Failbetter 25

One of the more venerable online literary magazines, Failbetter.com, has now reached a milestone: its twenty-fifth issue. Published quarterly since the fall of 2000 (when, coincidentally, one of the other venerable online magazines, Strange Horizons, also began), Failbetter has been a model of what can be accomplished on the web. They've consistently offered interesting fiction, poetry, art, and interviews -- indeed, their very first interview was with pre-Pulitzer Michael Chabon, and they would go on to interview a number of other authors only a few months or even weeks before they, too, would be bestowed with prizes.

Of course, the web has changed a lot since 2000, and Failbetter has changed too. Now they've got an RSS feed and are releasing content every week rather than just four times a year. The quality is still high, though, and the diversity of content exciting.

I can't claim impartiality -- one of my first publications of fiction as an adult came with "Getting a Date for Amelia" in the Summer/Fall 2001 issue. Editor Thom Didato and I had met at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference the summer before, and Thom promptly rejected two other stories of mine, saying they were well-written but dull. I'm glad he said that, because "Amelia" is a story I'm still fond of (even if it's a bit too much of a George Saunders pastiche), and I only sent it to him out of spite, thinking, "Well, this may be junk, but at least it's not dull!"

I've seen a lot of literary journals -- in print and online -- appear and disappear during the past few years, but Failbetter has remained strong and reliable, and in these times when so much attention runs a deficit, and so much of what we encounter is ephemeral, I think Failbetter's relative longevity and consistently high quality is a real accomplishment.

Popular posts from this blog

"Stone Animals" by Kelly Link

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Penny Poet of Portsmouth by Katherine Towler

Reflections on Samuel Delany's Dark Reflections

What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell

"Loot" by Nadine Gordimer

The Snowtown Murders