Blog #13

Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction
http://msupress.org/journals/fg/

Published twice annually by Michigan State University Press, Fourth Genre is a literary journal that explores the boundaries of contemporary and creative nonfiction. They publish personal essays - anything from travel, nature, and environmental essays - memoirs, literary journals and reviews - such as book or movie/film reviews, or even reviews on personal essays.  In addition, they publish interviews as well.

They publish twice annually, once in the Spring(#1) and once in the Fall(#2), so their reading periods are from August 15 - November 30 for general submissions, and January 1 - March 15 for Fourth Genre Steinberg Essay Prize submissions.

The word limit for general submissions is 8,000 words, and 6,000 words for Steinberg Essay Prize submissions.

When making a submission of a written piece, authors MUST include a cover letter with the authors name, address, phone number, email address, title of the piece and an approximate word count.

Submissions need to be sent via mail to the address provided on the following page: http://msupress.org/journals/fg/subguide/?id=50-214-6

Essay #1 Review - "An Autobiography of the Doctor's Son in a Shipbuilding Town" by: Matthew Clark
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• Subject Matter: Social acceptance as someone other than the Doctor's son within a shipbuilding community in Maine, family relationships (father and son)
• Voice/Tone: At times, the author's tone was that of curiosity, almost a bit childish
• Form: This piece is written in essay form.  There is some dialogue, but there is a majority of descriptions and imagery being used
• Artistry: This was written as an academic journal
• Length: 5 pages

Essay #2 Review - "Ankylosaurus" by: Jordan Wiklund
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• Subject Matter: Marriage, dinosaurs, growing up and hand-to-hand combat/fighting
• Voice/Tone: The tone of this piece is somewhat of a mix between humorous contemplation of old memories and anger with a bit of romanticism
• Form: This piece is written in segmented form(with an element of poetry), when each break signifies the end of one memory and the beginning of a new memory
• Artistry: This was written as an essay
• Length: 9 pages

Essay #3 Review - "On Slug Trails" by: Leslie Carol Roberts
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• Subject Matter: Walking on the beach and visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as the author's inspiration to do research after seeing the disappearance and reappearance of banana slugs
• Voice/Tone: The author's tone is somewhat hard to distinguish in this piece, but there is a sense of fascination throughout much of the writing
• Form: This piece is written in segmented form.  There is very little dialogue in this piece
• Artistry: This piece was written as an essay with research elements to it
• Length: 9 pages

Essay #4 Review - "Peter Benchley is Dead" by: Shane Borrowmane
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• Subject Matter: Family relationships (brothers and sisters), death and how the film "Jaws" influenced the authors life
• Voice/Tone: The author's tone throughout the writing was not only of sadness, but of solemnity as well
• Form: This piece is written in segmented form, each break representing the beginning of the next memory of significance
• Artistry: This essay was written as an essay
• Length: 7 pages

Essay #5 Review - "I Wear It as Often as I Dare" by: E. Eastman
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• Subject Matter: Family relationships (father and son), sexual behavior of men, psychological aspects of perfumes
• Voice/Tone: The author's tone in this piece is that of formality, like that of business associates conversing with one another about company affairs
• Form: This piece is written in the form of a letter, with some dialogue
• Artistry: This piece was written as an essay
• Length: 6 pages

This is only my opinion, but I believe what made these essays worth being published is that they all shared the personal experiences of the author and the people within their essays.  Some of the essays evoked emotion, while others brought humor into the storytelling aspect of the essays.  Also, they are very creative works in that that they are very well detailed and employ the use imagery to describe certain aspects of the memories and experiences they tell.  All of the authors brought forth their lives into these writings, telling stories that share very specific messages with their readers that the authors themselves learned from those experiences.