First Encounters of the Print Kind, Part 1

We continue our celebration of our FIRST-EVER PRINT ISSUE by asking some of our print contributors: What is the first print literary journal you remember reading? (And if you don't remember, what's a story/poem/essay from a print journal you'd recommend to someone else?)

Dan Coyle
"McSweeney's. I'd never heard of a literary journal before then. I read Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius in high school and he mentions McSweeney's in there somewhere. I think I asked the guy at my comic shop if he knew how to get a copy because there weren't any bookstores around. He didn't know either."

Raven Leilani
"I would recommend Crepusculara by Dave Harrity in Ruminate Magazine's 'Small' Issue."

Luis Lopez-Maldonado
"I believe every single story is important to read, and every poem to be read out-loud, and every outlet of print to be supported by the community."

Darren Demaree
The first print journal I read was an old copy of New Letters that was on a shelf in the English Department at The College of Wooster.

Sara Lippmann
"In the late 90s, I worked at GQ and promptly lost my mind on the boundless delights of the 'free table' -- where editors unloaded books, journals (as well as pocket squares and heady colognes.) There I found old copies of now defunct STORY magazine featuring work by writers like Junot Diaz and Elizabeth Graver. I must have lost those goodies in a move, but your question sent me to my shelves, where I found a Paris Review from 1996 with an early story by Elizabeth Gilbert that's pretty neat. GQ published fiction back then, and I remember going ape shit when we took Aimee Bender's "Quiet, Please" which remains a favorite short story."

Stay tuned for Part 2, and subscribe to your favorite print journal today!