Story (magazine)

Story was a magazine founded in 1931 by journalist-editor Whit Burnett and his first wife, Martha Foley, in Vienna. Showcasing short stories by new authors, 167 copies of the debut issue (April-May, 1931) were mimeographed in Vienna, and two years later, "Story" moved to New York City where Burnett and Foley created The Story Press in 1936.

By the late 1930s, the circulation of "Story" had climbed to 21,000 copies. Authors introduced in "Story" included Charles Bukowski, Erskine Caldwell, John Cheever, James T. Farrell, Joseph Heller, J. D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams and Richard Wright. Other authors in the pages of "Story" included Ludwig Bemelmans, Carson McCullers and William Saroyan. The magazine sponsored various awards (WPA, Armed Forces), and it held an annual college fiction contest.

Burnett's second wife, Hallie Southgate Burnett, began collaborating with him in 1942. During this period, "Story" published the early work of Truman Capote, John Knowles and Norman Mailer. "Story" was briefly published in book form during the early 1950s, returning to a magazine format in 1960. Due to a lack of funds, "Story" folded in 1967, but it maintained its reputation through the Story College Creative Awards, which Burnett directed from 1966 to 1971.

Revival

In 1989, "Story" was revived as a quarterly by the husband and wife team of publisher Richard Rosenthal and editor Lois Rosenthal, fulfilling their promise to Burnett that they would relaunch "Story" some day. Their "Story" continued until 1999, published by F&W Publications in Cincinnati.

With a circulation of 40,000, "Story" was a five-time finalist and two-time winner of the National Magazine Award for fiction. The Rosenthals featured such established authors as Andrea Barrett, Barry Lopez, Joyce Carol Oates and Carol Shields, while introducting new authors such as Junot Díaz, Elizabeth Graver and Abraham Rodriguez. With the sale of F&W forthcoming, the Rosenthals brought "Story" to an end with the Winter 2000 issue. [ [http://libweb.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/story/#history "Writer's Digest": "What's "Story" magazine?: A brief history"] ]

References

External links

* [http://libweb.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/story/#history Archives of "Story"]
* [http://www.elizabetharthur.org/bio/jvarthur.html Joan Vacsek Kouwenhoven]
* [http://oddbooks.co.uk/harris/page.php?page_key=whitburnett "Story" (September 1964): "What Kind of Person Was Frank Harris? A Cold Look" by Whit Burnett (full text)]