Where to buy a copy of The Malahat? Munro's Books

Dave Hill, Manager of Munro's Books answered a few of our questions about the fate of literary magazines in bookstores today.

Munro's Books
1108 Government Street
Victoria, BC

Approximately how many literary magazines does Munro’s currently stock? Is this more or fewer than, say, ten years ago?

We carry approximately 50 literary magazines and many more than that if you include review and industry journals. Before we started carrying magazines in the nineties we carried journals such as The Malahat Review and PRISM International but only a few and mostly Canadian. There probably hasn’t been a significant change in the last ten years though.

Dave Hill

Do you feel there’s a significant demand for retail bookstore/newsstand venues for literary magazines, or do you suspect their readers tend to be subscribers (or library browsers)? 

In Victoria there is a dependable demand for these kinds of journals and anthologies in a bookstore environment such as ours. I suspect this may not be the case for newsstands as much. I would expect that subscription numbers would be a sizeable portion of the market but I don’t really have any way of knowing that for sure.

Overall, do you feel that small literary magazine covers are sufficiently eye-catching? Do they hold their own amid thousands of books with covers by professional designers?

That varies widely. Many of these journals do not have the budgets or the expertise to do this as well as major publishers but they also aren’t necessarily trying to do the same job. Some are quite good though. It probably depends on the aesthetic skills of the team that puts the journal together. Design and editorial talents aren’t necessarily the same.

How do you see the role of literary magazines in the broader world of Canadian writing and publishing?

I’m sure most of our respected and well-established literary authors had their first publishing break in the world of literary journals. I think this explains why Canada has produced so many fine short story authors and poets. The apprenticeship a writer serves under the serious editorial scrutiny of these magazines is obviously conducive to excellence and craftsmanship. I’m sure the editors at the major publishing houses watch these magazines for new talent or would at least be influenced by the publishing history of a prospective author.

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