WELCOME TO PORTAL DEL SOL
E-Pubs, Fiction, and Poetry Magazines Online
Confused by the mass of e-pubs out there? Well, so were we, till Portal Del Sol was created. NOTE: All the portal-ed publications below are rated, from one sun to five, based on quality of literature, aesthetics, and overall inventiveness. Three is good, four is very good, and five is nonesuch.
NOTE2: to all e-journal editors. If you're looking for a backslap when it isn't deserved, don't ask for a review. Thanks!
- Editors Stephanie Henck and The Bodega Babe.
| An E-Verse Video For Your Viewing Pleasure
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PDS EDITOR INTERVIEW SERIES
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Mad Hatter's Review :// View | I-view
An interview with Carol Novack, editor of Mad Hatters Review. MHR is among the most content rich literary web sites on the internet. Its depth and scope are almost scary. |
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Thieves Jargon :// View | I-view
An interview with Matt DiGangi, editor of Thieves Jargon. This guy don't like the mainstream net journals, and he's got a special vision to share. Bring it on! |
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Third Coast :// View | I-view
An interview with Peter Geye, editor of Third Coast. An old fashioned guy who wants to hold a journal in his hand, and perhaps even spill coffee on it. |
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Redactions :// View | I-view and Review
An interview with Mike Dockins, editor of Redactions, also the poetry editor of Terminus. This guy is all over the place! |
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Pittsburgh Quarterly :// View | I-view and Review
An interview with Bruce Hoffman. Over the years Bruce Hoffman has written for and/or edited a variety of labor and literary publications in the Pittsburgh area. His work is his life. |
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The Literary Review :// View | I-view and Review
An interview with Walter Cummins, editor emeritus of The Literary Review, a legendary journal that publishes writing from all over the globe. |
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Black Warrior Review :// View | I-view and Review
An interview with Dan Kaplan, editor of Black Warrior Review. BWR is the feisty thirty-year-old brainchild of Creative Writing MFA students from the University of Alabama. |
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Archipelago :// View | I-view and Review
An interview with the one and only Katherine McNamara, editor of Archipelago, plus a bonus review of the site. If you're looking for originality and quality, this journal is the place. |
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Barcelona Review :// View | I-view and Review
An interview with Ms. Jill Adams, editor of the exotic Barcelona Review. For your reading pleasure, The Barcelona Review offers up heaping plates of explorations in sexuality, Missouri, and Martinis. |
PORTAL DEL SOL CATEGORIES
2River :// View | Rating: 
This site's databanks are filled to the brim with one hundred percent pure poetry as fresh as a mountain spring. The navigation's a bit bogged down, and the presentation's somewhat diluted, but you can still come here to quench your thirst for something new. |
Carve Magazine :// View | Rating:
Cutting-edge fiction that's mostly a cut above. Too bad some of the stuff here is so dull and rusty. Get a tetanus shot and treat yourself to a nice, big slice. |
Fence Magazine :// View | Rating:
This publicaton has yet to live up to the hype. Words that come to mind are "ho" and "hum." Much of the work strives to be clever, but comes off as imitative, imprecise, and more often than not, terribly boring. A change of staff is highly recommended. There are a few shimmers of originality here and there in the print version, but too few to make it worth the purchase price. |
Flashpoint :// View | Rating:
FP has been doing okay since their "censorship" publicity stunt a few years ago, and sometimes they have some interesting stuff, but it grows harder and harder to recognize as legit an ezine that publishes the work of their own staff ad nauseum. Look at any issue and see the same old hammer-and-sickles: Joe Brennan, Jack Foley, Carlo Parcelli, yadda yadda, and pals like Mark Scroggins. It became apparent long ago that Flashpoint exists primarily as a publication vehicle and rant vent for its editors. |
Frigate :// View | Rating:
This weighty little vessel's hull is stuffed to the gills with really fine reviews and features, though a portion of its fiction and poetry could use a scrubbing. Still, step aboard and set a course for pleasure. |
Kudzu :// View | Rating:
This firmly-rooted quarterly perennially produces some of the freshest poetry and prose around. A new crop just came in, so sweet and juicy it's bound to make other sites grow green with envy. If only the look and feel weren't as sparse and dry as a roadcut in drought...still, reach out, pick a piece, and enjoy! |
