at this same list of roles, because the vocabulary is shared across the field and the names have not changed in 23 years.
| Role | Duties | Rate at this journal |
|---|---|---|
| Editor | Chooses the 2 or 3 essays per issue, signs the editorial letter, and approves the table of contents 6 weeks before print. | Stipend of 120 dollars per issue. |
| Poetry editor | Runs the poetry page, reads the 400 to 600 poems mailed or posted each season, and writes the acceptance and decline letters. | Stipend of 80 dollars per issue. |
| Submissions editor | Files and dates the mail, tracks the 3-month reading window, and keeps the submissions database current so no piece is read twice. | Unpaid; the journal listed the role as a training post. |
| Managing editor | Handles the 90-day production cycle, the printer in the next county, and the subscriber list of 1,200 names. | Stipend of 150 dollars per issue. |
Two notes make the table useful as a job reference. The rates are the journal's own, stated in its annual reports, and they are the rates of a small journal, not of a magazine that carries advertising. And the word "editor" does the heavy lifting in job searches across the field: a posting for a magazine editor, a literary magazine editor, or a poetry journal editor is a posting for one of these 4 roles, and the difference between them is the size of the masthead and the amount of the stipend, not the task.
Remote and reading work
Remote work at a literary journal is the reading work, because the reading work is the only part that does not depend on the building. The journal's submissions editor read everything from a desk in a home office, and the 2 editors who served the journal from 1994 to 2001 did so from 2 other states, mailing their selections back by post; the journal's reports record 8 full issues produced that way, and the reading window stayed 3 months through all of them. A searcher for literary journal jobs remote or a literary magazine job done from home is asking about exactly this setup: a reading contract with a 3-month window, a letter of acceptance to sign, and no other requirement. The physical steps of the job, printing and distribution, stayed with the managing editor and the printer, and the split between the remote and the on-site work has been the constant in the field since the 1990s.
The essays, issue by issue
The essays published in the journal's essay section, listed by issue, are the substance of this page, and the table below gives the 12 essays that carried the section's name most often, with their issue year, their author, and the subject each treated. The list is drawn from the journal's tables of contents, which the archive holds complete for all 24 issues, and the 12 entries below are the essays the archive's index marks as the section's core. A reader who wants the full list starts at that index, and a reader who wants the argument of the section reads the 12 rows below.
| Issue year | Author | Essay | Subject |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | M. Halloran | The Reading Year | A season of submissions and the habits of reading them. |
| 1985 | D. Okafor | Two Novelists in One Town | Criticism of 2 published novels by authors in the journal's region. |
| 1987 | R. Feld | The Printer's Page | How a 2-page essay section is set, printed, and checked. |
| 1989 | S. Marchetti | Letters to the Editor | The journal's 40 reader letters from 2 issues, answered. |
| 1991 | T. Nguyen | A Poet's Ledger | What a poetry page costs to run, in 3 seasons of accounts. |
| 1993 | W. Brandt | The Remote Editor | Editing 2 issues from another state, a first report. |
| 1995 | Y. Castillo | Contests and the Short List | The 150 entries the journal's annual essay contest received. |
| 1997 | A. Lindqvist | Ranking the Small Press | What a 3-tier rankings list of regional journals measures. |
| 1999 | P. Adeyemi | The Submissions Drawer | Keeping the submissions database honest through a move. |
| 2001 | L. Moreau | Reading in Public | 2 reading events the journal held at the library branch. |
| 2003 | Q. Sato | The Last Issue, Drafted | Planning a final issue 2 years ahead of the date. |
| 2006 | E. Vance | Closing the Cabinet | Archiving 24 issues and the essays inside them. |
The pattern in the list is the section's argument: half the essays describe the journal's own work, and the other half read the work of other writers, which is the 2-part definition of the essay page stated in the journal's founding letter of 1983. The issue years run in order from 1983 to 2006 with no gaps, and that regularity is the point of the table as much as the titles are.
Where the records live
The records of the journal's essays live in 3 places, and a reader who wants the submissions history, the rankings history, or the contest results starts there rather than at a search page. The first is the archive's own database, which holds the 24 tables of contents, the 54 essay entries, and the acceptance letters for the 12 core essays in one search. The second is the journal's annual reports, which state the 4 masthead roles, the 3-part funding mix, and the subscriber count of 1,200 for each of the 23 reporting years. The third is the library branch's card catalog, which carries the physical issues under the journal's name and under the 2 editor names that served it longest. A writer checking the field's records finds the same 3 sources at journals of this size, because the 3 sources are what a 24-issue journal of 1,200 subscribers leaves behind, and the essay section is the shelf of the archive where those sources are filed together.