Our Blog — The Literary Type

If you're fortunate enough to have picked up a copy of the June 2012 edition of Quill & Quire, you've probably already read the feature Miranda Hill wrote about The New Quarterly. In it's 31st year, TNQ has had its share of challenges and successes, and Kim Jernigan has been a big part of that since the magazine's second issue. Miranda's article offers the cliff-notes of that relationship, and the relationship that Kim has developed with writers (of both accepted and rejected work) over the years.

These days, when many literary magazines are struggling just to stay afloat, TNQ stands out for the quality of its writing, its high production values, and even its shape.... It also has an impressive history of publishing early work by many acclaimed Canadian writers – Michael Winter, Michael Crummey, Annabel Lyon, Zsuzsi Gartner, Alison Pick, and Steven Heighton, to name a few – proving Jernigan’s success in being what she describes as a “literary gambler.”

We published Miranda Hill's long story, "Rise: A Requiem" in our award-winning QuArc issue. She later confessed that she'd chosen TNQ because of our consistent presence in the Journey Prize Anthology (though she admits, in this article, that she was also after "The Jernigan Effect:" Kim's editorial investment). Miranda won the Journey Prize for another story, "Petitions to Saint Chronic,” later the same year (just as we were about to nominate "Rise"), so you could say that our literary gamble was a wise one, though in this case another magazine beat us to the prize. Miranda Hill's short story collection, Sleeping Funny will be released in September of this year.

If you missed the print issue of Quill & Quire, Hill's article is now available online.