Featured Authors
Sam Brumbaugh
Sam Brumbaugh was born in Washington, D.C. He was a founding partner and creative director of SonicNet. He has been the talent executive and producer for a number of music-related shows for PBS and Canal Plus, and is currently producing a documentary on the life and times of Townes Van Zandt. He lives in New York City.
Rachel Sherman
Rachel Sherman was born in 1975. She holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Her short stories have appeared in McSweeney’s, Open City, Post Road, n+1, and StoryQuarterly, among other publications, and in the book Full Frontal Fiction: The Best of Nerve.
Back Issues
Open City #30
Featuring:
Sigrid Nunez
Yusef Komunyakaa
Ed Park
C. I. Shelton
Alissa Quart
Ann Packer
Christopher Cheney
John O'Connor
Karan Mahajan
Andrew Pryor
Evan Rehill
Monica Fambrough
Henry Alcalay
Jennifer Styperk
Open City #29
Featuring: Walter Kirn, Kate Christensen, Abigail Thomas, Robert Walser, Terese Svoboda, Louis B. Jones, Samantha Gillison, Michael Carroll, Leopoldine Core, Bryan Charles, Sam Green, Antonya Nelson, Ki. Rajanarayanan, Jason Brown, William Gillespie, Gordon Henderson
Open City #28
Featuring Sam Lipsyte, Sophie Cabot Black, Jonathan Dee, Laurie Stone, Christopher Sorrentino, Dan Sofaer, Gary Lippman, Adam Peterson, Sarah Malone, Michael McGrath, Kevin Oberlin, Leslie Maslow, James Schuyler, Louis B. Jones, Ben Nachumi.
Open City #27
Featuring Vestal McIntyre, Billy Collins, Eva Marer, Elliott Puckette, CJ Evans, Zachary Lazar, Dara Wier, Audrey Salmon, Jason Labbe, A.M. Homes, Karen Green, Bryan Charles, David Jaicks, Louise Despont, Greg Lippman, Stephen Campbell Sutherland, Christopher de Lotbiniére, Patricia Bosworth, Edmund White, Harold Brodkey and Tomaz Salamun.
Open City #26 – The New Soft Shoe
Stories by Kirsty Gunn, Mohammed Naseehu Ali, Matthew Specktor, Caedra Scott-Flaherty, Henry Alcalay, Benjamin Golliver, and Chris Spain. Poetry by Priscilla Becker, Christopher Kang, Jennifer Kronovet, Strawberry Saroyan, and Elizabeth Schmidt. Cover by Balint Zsako.
Open City #25 – High Wire
Stories by Robert Stone, Jonathan Ames, Charles Bukowski, Sarah Gardner Borden, Rivka Galchen, Said Shirazi, Giuseppe O. Longo, and John O'Connor. Poetry by Howard Altmann, Jennifer Richter, and Ben Carlton Turner. Art by Ellen Harvey, Michael Scoggins, Mark C, and Duncan Hannah (cover).
Open City #24 – Secret Engines, Winter 2007
Stories by Malerie Willens, Jeff Johnson, Jonathan Baumbach, Claire Keegan, Ian Martin, Dinaw Mengestu, Wayne Conti, Erin Brown, Stanley Moss, and James Hannaham. Poems by Baron Wormser, Mark Hartenbach, Kate Hall, and Gerard Coletta. Art by Amy Bird (cover), Noelle Tan, and Doug Shaeffer.
Open City #23 – Prose by Poets
Prose and poetry by Nick Flynn, Glyn Maxwell, Anne Sexton, Vijay Seshadri, Jill Bialosky, Deborah Garrison, Greg Purcell, Rodney Jack, Cynthia Kraman, Jim Harrison, Thorpe Moeckel, Joe Wenderoth, Nancy Willard, Jerome Badanes, Rebecca Wolff, Max Blagg, Hadara Bar-Nadav, and Wayne Koestenbaum.
Open City #22 – Fiction/Nonfiction
Special double-sided Fiction/Nonfiction issue, featuring: Fiction by: Sam Lipsyte (excerpt), Jerry Stahl, Herbert Gold, Manuel Gonzales, Jonathan Baumbach, Leni Zumas (excerpt), Ann Hillesland, Leland Pitts-Gonzalez, Matthew Kirby. Nonfiction by: Vestal McIntyre, Priscilla Becker, Vince Passaro (full text), Eric Pape. Jocko Weyland.
