San Francisco Review of Books

Last updated
San Francisco Review of Books
Sfrb479.jpg
Charles Bukowski on the cover of the April 1979 issue.
CategoriesBook review
FrequencyMonthly
Founder Ronald Nowicki
First issueApril 1975;49 years ago (1975-04)
Final issue1997 (1997)
CompanySan Francisco Review of Books
Country United States
Based in San Francisco, California
LanguageEnglish
ISSN 0194-0724

San Francisco Review of Books (SFRB) was a book review periodical published from the mid-1970s to 1997 in the Bay Area, California, United States. Founding editor-publisher Ronald Nowicki launched his publication April 1975, a time when the San Francisco Chronicle depended on the wire services for its reviews. SFRB began as a magazine and later adopted a tabloid format.

Contents

In addition to the reviews and coverage of San Francisco's small press scene, SFRB offered interviews with such authors as Eric Ambler, Ann Beattie, Ray Bradbury, John Kenneth Galbraith, Herbert Gold, Elia Kazan, Jerzy Kosinski, William Kotzwinkle, Henry Miller, and Paul Theroux.

Contributors

The roster of SFRB contributors included Alice Adams, Carolyn Burke, Alexander Chee, Peter Dreyer (interview with Henry Miller in the February 1977 issue), Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Thomas Gladysz, Stephen Greenblatt, Pam Houston, Diane Johnson, Emily Leider, Michael McDonagh, Leonard Michaels, Steven Moore, Ishmael Reed [1] and Mary Elizabeth Williams. In addition to his editor's column, Nowicki also wrote occasional reviews. Susie Bright was a columnist from 1992 to 1994. [2]

When 27-year-old Wendy Lesser, with no editing experience, was a guest editor in 1980, she found the experience so rewarding that three months later she launched her own publication, The Threepenny Review . [3]

SFRB received little funding and had no backers, so it relied on a combination of advertising revenues, subscriptions, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and volunteers for financial support. Despite the limited funding, SFRB was published regularly under Nowicki's editorship until the late 1980s. When it was sold in 1989, Nowicki was retained as the editor for one year until a successor was installed. The publication continued well into the late 1990s with various owners, while Nowicki left to interview the last survivors of the Warsaw cabaret for his first book, Warsaw: The Cabaret Years (Mercury House, 1992), about cabaret and coffeehouse life between the wars in Warsaw. His articles have appeared in The New York Times , Newsweek , North American Review and other publications. [4] Nowicki has been active in the Polish communities in San Francisco and London, where he currently lives. [5]

Archives

SFRB can be found in several major libraries, including the New York Public Library, the San Francisco Public Library, and the Library of the University of California at Berkeley.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Factsheet Five</i>

Factsheet Five was a periodical mostly consisting of short reviews of privately produced printed matter along with contact details of the editors and publishers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ishmael Reed</span> American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, and playwright (born 1938)

Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, composer, playwright, editor and publisher known for his satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known work is Mumbo Jumbo (1972), a sprawling and unorthodox novel set in 1920s New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greil Marcus</span> American author, music journalist and cultural critic

Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susie Bright</span> American writer and feminist

Susannah Bright is an American feminist, author and journalist, often on the subject of politics and sexuality.

<i>On Our Backs</i> Women-run erotica magazine

On Our Backs was the first women-run erotica magazine and the first magazine to feature lesbian erotica for a lesbian audience in the United States. It ran from 1984 to 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literary magazine</span> Periodical devoted to literature

A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters. Literary magazines are often called literary journals, or little magazines, terms intended to contrast them with larger, commercial magazines.

<i>Publishers Weekly</i> American weekly trade news magazine

Publishers Weekly (PW) is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of Book Publishing and Bookselling". With 51 issues a year, the emphasis today is on book reviews.

<i>The Threepenny Review</i> American literary magazine

The Threepenny Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1980. It is published in Berkeley, California, by founding editor Wendy Lesser. Maintaining a quarterly schedule, it offers fiction, memoirs, poetry, essays and criticism to a readership of 10,000. Without the support of patrons or a university, the publication has an annual budget of $200,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shawn Wong</span> Chinese American author and scholar (born 1949)

Shawn K. Wong is a Chinese American author and scholar. He has served as the Professor of English, Director of the University Honors Program (2003–06), Chair of the Department of English (1997–2002), and Director of the Creative Writing Program (1995–97) at the University of Washington, where he has been on the faculty since 1984 and teaches courses covering critical theory, Asian American studies, which he is considered a pioneer in, and fiction writing. Wong received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California Berkeley (1971) and a master's degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University (1974).

Jim Powell is an American poet, translator, and classicist from the San Francisco Bay Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cole Swensen</span> American poet

Cole Swensen is an American poet, translator, editor, copywriter, and professor. Swensen was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and is the author of more than ten poetry collections and as many translations of works from the French. She received her B.A. and M.A. from San Francisco State University and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and served as the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Denver. She taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa until 2012 when she joined the faculty of Brown University's Literary Arts Program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Litquake</span>

Litquake is San Francisco's annual literary festival. Originally named Litstock, the festival events took place in a single day in Golden Gate Park in the spring of 1999. It now has a two-week run in mid-October, as well as year-round programs and workshops.

The Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, "dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature". The Foundation makes annual awards for books published in the US during the previous year that make contributions to American multicultural literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Galassi</span> American poet

Jonathan Galassi has served as the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux and is currently the Chairman and Executive Editor.

Ronald Nowicki is an American author and magazine editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore</span> American activist and author

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is an American author and activist. She is the author of two memoirs and three novels, and the editor of six nonfiction anthologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Brown (author)</span>

Kevin Brown is an American biographer, essayist, translator, and author. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Brown developed an interest in writing after completing high school in 1977. While pursuing his studies at Columbia University and City University of New York, he wrote literature reviews and essays for Threepenny Review.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Henderson (poet)</span> American writer and poet (born 1942)

David Henderson is an American writer and poet. Henderson was a co-founder of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s. He has been an active member of New York’s Lower East Side art community for more than 40 years. His work has appeared in many literary publications and anthologies, and he has published four volumes of his own poetry. He is most known for his highly acclaimed biography of rock guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, which he revised and expanded for a second edition which was published in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucille Lang Day</span> American poet

Lucille Lang Day is an American poet, writer, and science and health educator. Day has authored or edited 20 books and is a contributor to over 60 anthologies. She is best known as a poet and writer for her award-winning memoir, Married at Fourteen: A True Story, for her integration of science imagery and concepts into poetry and for advocating use of poetry as a tool in environmental activism. As a science and health educator, her many achievements have included promoting science education for girls and serving as codirector of Health and Biomedical Science for a Diverse Community, a project that was funded by the National Institutes of Health and aimed to make biomedical science more accessible to underrepresented minorities.

Carla Blank is an American writer, editor, educator, choreographer, and dramaturge. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, for more than four decades she has been a performer, director, and teacher of dance and theater, particularly involved with youth and community arts projects.

References

  1. "University of Delaware: Ishmael Reed Papers". Lib.udel.edu. Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  2. "Susie Bright resume" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  3. "Guthmann, Edward. "Threepenny Review marks 25 years of doggedly panning for literary gold," San Francisco Chronicle, January 7, 2005". Sfgate.com. 2005-01-07. Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  4. "Nowicki, Ron. "Yes, There Is No Free Lunch," The New York Times, January 29, 1989". New York Times. 1989-01-29. Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  5. Mercury House: Warsaw: The Cabaret Years Archived January 15, 2006, at the Wayback Machine