Reflections On: Literary Magazines and Writing the Review

The first lecture I attended was on literary magazines with Kristy Cates. The session was informative and helped me have a better understanding of the kinds of things that do and do not belong in magazines of the literary variety. It was nice because Kristy was more conversational and less lecture. She invited students to bounce ideas off of each other, cultivating a think-tank environment. Kristy pointed out some basic ideas such as considering a theme for your magazine, trying to be inclusive but not all-inclusive, and using the mag as a way to give people a voice. However, because the lecture was geared towards the high school students, there was not much information about the inner workings of literary mags in the professional world. This was a little disappointing to me since I went in with the idea that it was going to be focused on informing attendees about the ins and outs of professional literary magazines, things that would be helpful to those seriously considering lit mags as a career.

The second lecture I attended was Crafting the Review with Brian Creech. I found this session to be interesting and informative. In the relative short amount of time that the lecture lasted, I felt that Creech did a good job of giving us the basics of crafting a review with some helpful tips of his own (1. Describe what it's about. 2. Say "Is it any good?" 3. Why is it good or bad?). Brian also recommended some reliable review sources, such as NY Times Book Review, London Review of Books, and Alan Sepinwall's blog. We even got to write a short practice review at the end, which was fun. Attending his lecture has piqued my interest in writing reviews, something I never really considered before. I must say, it was kind of funny and awkward at the same time because I think he thought I was a high school student! Just for fun I've included the review I wrote:

In Mockingjay, the third and final book of the Hunger Games series, 17-year-old Katniss Everdeene finds herself leading a revolution against the merciless government of Panem, a 22nd century nation consisting of 13 'districts'. Against a backdrop of what feels like perpetual build-up to the final stand, the book is ended in an abrupt fashion, which may leave readers wondering if they lost the last chapter. In many ways, Mockingjay does its job as the final book of Hunger Games, but pales in comparison to its predecessors.