Epoch (magazine)

"Epoch" is a three-times-a-year American literary magazine founded in 1947 and published by Cornell University. The widely respected magazine has published well-known authors and award-winning work, including stories reprinted in "The Best American Short Stories" series and poems later included in "The Best American Poetry" series. [http://www.arts.cornell.edu/english/epoch.html] "Epoch" magazine Web page, accessed February 5, 2007]

The publication features fiction, poetry, essays, graphic art and sometimes cartoons and screenplays, but no literary criticism or book reviews.

"Epoch" is staffed by faculty and graduate students from the English Department creative writing program, and edited by Michael Koch. "Epoch" appears in September, January, and May, with issues generally running 128 to 160 pages.

History

The magazine was founded in 1947 by Baxter Hathaway, who had come to the university the year before in order to start a creative writing program. Initially the magazine was a literary quarterly staffed by the English department.

A story from the magazine's first volume was reprinted in Best American Short Stories, and all of the fiction from that volume was cited in the anthology. In the 1950s and 1960s, "Epoch" featured the first published fiction of Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo, and early stories by Philip Roth, Stanley Elkin, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Some other poets and writers who have appeared in the magazine are Annie Dillard, Jayne Anne Phillips, Ron Hansen, Andre Dubus, Amy Hempel, Lee K. Abbott, Charles Simic, Leslie Scalapino, Harriet Doerr, Denis Johnson, John L'Heureux, Jorie Graham, and Rick Bass. [http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/97/9.25.97/Epoch.html] Harmon, Joshua, "Epoch's anniversary will be celebrated by noted alumni from its pages", article in "The Cornell Chronicle", September 25, 1997, accessed February 5, 2007]

Awards and recognition

The magazine claims that "all" the major anthologies have reproduced its work, including "Best American Essays", "The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses", "Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards", "Editor's Choice Awards", "Best of the West", and "New Stories from the South."

The periodical also won the first O. Henry Award for best magazine of 1997.

Some stories from "Epoch" that have been reprinted in anthologies had been picked out of the slush pile by MFA students.

According to the "Cornell Chronicle", Shannon Ravenel, editor of the anthology "New Stories from the South: The Year's Best", said of "Epoch", "It's the best. [...] "Epoch" is just consistently excellent."

C. Michael Curtis, a senior editor at "The Atlantic Monthly", said he considers "Epoch" "one of the top literary magazines in the country in terms of the consistent quality of the writing that appears there." Curtis worked on the magazine staff as a graduate student from 1959 to 1963.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.arts.cornell.edu/english/publications/epoch/] Epoch magazine Web site