Saturday, June 06, 2009
How Online Journals Can Improve on Print
"What literary journals come up on the first page? Iowa Review? AGNI? Anti-? Nope ." Tee hee, good to know that the editor of Rattle views Anti- as a big bad wolf like The Iowa Review or Agni.
Seriously, though, here are ways in which online journals (or the online sites of print journals) can do things that can't be done in print (aside from the inherent advantages of online publishing itself), and a few journals that are doing them.
Seriously, though, here are ways in which online journals (or the online sites of print journals) can do things that can't be done in print (aside from the inherent advantages of online publishing itself), and a few journals that are doing them.
- Publish outside an "issue" schedule. Anti- does so with our regular poet features, review specials, etc. No Tell Motel and Linebreak do this well too.
- A comprehensive archive/index of poets, sorted and linked. Done and done. Beloit Poetry Journal has a nice index too, though it was a little glitchy last I checked. Diagram has a really good one.
- Taking advantage of blog-style posting without looking like a blog. Anti- is powered by WordPress software but doesn't look like we slapped a few changes on a template file, thanks to the good design by A. D. Thomas. 42opus and Thieves Jargon are other good journals for this.
- More immediate feedback and interaction with readers. I like how Latino Poetry Review publishes "letters" from readers integrated into the issue they're talking about. Other places enable blog-esque comments, which I'm not as wild about at all.
- Audio of poets. This is way down my list of priorities for Anti-, actually, for a number of reasons. MiPOesias and From the Fishouse (not quite a journal, but still) all do this well. Rattle too.
- Flash, video, or other effects. This is even further down my list than audio. Drunken Boat and Born Magazine do this, though.

