No Boring, Back-Patting, Soft-Pedaling or Personally Compromised Contributors Need Apply

Sam Sacks, fiction editor of Open Letters Monthly, writes to let us know that the May issue -- the third for the publication -- is now online. The new edition features a critique of John Stubbs’ John Donne: The Reformed Soul; a review of poetry by Bill Knott and John Yau; and an in-depth overview of “Shakespeare redactions over the years,” says Sacks.

We like the publication’s mission statement as well as the hard run they’re taking at their goals:

Open Letters is dedicated to the proposition that no writing which reviews the arts should be boring, back-patting, soft-pedaling, or personally compromised. We’ve all had the experience of reading a review that sparkled -- one that combined an informed, accessible examination of its quarry with gamesome, intelligent, and even funny commentary. These are the pieces we tell our friends about and then vigorously debate.

You can find the fledgling publication here.