Licton Springs Review :// View | Rating:
Licton Springs is an ambitious new e-journal trying hard to be everything to everyone and not quite getting there. Work ranges from mediocre to good, e.g., paintings are bold but the photography is a bit on the blah side. Poetry is adequate but reminiscent of poetry everywhere else--is that bad? No, but it's not inspiring. |
The Mighty Organ :// View | Rating:
Hear ye, hear ye, step right up and take a click. You, young lady, have no fear. The reviews, "despatches" and essays are really quite fine, quite fine indeed. A virtual plethora of world-wise, well-heeled authors eagerly awaits your every attentive gaze. What's that, sir? You're craving something more fanciful? Some fiction, some poetry, perhaps? I'm afraid you'd best look elsewhere. All apologies. What we have is dull and heavy-handed, too heavy, sir, for you to lift. Still, come inside, don't just stand there. Admission is free! |
Monkey Bicycle :// View | Rating:
Is it a blog? A journal? A fucking monkey? Strange, written for-shock-value, pomo stuff ... and yet, somewhat entertaining. Check out the one sentence stories, for example: "When the great Russian classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz first came to America, the one person he really wanted to meet was innovative jazz pianist Art Tatum so he went to one of his gigs, got soused with him backstage; and then, accustomed to adoration wherever he went, sat down at the piano, played a honky-tonk piece he'd written and waited for Tatum's jaw to drop but Art just stood there with a little shit eating grin on his face until after a minute or so, he sat down at the keyboard with his interpretation of what Horowitz had composed, causing Horowitz to put his head in his hands in utter despair and abandon any fantasies he may have had." |
Notre Dame Review :// View | Rating:
We couldn't resist investigating the Catholic version of a literary journal. We're we disappointed? Yes. Why? Because we expected much worse. If you scroll down and down and down the page of the current issue, you'll find a mix of audio, poetry, and other things. The work sprawls across the page without discipline and most everything you sample is insomnia cure. One or two pieces fail to be objectionable, but all in all, you yearn for release ... btw, don't tell any Irishmen about this review. |
Pierian Springs :// View | Rating:
The poetry is potable, the fiction's fine, but it's the photography here that really makes a splash. Soak it up. |
SEGUE :// View | Rating:
From Miami University-Middletown. Getting to the actual work is a slogging chore. Once we passed the opening "news" page and found the current issue, the first click on an author's name delivered a dull CV, and further clicks pitched books and websites--all of this making say to ourselves, what the hell? Next, we clicked on the current issue .pdf file and waited for the download ... and waited ... and waited. When it finally arrived, these poetic words flashed out at us: "I seldom go out .. the wilds are upon me .. flowers show last of their light .. feeble the songs ..
of creatures so small" ... If you enjoy poetry like this, then Segue is for you! |
SoMa Literary Review :// View | Rating:
As a general rule, themes are highly suspect, and as expected, SoMa delivers a casual, west coast sensibility that is perhaps too casual in its west coast, literary aesthetic. Much of the writing is compelling but unwieldy, in the tradition of young writers honing their craft. Too often
though, desultory prose wanders like an east coast slacker turned west coast barista stoned out on literary Manifest Destiny. Best for Cali enthusiasts and for resentful, snow-blown New Englanders who can't afford airfare. |
Terrain.Org :// View | Rating:
We will let Terrain explain themselves: "It is not definitely about urban form, nor solely about natural landscapes. It is not precisely about human culture, nor necessarily about ecology. It is, rather, a celebration of the symbiosis between the built and natural environments where it exists, and an examination and discourse where it does not." Now, drop what you are doing and go there. We're not kidding. Talk about class, soul, art, and variety! It's a product of genius, truly. |
tHrEAdS of altX :// View | Rating:
An ultra-hip, techno-injected layout, replete with funky symbols, patterns, and footnotes(!) underpins this quirky, intelligent publication. Part of the fun is figuring out where to go and what you're looking at when you get there. Unexplained fingerposts ("ebr," "webarts," "threads," etc.) rise out of the digital swampland like occasional willow-wisps, beckoning you deeper — into the realms of fast-paced, cyber-savvy essays, flash poems, ripostes, and reviews. Don't worry about drowning in the swampland...those willow-wisps will see you through. |