Open City #21 – Ballast
Stories by: Joseph Clark, David A. Fitschen, Victoria Floethe, JoeAnn Hart, Martijn Hendriks, Phillip Lopate, David Nutt, Véronique Ovaldé (translated by Lorin Stein), Jessica Shattuck Rachel Sherman, Matthew Zapruder. Poetry by: Noah Blaustein, Heather Bourbeau, Brian Carey Chung, Bryan D. Dietrich, Matt Miller, Ben Nachumi, Alex Phillips, Nick Tosches, Elizabeth Willis. Art by: M Blas , Billy Malone, Lorenzo Petrantoni, Robert Selwyn, Molly Smith. Cover by Miranda Lichtenstein.
Open City #20 – Homecoming
“The Egg Man” a novella by Scott Smith, author of A Simple Plan (screenplay and book); Ryan Kenealy does God’s math; an unpublished essay by Paul Bowles. Stories by Rachel Sherman, Sam Shaw, and Maxine Swann. Art by Shelter Serra, William McCurtin (of Story of My Scab and Elk fame). Poems by Anthony Roberts, Honor Moore, and David Lehman.
Open City #19 – Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Stories by Jason Brown, Bryan Charles, Amber Dermont, Luis Jaramillo, Dawn Raffel, Bryan Charles, Nina Shope, and Alicia Erian. Robert Olen Butler’s severed heads. Poetry by Jim Harrison, Sarah Gorham, Trevor Dannatt, Matthew Rohrer & Joshua Beckman, and Harvey Shapiro. Art by Bill Adams, Julana Ellman, Sally Ross, and George Rush. Eerie, illustrated children’s story by Rick Rofihe and Thomas Roberston. Saucy cover by Wayne Gonzales.
Open City #18 – I Want to Be Your Shoebox
Susan Chamandy on Hannibal’s elephants and hockey, Mike Newirth’s noirish “Semiprecious.” Rachel Blake’s “Elephants” (an unintentional elephant theme emerges). Poetry by Catherine Bowman and Rodney Jack. Art by Viggo Mortensen, Alix Lambert, Marcellus Hall, Mark Solotroff, and Alaskan Pipeline polar bear cover by Jason Middlebrook (we’re still trying to figure out what the bear had for lunch).
Open City #17 – They’re at it again
Lara Vapnyar’s “There Are Jews in My House,” Chuck Kinder on Dagmar’s trip to a small West Virginia town. Saïd Sayrafiezadeh on the stranger and his mother. Special poetry section guest edited by Honor Moore, including C. K. Williams, Victoria Redel, Eamon Grennan, and Carolyn Forché. Art by Stu Mead, Christoph Heemann, Jason Fox, Sophie Toulouse, and Bruno S. (Lori Ellison drew the complicated back cover, and named this “The Perv Issue.”) (contributors' notes)
Open City #16 – I wait, I wait
A brilliant outtake from Robert Bingham’s Lightning on the Sun. Ryan Kenealy on the girl who ran off with the circus; Nick Tosches on Proust. Art by Allen Ruppersberg, David Bunn, Nina Katchadourian, Matthew Higgs, and Matthew Brannon. Stories by Evan Harris, Lewis Robinson, Michael Sledge, Cannon Thomas, and Bruce Jay Friedman (tall, Jewish, with good table manners). Rick Rofihe feels Marlene. Poetry by Dana Goodyear, Nathaniel Bellows, and Kevin Young. (contributors' notes)
Open City #15 – That Russian Question
An excerpt from Amine Wefali's Westchester Burning. Alicia Erian on the emotional cost of jeapordy. Poetry by Rebecca Reynolds, Daniel Greene, and others. James Lasdun on travel and infidelity. Lara Vapnyar's debut publication. Jocko Weyland responds to the question, "When is your type going to learn your lesson?" The Answer Is Never. (contributors' notes)
Open City #14 – Something Like Ten Million
The defacto life and death issue. Amazing debut stories from Nico Baumbach, Sarah Porter, Michiko Okubo; Craig Chester writes on why he has the face he deserves; a bushy, funny, and phallic art project by Louise Belcourt. Special poetry section guest edited by Lee Ann Brown, including Lisa Jarnot, Anselm Berrigan, and Harryette Mullen.A photo essay of fleeing Manhattanites by Ken Schles. Art by John Kormeling. The cover is beautiful and weird, a bright hole in downtown Manhattan. (contributors' notes)
Open City #13 – Hi-Fi
Sam Lipsyte enters The Special Cases Lounge, Nick Tosches smokes with God. Jack Walls remembers the gangs of Chicago, Vince Passaro ponders adult content. Poetry by Honor Moore, Sarah Gorham, and Melissa Holbrook Pierson. Mini-screenplay by Terry Southern. Art by Luisa Kazanas, Peter Pinchbeck, and Julianne Swartz. Special playwright section guest edited by Tony Torn. (contributors' notes)
Open City #12 – Equivocal Landscape
Sam Brumbaugh sees Kenya, Daphne Beal and Swamiji, Paula Bomer sees red on a plane, Heather Larimer hits a dog, and Hunter Kennedy on the sexual possiblities of Charlottesville versus West Texas. Ford Madox Ford on the end of fun. Poetry by Jill Bialosky and Rachel Wetzsteon. Art by Miranda Lichtenstein, Pieter Schoolwerth, and Evie McKenna; a love scene by Toru Hayashi. Mungo Thomson passes notes. Our longest issue yet!
