The Final Four Literary Magazines

categories: Cocktail Hour

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The Finals are set: The Georgia Review vs. The Paris Review.  The voting has been extended to midnight Monday April9th.   Please vote for the finals in the comments section on this page.  You don’t have to be as witty as last time.  (We expect a much lower scoring game.)

Our scoring system is simple.  Each vote equals 2 points.  No 3-pointers.

VOTING FOR THE SEMIS WILL END AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT: SEMI RESULTS POSTED FRIDAY

VOTING FOR FINALS WILL END MONDAY MIDNIGHT.

Every year here at Bill and Dave’s we have our own version of March Madness.  We take 64 of the best small literary magazines and let them play it out, no holds barred, determining unequivocally the best small magazine in the country.  I don’t know if you’ve been following this year’s satellite video feed over at LSPN, but things can get ugly, and last week after their big win over The Believer, the fans down in Athens burned their copies of the Chicago Manuel of Style. Their passion can be forgiven; it truly is mad when literary journals go at it. For instance no one who witnessed it will ever forget the bloody war in the Southern Regionals, when the Oxford American hung on against their bitter rival Garden and Gun.

OA will now take on another program with a shining pedigree, The Paris Review, in what promises to be a battle of titans.  The surprises this year are all on the other side of the bracket.  Many thought that the Georgia program had grown too old and could never return to its glory days under coach Lindberg, but their execution has been flawless, and they play a measured style that has everyone buzzing about the old days.  The real Cinderella story of the tourney, however, has been Ecotone, a tiny program that, thanks in part to the recruiting pull of recent grad (and power forward)  Edith Pearlman, has made a surprising run, littering the courts with higher seeds.

As a reporter I may be accused of a lack of objectivity, since I still have some old connections at Ecotone (and since I made up everything that happened in this post.)  But from here on in, the fate of these four teams is in your hands.  Please vote on our comments page.  Let us know who you think should win the semis and the finals. We promise not to alter the results (even though we can) just so we can win our office pool.