Three Candles :// View | Rating:
A cute little light in the darkness. The poetry is up to snuff, and the links and resources page is especially elucidating. The navigation, sprouting new windows like hydra heads, is, unfortunately, a step back into the dark e-ages. But all in all, it's on the bright side... |
Georgia Review :// View | Rating:
Why oh why does a great review like GR get stupid once they go online? Like the dim-brained editor of Zyzzyva, they appear to believe readers will become so overcome with suspense once the story is cut off in mid-stream that they will rush down to the local Barnes and Noble in desperate search of the print issue. Naturally, the superstore might not even carry GR, or else make it impossible to find. Nevertheless, we love you, GR, for the wonderful work you publish. |
Beehive :// View | Rating:
This "hypertext/hypermedia literary journal" is a hyper-banal, hyper-vacuous, hyper-irrelevant doggerelmonger of the worst sort. (Example: "I am running from a demon inside me," is a line from one fairly represenative piece. No further comment is necessary.) BeeHive melds sleek design and promising multimedia with quasi-prose and faux-poetry so dull that we recommend the People magazine treatment: just look at the pretty pictures. |
Cosmoetica :// View | Rating:
This poorly constructed, grammatically meandering site has little to offer aside from paltry poetry, inside jokes and vague angry ramblings. They say, "The Best in Poetica seeks great poems & essays." Our advice? Keep seeking. |
Eratio Postmodern Poetry :// View | Rating:
Eratio Postmodern Poetry offers up incomprehensible postmodern fodder for critics of postmodern incomprehensibility. Good luck finding anything intentionally; look for links and find a blog, look for poetry and find quotations. And when you realize that Eratio's editor, Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino has included his own embarrassing asseverations ("Discourse is like a river" is his unqualified and deplorably facile, but apparently quotable, simile) along with the words of Nietszche, Plato, and Jung, you'll start wondering whether this postmodern experiment is, in fact, a postmodern parody. On the same page, alongside the luminous Lord Duke G.V. St. Thomasino, Diane Wakoski is quoted as saying, "I feel that poetry is the completely personal expression of someone about his feelings and reactions to the world. I think it is only interesting in proportion to how interesting the person who writes it is." By Wakoski's logic, the people who bring you Eratio are not very interesting at all. |
GutCult :// View | Rating:
This aptly-named votive offering to the gods of Aesthetic Laziness is stuffed ad nauseam with language-poetry scribblings and random attempts at adhering to some gaseous, worthless credo of "experimentation." Here's an experiment for them: maybe they could get off their asses and produce something that requires more than a few seconds of half-baked thought. A language dip of boring word nachos from Ethan Paquin and a "smell of head ... freak flag" thing from Rebecca Wolff only serve to make things worse. |
Heelstone.com :// View | Rating:
Kind of like a pebble in your shoe, only less attractive, useful, and intelligent. Talk about rock bottom... |
Zoetrope: All Story :// View | Rating:
It's amazing what loads of marketing moolah and hooplah, the Coppola name, a fancy address, and a fit-for-CNN blonde editor will do for a magazine. The synergy of all this creates a consensus delusion that soaks like Orwellian dark-is-light acid into every brain pore, the total effect creating an army of parrots squawking endlessly with a sole purpose in mind: to elevate a mediocre fiction magazine into a publication of cosmic reputation. Well, pluck your feathers, get a thought scrub, wipe off the glitz, rub your eyes, and read the stuff. Pretend this is not COPPOLA'S ZOETROPE. Pretend the name of the magazine is "Shambling On" or "Dead Bodies in The First Paragraph" or "Favorite Hackneyed Dialogues" or "Classic Plots That Make Us Cringe" or whatever. Look for originality, for edge, for great prose ... Well? Do you see it? Sadly, no. But you will find insipid and predictable stories dolled up with settings and characters that facade them at first glance into appearing unique. For example, in the story, The Snake Handler: "Carlos for his part doesn't want to become a snake handler ... Carlos dreams of other things. He dreams of Idaho." Ok, so little Carlos defies his snake handler father to yearn for IDAHO. Wowza, this is heavy stuff. Has anyone ever read a "defy daddy and march to a different drum story" before? Puhleeeeze!!! Coppola certainly understands the American mentality, knows what marketing and the lure of cash can do for a product. |
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