TriQuarterly — LLMpedia

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TriQuarterly is an American literary magazine founded in 1958 associated with Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; it became influential in postwar American literature circles, publishing fiction, poetry, essays, and translations. The journal nurtured writers linked to movements and institutions such as the Chicago literary scene, the New Critics, and the creative writing programs at universities like Iowa Writers' Workshop, Columbia University School of the Arts, and University of Virginia. Over decades it featured contributors connected to figures and works including Saul Bellow, James Merrill, Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, and Adrienne Rich, helping shape careers alongside prizes such as the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

History

The magazine was founded by editors and faculty from Northwestern University and launched amid mid‑20th‑century literary activity involving journals like Partisan Review, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Harper's Magazine. Early editorial leadership included figures affiliated with literary networks that intersected with authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks, John Ashbery, Philip Roth, Flannery O'Connor, and critics associated with F.R. Leavis and Harold Bloom. During the 1960s and 1970s the publication engaged with movements represented by poets and novelists like Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, W.S. Merwin, Don DeLillo, and Toni Morrison, while participating in debates also involving journals such as The Kenyon Review and The Sewanee Review. Structural changes in the 1990s and 2000s paralleled developments at institutions like Modern Language Association, Association of Writers & Writing Programs, and programs influenced by editors connected to University of Iowa, Stanford University, and Yale University Press.

The editorial apparatus historically comprised faculty editors, graduate student readers, and guest editors drawn from networks that included writers and editors affiliated with Knopf, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, HarperCollins, and magazines such as Granta and The New Republic. Notable editors and contributors have included poets, playwrights, and essayists associated with Seamus Heaney, Octavio Paz, T.S. Eliot Prize winners, and translators linked to Harold Pinter and Jorge Luis Borges. Contributors have ranged from established figures like Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Eudora Welty, and Saul Bellow to contemporary authors connected to Jhumpa Lahiri, Colson Whitehead, Zadie Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro, and critics aligned with Susan Sontag and Harold Bloom. The editorial board's guest editors and prize jurors frequently included representatives from National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, and university presses such as Princeton University Press and Oxford University Press.

The magazine published short fiction, longform essays, poetry, translations, and interviews featuring voices linked to canonical and emerging writers like James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino, Clarice Lispector, and Nadine Gordimer. It printed early or influential pieces by authors who later won honors such as the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Man Booker Prize, and the National Book Award, including work that entered curricula at institutions like Harvard University, Columbia University, and University of Chicago. The journal's translated work brought Anglophone readers into contact with texts associated with translators and writers connected to Octavio Paz, Seamus Heaney, Czesław Miłosz, and Wislawa Szymborska. Special issues and themed sections often engaged topics resonant with conferences and symposia hosted by entities like Association of Writers & Writing Programs and showcased interdisciplinary contributors tied to theaters such as Steppenwolf Theatre Company and museums like the Art Institute of Chicago.

Work first appearing in the pages received citations and awards from organizations including the Pushcart Prize, the O. Henry Award, the Best American Short Stories series, and anthologies edited by figures tied to David Sedaris and Robert Atwan. Contributors and pieces were shortlisted or honored by national and international bodies such as the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle, the MacArthur Fellowship panels, and European prizes connected to Prix Goncourt and the Premio Strega. The magazine itself, through editorial projects, earned recognition from academic and arts funders including the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacArthur Foundation, and university grants linked to Andrew W. Mellon Foundation support.

The publication influenced the careers of writers and critics associated with major literary institutions and movements—connecting to networks that include Iowa Writers' Workshop, Stanford University creative writing program, Columbia University School of the Arts, and magazines like The New Yorker and Granta. Its editorial model and selections shaped curricula and anthologies used at universities such as Yale University, Princeton University, and Duke University, and informed programming at festivals linked to Chicago Humanities Festival, Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and Hay Festival. The magazine's archival holdings and editorial correspondence are of research interest to scholars working with collections at Library of Congress, Newberry Library, and university special collections at Northwestern University, reflecting ongoing scholarly attention from literary historians and critics connected to Bloom's Anxiety of Influence debates, contemporary translation studies, and periodical studies.

Category:Literary magazines published in the United States