The Antioch Review

We seldom publish more than four short stories in each issue. Although the new writer as well as the previously published author is welcome, it is the story that counts, a story worthy of the serious attention of the intelligent reader, a story that is compelling, written with distinction.

Our audience is made up of educated citizens, often professional people, who are interested in matters beyond their fields of special activity. With few exceptions, our subjects cover most of the range of social science and humanities. Our approach tries to steer a middle course between scholars speaking exclusively to other scholars in their field, and workaday journalists appealing to a broad popular audience; both these approaches have their own journals and audiences. We try for the interpretive essay on a topic of current importance, drawing on scholarly materials for its substance and appealing to the intellectual and social concerns of our readers.

Like fiction, we get far more poetry than we can possibly accept, and the competition is keen. Here, where form and content are so inseparable and reaction is so personal, it is difficult to state requirements or limitations. Studying recent issues of the Review should be helpful. No “light” or inspirational verse.