Latest Issue of Conjunctions, Bard College’s Celebrated Literary Magazine, Gathers Writers to Explore Enchantment
Conjunctions:81, Numina Features New Work by Julia Alvarez, Aimee Bender, Arthur Sze, Shane McCrae, Kyoko Mori, Han Ong, James Morrow, Amparo Dávila, and Many Others
Conjunctions:81, Numina, the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College, which has been in print for more than 40 continuous years, has just been released. This issue of Conjunctions explores enchantment. “In a world rife with disenchantment, gathering works that explore enchantment might seem contrarian to some, but to us it felt natural, even imperative,” writes Conjunctions editor Bradford Morrow. “Words like numinous and enchanted are—wonderfully—open to a variety of interpretations. And so the writers in this issue had an even greater than usual role in defining its direction, its atmosphere, its very meaning.” The issue collects 30 essays, stories, and poems that converge on enchantment—“Think of this issue as a literary murmuration,” Morrow continues. “A kind of word ballet whose constantly shifting images spark the imaginations of all who encounter it.”
Edited by novelist and Bard literature professor Morrow, Conjunctions:81, Numina features new work by Julia Alvarez, Aimee Bender, Arthur Sze, Shane McCrae, Kyoko Mori, Han Ong, James Morrow, Amparo Dávila, and many others. Through fiction and poetry, drawings, and beguiling writings in a multitude of genres, Numina brings together a wide community of writers who invite readers to view their world anew, transfigured just a little. Or maybe a lot.
Additional contributors to Numina include Alyssa Pelish, Meredith Stricker, Bronka Nowicka, Mark Irwin, Melissa Pritchard, Laird Hunt, Jessica Reed, Nathaniel Mackey, Martha Ronk, Cristina Campo, Andrew Ervin, Brian Conn, Heather Altfeld, Eliot Weinberger, Laynie Browne, Edie Meidav, Nancy Kuhl and Karla Kelsey, Nina Shope, Michael Ives, Madeline Kearin, Ben Tufnell, and Brian Evenson.
The Washington Post hails Conjunctions as “a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions features innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. Morrow won PEN America’s 2007 Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing and the 2022 Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) Lord Nose Award, given in recognition of a lifetime of superlative work in literary publishing. In 2020, Conjunctions received the prestigious Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. The judges noted, “Every issue of Conjunctions is a feat of curatorial invention, continuing the Modernist project of dense, economical writing, formal innovation, and an openness to history and the world.” Named a “Top Literary Magazine” of 2019, 2020, and 2021 by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2018, 2019, and 2021 ASME Award for Fiction and a recipient of the 2023 CLMP Capacity Building Grant. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Essays (2018, 2019, 2022), The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses (2022, 2023), Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019, and The Best American Short Stories (2021, 2022).
Post Date: 12-04-2023