Referential Magazine was launched in 2010 with the purpose of connecting its poems, stories, and essays with other work on its site. It has become a community where writers give a nod of acknowledgement and a wave of the hand to other’s works. Beginning in Fall 2013, our new editors have taken over with the same enthusiasm for creative connectedness. We hope you will follow the connections around the magazine and enjoy the content we have been honored to receive.
About.com’s Catherine Sustana described us in her Eight Innovative Online Magazines: “Referential Magazine calls itself ‘a celebration of the interconnectedness of the written word,’ and reading it is not quite like reading anything else I’ve encountered on the web. Some of the pieces are previously unpublished; others are reprints. Most pieces are followed by a reference to at least one other work—one that inspired it or one that resonates with it (though sometimes a piece is just followed by a statement from the author). The references sometimes lead to other works on the Referential Magazine site, but often, they lead to other sites. The effect is to put literary works in conversation with each other, creating a sense of context and community rather than the isolation so often created by the abundant material available on the internet.”
Please consider subscribing to Regardings, our blog, which will let you know when a new issue comes out. We publish four times a year: on the vernal equinox, the autumnal equinox, the summer solstice, and the winter solstice.
OUR EDITORS
Editor-in-Chief/Nonfiction Editor
Sean Finucane Toner is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Net finalist whose creative nonfiction has found homes in The Best of Hippocampus, Referential, Ardor, Brevity, The MacGuffin, Opium, Apiary, Word Riot, The Monarch Review, Perigee, Writers on the Job, Philadelphia Stories and “The Book of Worst Meals,” as well as at a Literary Death Match at the World Café in Philadelphia. Sean has an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University and has served as vice president of the Philadelphia Writers Conference. He has been sightless since 1995. His website is seantoner.com.
Fiction Editor
Robin Parks’ stories and essays have appeared in The MacGuffin, Hippocampus, Perigee, Prism International, and other journals, and her fiction has won the Raymond Carver Short Story Award. A former managing editor of the Bellingham Review, Robin has an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she was the Presidential Fellow in Creative Writing. Her story collection, Egg Heaven, is forthcoming in 2014 from Shade Mountain Press. Her website is robinparks.com.
Editor-at-Large
George Dila‘s story collection, “Nothing More To Tell,” was published by Mayapple Press in 2011. His short stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including North American Review, Literal Latte, Fiction Now, Cleaver, Palooka, Pithead Chapel and The Forge Magazine. A born and raised Detroiter, and a big city person most of his life, George now lives with his wife, Judith, in the small Lake Michigan coastal town of Ludington. His website is georgedila.com.
Poetry Editor
Ona Gritz‘s poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Bellevue Literary Review, Seneca Review, Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, and many other journals and anthologies. In 2007, she won the Inglis House Poetry Contest and the Late Blooms Poetry Postcard Competition. Her chapbook, Left Standing, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2005. Her first full-length collection of poems, Geode, is now out from Main Street Rag. Her website is onagritz.com.
Editor-at-Large
Ethan Joella‘s fiction was a finalist for the 2010 Robert Olen Butler Short Fiction Award and the 2008 Eric Hoffer Award (that story appears in Best New Writing 2008). His work has appeared in The International Fiction Review, The American, Delmarva Review, The Collagist, SNReview, Perigee, The Berkeley Fiction Review, Cicada, and Stickman Review. His website is ethanjoellacommunications.com.
Poetry Editor
Dan Simpson, the recipient of a Fellowship in Literature from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, has published work in Prairie Schooner, The Cortland Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Passager, The Atlanta Review, The Louisville Review and Margie, among others. Cinquo Puntos Press published his essay “Line Breaks the Way I See Them” and four of his poems in Beauty Is A Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, now in its second printing. His blog, Inside the Invisible, can be found at www.insidetheinvisible.wordpress.com.
And please check out the founding editors (January 2010 through August 2013) and their excellent staff here. It is because of their work and vision (and trust in us) that we are here today.
info@referentialmagazine.org
