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Literary magazines have published at the University of Idaho under various monikers and for varying durations since 1922. When the first issue of Fugue appeared in 1990, it was in a very modest saddle-back format (5 ½” x 8 ½”) under the founding editorship of J. C. Hendee. Other editors were students at the University of Idaho, and Ron McFarland joined in as faculty advisor and proofreader and still serves in this capacity. Although the magazine operated from the outset on an open submissions policy, most of the work published in the earlier issues was that of UI students and staff. The first number featured four short stories, half a dozen very short prose pieces that Hendee called “vignettes,” thirteen poems, and assorted pieces of nonfiction, including Hendee's Graffiti column. Funded by the English department, the magazine sold for $3 and was distributed primarily through local book stores. After the Summer 1991 issue (2.2), the editors began numbering the magazines consecutively, starting with #4 that fall. Issue #29 (Summer 2005) has just been released. The magazine appears twice yearly. |
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Fugue: the name is what we literary types would describe as “richly ambiguous,” as it has technical meaning in both music and psychotherapy (in both cases too complicated to elaborate here but accessible in the dictionary), both meanings being connected with its Latin root in the word for “flight.” We maintained its low-cost format until #13, which appeared in the spring of 1996. Covers for six of the first eight issues were taken from public domain art acquired via the Internet, but beginning with #9, and including several of the next five issues of the magazine, when Lance Olsen served as faculty advisor, the covers featured artwork by Andi Olsen. Maximum length of an issue at that time was 48 pages. In recent years, with the start-up of an M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing, graduate students have served as an editorial board for the magazine, with other graduates and undergraduates generally working as manuscript reviewers. All mss. submitted to the magazine are read by at least two different reviewers, and many are read by three or more. Readers and editors screen submissions from September 1 through May 1 (postmark deadlines). |
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Submission policies at Fugue limit prose mss. (including The Experiment) to no more than 6,000 words (typically around twenty typewritten, double-spaced pages) and poets to no more than five poems (ten pages) at a time. In addition to a contributor's copy and a one-year subscription to the magazine, the editors pay up to $50 for prose and $10-$25 for poems (as funds allow). While we realize the honorarium is small, we are committed to the principle that writers should be paid something for their efforts, and the magazine has paid contributors beginning with its second issue. Funds for paying contributors are derived from sales and subscriptions. Contributors are offered additional copies of the magazine at a discounted rate. Presently the press run for any issue is about 1,000 copies. We describe our tastes as “eclectic,” which indicates that we're willing to read pretty much anything that comes over the transom, from mainstream to experimental. So-called “genre fiction,” however, has relatively slight chance of acceptance, as does “light verse,” work showing little regard for craft, or poems indulging in overt sentimentality. Of the 400 or so stories we will read for an issue, no more than six to eight will be accepted, and the odds against any single poem appearing in the magazine are about double that. As odds in the literary magazine business go, however, those (that is, seventy to one) aren't bad, and as Fugue 's reputation grows, the standards for acceptance will become higher. |
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Beginning with #7 (Spring/Summer 1993), Fugue began to focus on feature writers in some issues. Poets Pattiann Rogers and Stephen Dobyns were the first to be so distinguished; others have included Kathy Acker, Samuel R. Delaney, Raymond Federman, Brenda Hillman, Stephen Dunn, Sharon Olds, Virgil Suarez, Robert Wrigley, and W.S. Merwin. |
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Eric Isaacson served as editor of Fugue for three years starting in 1995, and under his leadership, with the assistance of Lance Olsen as faculty advisor, the magazine moved from the inexpensive saddle-back design to the more costly perfect-bound format in the Spring/Summer 1996 issue (#13), which was the first to feature a color cover. That issue also marked the first in which outside contributors began to outnumber those from the UI community. When Ron McFarland returned as faculty advisor to the magazine with the Fall 1996/Spring 1997 double issue (#14/15), the size was changed from 5 ½” x 8 ½” to the more standard 6” x 9” and the editorial board adopted a standard logo, which now appears as the title and is used on correspondence pertaining to the magazine. Beginning with #17, other Managing Editors have included Ryan Witt, Andrea Mason, Scott McEachern, Jeff Jones and Ben George. |
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Most issues of Fugue now run around one hundred fifty to two hundred pages, and the price per copy has gone up to $8 at bookstores. Subscription rates are $14 per year (two issues), postage paid. Contributors should send their mss. with a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to the appropriate editor at Fugue , 200 Brink Hall, University of Idaho, P.O. Box 441102, Moscow, ID 83844-1102. |
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