Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review is an international literary magazine which has been publishing experimental and progressive poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction, cross-genre writing and art since 1994. It is staffed by graduate students in the creative writing program at San Francisco State University, producing two issues per year as well as an annual single-author chapbook through the Michael Rubin Book Award.

One of the unique and powerful aspects of a student-run, university-based press is also a double-edged sword: on one hand, with so many students coming through each year with new ideas about work and varying aesthetics, the journal is infused with a restless dynamism that keeps it progressive. On the other hand, with rotating editorships and a new set of captains taking over the helm every couple of years, the challenge for the magazine has been to establish itself with some kind of lasting vision which is neither too constrictive nor too haphazard.

This has sometimes been a controversial process. Since Fourteen Hills is based at SFSU, there has been some expectation that student work would be emphasized, something faculty advisor Matthew Clark Davison says has been a historical point of contention, as SFSU’s creative writing department already has Transfer Magazine, a literary magazine devoted to student work. The idea behind establishing Fourteen Hills was to give SFSU’s graduate students the opportunity to learn not only the nuts and bolts of how to run all aspects of a literary journal, but to establish that journal’s presence as a reflection of the larger literary community of San Francisco, publishing work both solicited and submitted from all over the world.

In its 16 years of production, Fourteen Hills has made good on that challenge, publishing work that has been included in the Best New Poets Anthology, the O. Henry Prize Anthology, the Best American Poetry Prize Anthology, and the Best American Gay Fiction Prize Anthology, as well as earning a Pushcart Prize Special Mention and a Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction. On the local front, Fourteen Hills also throws a mean party, often hosting its readings at the San Francisco Motorcycle Club, a venue that inspires more than polite applause.

In the face of all this success, it would be easy for Fourteen Hills to rest on its laurels. After all, with support from a university and a built-in community to show up and buy books, it would be easy to rely on that reputation. Current Managing Editor, D.W. Lichtenberg, points out that this is pitfall he has seen in the world of publishing and in new media: i.e., that publishing has come to seem like an end in an of itself, when it is really only half of the obligation. It’s not enough to rely on the community, but in the world of print on demand, one part of a press’ new role is to promote the work it publishes. “Ultimately, you don’t publish something that you don’t think is good, and you don’t publish something that you’re not willing to promote.” Davison agrees: “the journal doesn't exist to make itself look good. If we solicit something from an established writer and what we get is not something we feel we can stand behind, we don’t print it.”

This month, on March 25th, the magazine is celebrating the second printing of original goodness: New Standards: The First Decade of Fiction at Fourteen Hills, with readings by Eireene Nealand, John Cleary, Nona Caspers, Peter Orner and others. $10 admission includes a copy of the book and a good time. For more info check out Fourteen Hills online or RSVP on Facebook.

posted by LJ Moore editor(dot)moore(at)gmail(dot)com

Additional Information:
March 25, 2010 Doors at 6:45 PM
Fourteen Hills Celebrates the New Standards Anthology: A Fundraiser
AT THE SFSU POETRY CENTER
Humanities Building, Rm. 512
1600 Holloway Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94132
SEE MAP
$10 admission includes a copy of the anthology ($15 value)
There will be a reading and a curated discussion about their process as writers.
RSVP now on Facebook

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