StorySouth
storySouth is an online quarterly American literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, criticism, and essays, with a focus on the American South.
History
storySouth (the initial lower-case s is a deliberate device) is an online literary journal, founded in the autumn of 2001 by fiction writer Jason Sanford [1], its Chief Editor. In its pages it has published pieces on such writers as Loren Eiseley, and has feature prominent authors such as Forrest Gander and Charles Wright. Stories, essays, and poetry published in storySouth have been honored by the Chronicle of Higher Education's Arts and Letters Daily and selected for an anthology of best web-published fiction. storySouth also runs the annual Million Writers Award, started in 2003, which honors the best online fiction of the year and was named a Hot Site by USA Today. The Million Writers Award has become one of the premier online awards. Several of the writers first featured in storySouth have gone on to get book deals with major publishers. The magazine's Poetry editor is Jake Adam York [2]. While storySouth's fiction has been responsible for its considerable online influence, it is the poetry section which has drawn the most critical accolades.
The magazine also seeks to bring the Internet into the mainstream of publishing. It's online mission states:
- "storySouth's most important mission is to showcase the best fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry that writers from the new south have to offer. Special emphasis is given to finding and promoting the works of promising new writers.
- In addition, storySouth aims to prove that the internet is not just a medium of flash and style; that excellent writing can attract attention without programming gimmicks and hard-to-read fonts. To this end, storySouth practices clean, simple web design."
storySouth's growing influence in the publishing world was evidenced by a feature interview of Sanford in the 2004 Fiction Writer's Market in which the role of the Internet and the influence of the Million Writers Award was featured.