ASU Poly students produce literary e-magazine

Just as the Superstition Mountains are a Valley landmark, an online literary journal that’s taken the craggy range’s name is poised to become a notable figure on the map of modern literature.

“Superstition Review,” an online literary magazine produced by students at ASU Polytechnic in Mesa, releases its third issue next month, and a free reading to herald the release is 7:30 p.m. Monday at the campus’ Cooley Ballroom.

“It’s the only online national literary magazine produced by undergraduate students. It doesn’t exist anywhere else; we’re the only ones doing what we do,” says Patricia Colleen Murphy, managing editor of the journal.

The year-old review is already landing short stories, essays and poems from some of the literary world’s heavyweights: Brian Doyle, Dara Weir, Floyd Skloot, Jim Daniels, Joan Connor, Judith Cofer Ortiz, Mark Irwin, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Samuel Pickering, Stuart Dybek, Lee Gutkind. The next issue, out April 20, will feature work by Sherman Alexie, Dick Allen and Mary Sojourner, and interviews with T.C. Boyle and Stella Pope Duarte.

“We’ve been really lucky to get some of the names we’ve gotten,” says Murphy, who teaches poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction at ASU Polytechnic. “As soon as the authors find out we’re undergrads, they’re really excited about it and willing to send us work that they could easily publish elsewhere and get paid for.”

The journal, published entirely online each spring and fall, publishes new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art and interviews.

The March 16 event will feature readings by Cynthia Hogue and Peter Turchi, faculty from ASU’s Creative Writing Program. Hogue has published five collections of poetry. Among her honors are a Fulbright Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry. Turchi is the author of five books, and his stories have appeared in “Ploughshares,” “Story,” and “The Alaska Quarterly Review.” He teaches and is director of creative writing at ASU’s Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing.

A second free reading, featuring work by ASU students, will be held April 20.

“Superstition Review” is nominated for an Arizona Governor’s Arts Award and the ASU President’s Award for Innovation.

“The students do everything: advertising, Web design, solicitation, reading submissions, making selections. That kind of experience is very hard to come by. Undergrads in other creative writing programs aren’t getting this level of exposure to these kinds of authors,” says Murphy.