By Lauren Rheaume

The Loft Literary Center calls Minneapolis, “one of the most literate and book-friendly regions in the country.” The Twin Cities Literary Punch card is a tool that rewards Minnesotans for participating in their vibrant literary community. It supports local bookstores and is a helpful way to find out about literary events going on in the area. It’s clear that Minnesota is a supportive place to be if you’re a writer or artist. So, without further ado, here is a list of magazines produced in the state of Minnesota. Please add to it if we’ve missed any!

Bare Root Review. Why "Bare Root" you ask? The name stems from Minnesota's state flower, the pink and white Lady Slipper. The Lady Slipper's roots must be cut and individually transplanted. But once planted, they spread and grow thick. Under the surface, the roots dive and tangle in a complex bundle we can only appreciate when we dig deep and push aside the chaff. Writing is a high risk, high reward endeavor. Dig deep and don't be afraid to take chances. We are looking for work like that -- complex and strong and deliciously unexpected. Submissions should showcase solid writing and demonstrate complexity of thought. Fiction submissions should exhibit an understanding of prose and an advanced command of narration. Poetry submissions should give us new insights into the possibilities of the medium and language. And creative non-fiction submissions should give us an introspective and honest view into the world you see.

Blue Earth Review is the literary magazine of Minnesota State University, Mankato. Before being wholly revamped and renamed in 2003, BER was published under such titles as Medicine Jug, The Muse, and Minnesota River Review. Blue Earth Review accepts submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and artwork.

Conduit is a biannual literary journal that is at once direct, playful, inventive, irreverent, and darkly beautiful. Despite common sense and the laws of economics, Conduit has been thwarting good taste, progress, and consensus for over ten years. Conduit publishes distinctive voices of literary merit—experimental to accessible, established to emerging—in snazzy volumes, featuring work that demonstrates originality, intelligence, courage, and humanity. Conduit champions a fresh mix of writers. If that isn't enough, Conduit reaches beyond the literary by interviewing astronomers, ethno-botanists, artists, graphic artists, and historians, et cetera, believing a vigorous imagination is one that is cross-pollinated by diverse areas of human inquiry. Here’s our review of the summer 2010 issue and an interview with Steven Lee Beeber.

dislocate is a print and online literary journal dedicated to publishing Minnesota art that pushes the traditional boundaries of form and genre. We like work that operates in the gray areas, that resists categorization, that ignores the limits; we like work that plays with the relationship between form and content. We publish fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art, but we don’t mind if we can’t tell which one we’re dealing with.

Great River Review, which began publication in 1978, is the state’s oldest literary journal. Recipient of a Minnesota Book Award and several Pushcart Prizes, Great River Review is edited by poets Robert Hedin and Michael Waters. The journal has published some of the finest writers in the country and abroad, such as Olga Broumas, Odysseas Elytis, Ted Kooser, Judith Kitchen, Jay Meek, Philip Levine, Linda Pastan, and Paul Zimmer.

InDigest is an online literary magazine and arts blog focused on creating a dialogue between the arts. While we publish on a quarterly schedule, we update our blog daily. InDigest recognizes that art does not take place in a vacuum and that categories are meaningless. We are interested in work that cannot be classified by genre, in good story-telling in all forms, and in artists whose curiosity drives them to push beyond the conventions of their media. You will find this interactive approach manifested in every section of the magazine, especially InDialogue, where artists, musicians, editors, and writers talk directly to each other about their work, as well as about larger questions related to art. InDigest also presents InDigest 1207, a reading series that takes place monthly in New York City and quarterly in Minneapolis. In addition to their own work, readers are encouraged to bring in something that has informed or influenced them in some way. The result is often funny, sometimes strange, but always interesting, showing us how we are all constantly influenced by what we see, hear, and read.

Knockout Literary Magazine is a bi-annual literary magazine published in Minneapolis, Minnesota since 2007. Edited and financed by its two editors, Jeremy Halinen and Brett Ortler, it is known for the wide range of styles it publishes, its nearly 50/50 mix of LGBT and straight writers, and its dedication to social causes. Here's our Spring 2010 review of Knockout.

