The Massachusetts Review

CONTACT:

South College, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003
413/545-2689
www.massreview.org

David Lenson, Editor

DESCRIPTION:

Founded in 1959 by a group of professors from Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and UMass Amherst, TMR is one of the nation’s leading literary magazines, and further distinctive in joining highest-level artistic concerns with pressing public issues. “It is amazing that so much significant writing on race and culture appears in one magazine” (The New York Times). A 200-page quarterly of fiction, poetry, essays, and graphic art (its visual template was designed by artist Leonard Baskin) of both emerging talents and Pulitzer and Nobel prizewinners, special issues have covered women’s rights, civil rights, Caribbean, Canadian, and Latin American literature. An “Egypt” issue, published after 9/11 on social, national, religious and ethnic concerns, encouraged readers to look beyond stereotypes of terrorism and racism. Anthologies republish its contents, and college-level courses draw from it. How are they supported? Five Colleges, Inc. (the four plus Hampshire College, founded 1965) and the Massachusetts Cultural Council are co-sponsors, but as with many literary journals, charitable giving helps keep it afloat. Desktop publishing dramatically lowered costs, enabling one three-quarter time employee and a volunteer editorial board to produce it for only $100,000. As their 50th anniversary approaches, Catalogue readers, how about a philanthropic investment in literary arts of the highest quality?

(2006: CULTURE: Arts: Visual, Literary and Crafts)