A Decade at (the) Meridian

May 2008 will ring in an important department for the Creative Writing Department at the University of Virginia. It marks the ten-year anniversary of the department’s nationally recognized literary magazine, Meridian. In 1998, Ted Genoways, a University graduate student in the Creative Writing Program, approached the editors of The Virginia Quarterly Review to get involved with their publication — and was turned down. Luckily, this rejection convinced him to approach Lisa Russ Spaar, the former director of Virginia’s Creative Writing program, and their collaborative efforts raised funds for new literary magazine to be edited by students in Virginia’s Graduate Creative Writing Program. Since that inception, Meridian has given graduate students the opportunity to learn about editing and publishing a nationally-distributed literary journal.

In its early days, Meridian drew 70 paid subscriptions and mailed out a substantial number of complimentary copies. Ted Genoways acted as editor of Meridian’s first issue, which was released in the spring of 1998. The issue published poetry, fiction, an excerpt from John Casey’s upcoming novel, an interview with Robert Pinsky, a special portfolio on John Brown, and various other special segments. Among these pieces, the magazine distinguished itself from other University publications by including a “Lost Classics” section, which featured letters from Jack London to Louis A. Augustin. This special feature proved impressive, and continues to be one of the “truly unique” aspects of the magazine, says Meridian Faculty Advisor Jeb Livingood. 

These rare “Lost Classic” pieces are usually works of unpublished poetry or prose by famous writers of the past and often come from the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, which houses the original manuscripts of renowned writers, such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. Livingood credits the knowledgeable staff at the Special Collections Library as biggest resource Meridian has when it comes to locating unpublished work. Some of the Meridian “Lost Classics” have included unpublished poem fragments by Robert Frost, correspondence between William Faulkner and Marianne Moore, a speech by Mark Twain, and an essay by Ezra Pound. The January 2008 issue features an unpublished letter by Flannery O’Connor.

In ten short years, Meridian has rapidly increased in recognition without departing from its core mission of letting Virginia students edit and manage a national publication. In 1999, the journal began featuring book reviews, one of the few times the writing of Virginia undergraduates or graduates appears its pages. “We resist publishing creative work from U.Va. students,” says Jeb Livingood, the magazine’s faculty advisor. “Do that and your journal quickly gets a reputation as ‘clubby.’” Instead, the magazine has constantly sought out new writers from outside the University. Recent issues have also stepped up Meridian’s international reach, publishing poetry translations from Venezuela, Israel, and Spain. 

In 2001, when novelist Ravi Howard was editor, the journal launched its Editors’ Prizes, offering $1,000 each for a work of poetry and fiction. Each year, the total number of submissions has grown substantially. “We had over 900 entries last year,” says Livingood, “which has really boosted our total number of subscribers and also helped to offset some of the costs of running the journal.”

In February of 2005, Meridian celebrated another milestone by beginning to use an online submission system. As one of the first magazines to use this application, it has made the submission process easier, thereby increasing submissions so that the overall quality of writing in each issue has also improved. The new system “has been tremendously successful,” says current editor, Matt Supko, and they are “excited about extending it even further with a custom-designed system.” In addition to saving paper, Matt says that it helps readers keep in touch with authors, it provides a “central repository for manuscripts so that they’re easily shared, and not lost,” and it also makes it possible to involve more students in Meridian.

Also in 2005, Professor Jeb Livingood launched the Best New Poets series, an annual anthology of 50 poems by emerging writers. Using Meridian as a springboard, Livingood created a publication unlike any other, which publishes poems from writers that have yet to put out a book of poems.

The rapid success of Meridian is evident in its current print runs, which vary between 1200–1500, and the significant number of new manuscripts it receives each month, which averages around 200. Diligent readers in the English Department’s “Literary Editing” class help to screen many of these submissions, but most of the work falls to graduate students like Meridian’s current fiction editor, Elaine Bartlett, and its poetry editor, Joe Chapman. Meridian’s selections have been featured in Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, the Pushcart Prize anthology, Best American Short Stories, and New Stories from the South. The magazine has also published work by numerous contemporary award-winning writers, such as Charles Wright, John Casey, Rita Dove, Seamus Heaney, Heather McHugh, and Stephen Dixon.

When asked about the magazine’s direction in the future, Jeb Livingood said, “It’s up to the student editors and their own vision.” Most individuals involved with the magazine agree. “The great thing about student-run literary journals is the fresh perspective with arrives with the new editors each year,” says Matt Supko. While editors come with considerable experience in critiquing creative writing, “each editor has different priorities in the creative work they select and this allows a diverse array of voices to be heard through Meridian.” Both Livingood and Supko credit the unparalleled reputation of Meridian in the way that the new students in the program are constantly refreshing the magazine. Supko argues “we have a reputation from publishing great writing without being predisposed to a certain ‘type’ of work.”

As a result, Meridian has made it possible to combine a constant well of originality with the former elements that have satisfied readers for now almost ten years. Although the editors like to keep the meaning of the journal’s title — Meridian — a mystery by leaving it open to the several definitions available, it seems that it has certainly achieved one of them:

Meridian: 
“A point or period of highest development, greatest prosperity, or the like.”
-Webster’s Dictionary, Definition III.

To subscribe, visit the Meridian Web site at www.readmeridian.org.