Open City #11 – Octo Ate Them All
Vestal McIntyre emerges from the slush pile like Aphrodite. Siobhan Reagan thinks about strangulation. Fiction by Melissa Pritchard and Bill Broun. Anthropologist Michael Taussig's Cocaine Museum. Art by Joanna Kirk, Sebastien de Ganay, and Ena Swansea. (contributors' notes)
Open City #10 – Editors’ Issue
Previously demure editors pubish themselves. Enormous changes at the last minute. Stories by Robert Bingham, Thomas Beller, Daniel Pinchbeck, Joanna Yas. Poems by Tony Torn. Art by Alix Lambert and Nick Stone.
Open City #9 – Bewitched
Stories by Jonathan Ames, Said Shirazi, and Sam Lipsyte. An essay by Alexander Chancellor, who hates rabbit. Poems by Chan Marshall and Edvard Munch on intimate and sensitive subjects. Art projects by Karen Kilimnick, Maurizio Cattelan, and M.I.M.E. (Oddly enough, our bestselling issue.) GEOFF DYER ON CAMUS
Open City #8 – Beautiful to Strangers
Stories by Caitlin O'Connor Creevy, Joyce Johnson, and Amine Zaitzeff. Poems by Harvey Shapiro, Jeffrey Skinner, and Daniil Kharms. Art by Piotr Uklanski, David Robbins, Liam Gillick, and Elliott Puckette.
Open City #7 – The Rubbed Away Girl
Stories by Mary Gaitskill, Bliss Broyard, and Sam Lipsyte. Poems by David Berman, Elizabeth Macklin, and Will Oldham. Art by Jimmy Raskin, Laura Larson, and Jeff Burton. A TRUE COLLECTOR'S ITEM.
Open City #6 – The Only Woman He’s Ever Left
Stories by James Purdy and Strawberry Saroyan. Poems by Rick Moody, Deborah Garrison, Monica Lewinsky, Charlie Smith. Art by Matthew Ritchie, Ellen Harvey, Cindy Stefans. Rem Koolhaas Project. With a beautiful cover by Adam Fuss. (Unclutter our offices by requesting this blockbuster for only.) READ MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM ON ANGIE XTRAVAGANZA
Open City #5 – Change or Die
Stories by David Foster Wallace, Siobhan Reagan, Irvine Welsh. Jerome Badanes's brilliant novella, Change or Die. Poems by David Berman and Vito Acconci. Plus Helen Thorpe on the murder of Ireland's most famous female journalist, and Delmore Schwartz on T. S. Eliot's squint. READ IRVINE WELSH ON INSURANCE FRAUD.
Open City #4
Stories by Cyril Connolly, Thomas McGuane, Jim Thompson, Samantha Gillison, Michael Brownstein, Emily Carter. Art by Julianne Swartz and Peter Nadin. Poems by David Berman and Nick Tosches. Plus Denis Johnson in Somalia. (A monster issue, sales undercut by slightly rash choice of cover art by editor, but by now there are very few copies left. Get it while you can!)
Open City #3
Stories by Irvine Welsh, Richard Yates, Patrick McCabe. Art by Francesca Woodman, Jacqueline Humphries, Chip Kidd, Allen Ginsberg, Alix Lambert. Plus Alfred Chester's letters to Paul Bowles. (Possibly the best Open City; limited supply.)
Open City #2
Stories by Martha McPhee, Terry Southern, David Shields, Jaime Manrique, Kip Kotzen. Art by Paul Ramirez-Jonas, Kate Milford, Richard Serra. (Ken Schles found our cover girl on 13th St. and Avenue B.)
Open City #1
Stories by Mary Gaitskill, Hubert Selby Jr., Vince Passaro. Art by Jeff Koons, Ken Schles, Devon Dikeou. (One of the greatest issues of a literary journal ever published.)