Midway Journal. Just off of I-94 and on the border between St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Midway, like any other state fairgrounds, is alive with a mix of energies and people. Its position as mid-way, as a place of boundary crossing, also reflects our vision for this journal. The work here complicates and questions the boundaries of genre, binary, and aesthetic. It offers surprises and ways of re-seeing, re-thinking, and re-feeling: a veritable banquet of literary fare. Which is why, in each new issue, we are honored to present work by both new and established writers alike. We are looking to act not only as a bridge between aesthetics (and maybe even coasts) but we are looking to create a sense of place as well. And like any good fair, place is a relative term as the contents and attractions change frequently. So, if you’ve come here seeking the traditional quarterly magazine, well, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Minnetonka Review seeks out and publishes works of literary merit by both new and established authors. Each issue engages and entertains our readers with the very best fiction, essays, and poems. Minnetonka Review is headquartered on Lake Minnetonka, which is one of the largest lakes in Minnesota, located just west of the Twin Cities.

Paper Darts. With a beer in one tentacle and a book in another, Paper Darts is taking back the lit scene, one lame pen and quill metaphor at a time. We are primarily a magazine, but we are also a publishing press, a creative agency, a community, and an idea. We believe that the debate about the future of print literature is over, and in some ways, never really began. We are a city, a nation, and a worldwide culture of readers, artists, thinkers, doers, and everything in between. Our generation, the one before us, and the one that will follow, have always and will always value words, images, and the creative conscience in a way that technology can continually evolve and enhance, but never break. Through humor, original voices, and engaging design, Paper Darts is leading the Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-Together underdog publishing revolution.

Spout Magazine began as a quarterly journal in 1989 as an attempt to build a community of writers in Central Minnesota. As the magazine has grown in circulation and reputation, the community has also grown to include the best experimental writers both nationally and internationally. As the counterpart to Spout Press, Spout magazine features poetry, art, fiction, and thought pieces with diverse voices and styles.

The Talking Stick is a Minnesotan collaboration of poetry, creative nonfiction and fiction and awards a winner $500 in each category. It is written and entirely produced by writers and artists of Minnesota. The Talking Stick is a decade-old publication of the nonprofit organization, The Jackpine Writers' Bloc. Writers must be from Minnesota or have some connection to this area.

Turtle Quarterly, a literary magazine based in Minneapolis, publishes a variety of story-telling in thematic contexts in both print and web editions.   Founded in 2008 by  Kate Mulloy, Editor of Volume II and Regan Byrne Palmer, Editor of Volume I. We accept poetry, short fiction, memoir, essay, criticism, images including photographs, drawings, photographs of paintings, sculpture, graphic novel excerpts.  The new theme is: FIASCO.  From painful stumbles to full-blown disastrous, crash-and-burn failures.  Let’s hear the dreadful details. Deadline: April 1, 2011.

Water~Stone Review is a literary annual published by the The Creative Writing Programs at Hamline University. The review publishes work in all genres as well as essay/reviews and writers' interviews. Features include three contests and visual art by students at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. Water~Stone, known in alchemy as the Philosopher's Stone, was composed of the four elements of earth, fire, air and water. The stone was supposed by alchemists to possess the property of changing base metals into gold, the most perfect of all metals. It was thought to combine within itself matter and spirit, or body and soul: a union of opposites in perfect harmony. Water~Stone connotes the dynamic, transformative power of literature, as well as the search for beauty and perfection at work in the hearts of aspiring writers. The logo type for Water~Stone is based on a hybrid of two ancient alchemic symbols: one for the amalgam of all elements, and the second for the element of water as a pure and dynamic force. The amalgam is a reference to the multi-genre, interdisciplinary nature of the creative writing programs at Hamline University.

Whistling Shade is a literary journal and small press located in St. Paul, MN. We take a populist approach to literature and our audience is the general reading public. Whistling Shade is distributed to cafes, book stores, libraries and other locations in the Twin Cities; our print circulation is 2500 semi-annually and we have been publishing since 2001. Whistling Shade Press also publishes books. The Spring/Summer 2012 issue of Whistling Shade will have a fairy tale theme, and we want you to be a part of it! Please send your original fairy tales to us by March 1, 2012. Fairy tales should be no longer than 2000 words and be your original work.

The Yellow Medicine Review now calls for all forms of writing for its Spring 2012 issue.  Guest editor Steve Pacheco sends an additional request for both verse and prose poems that deal with the contemporary native experience that intersects music, land, family, and/or nationhood. At this time, we encourage submissions from indigenous perspectives in the area of fiction, poetry, scholarly essays, and art.  We define indigenous universally as representative of all pre-colonial peoples.

Lauren Rheaume is the Director of Marketing and Outreach for The Review Review.