Virginia Quarterly Review



The Virginia Quarterly Review is a literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman. This "National Journal of Literature and Discussion" is a quarterly publication from the University of Virginia that includes poetry, fiction, book reviews, essays, photography, and comics from some of the nation's most notable writers, photographers and artists.

Establishment
In 1915, President Alderman announced his intentions to create a university publication that would be "an organ of liberal opinion":

""I take leave again to bring before you a dream: a magazine solidly based, thoughtfully and wisely managed and controlled, not seeking to give news, but to become a great serious publication wherein shall be reflected the calm thought of the best men.""

He appealed to financial backers of the university for financial contributions, and over the next nine years an endowment was raised to fund the publication while it became established. Alderman announced the establishment of The Virginia Quarterly Review in the fall of 1924, saying it would provide:

""independent thought in the fields of society, politics, and literature...in no sense a local or sectional publication...[but inviting] as contributors to its pages men and women everywhere who think through things and have some quality of expressing their thoughts in appealing and arresting fashion.""

The inaugural issue was released in spring of 1925, and the 160-page volume featured writing by Gamaliel Bradford, Archibald Henderson, Luigi Pirandello, Witter Bynner, William Cabell Bruce, among two dozen other notable, mostly southern, writers.

Essays

 * Cleanth Brooks
 * Arthur C. Clarke
 * Ted Conover
 * Gabriel García Márquez


 * Aldous Huxley
 * D. H. Lawrence
 * Thomas Mann
 * H. L. Mencken


 * Toni Morrison
 * Eleanor Roosevelt
 * Salman Rushdie
 * Bertrand Russell


 * Jean-Paul Sartre
 * Allen Tate
 * Evelyn Waugh
 * H. G. Wells


 * Eudora Welty
 * Thomas Wolfe
 * C. Vann Woodward

Fiction

 * Isabel Allende
 * Ann Beattie
 * Roberto Bolaño
 * Robert Olen Butler


 * Michael Chabon
 * Deborah Eisenberg
 * Nadine Gordimer
 * Etgar Keret


 * Cormac McCarthy
 * Alice Munro
 * Joyce Carol Oates
 * Katherine Anne Porter


 * Annie Proulx
 * Peter Taylor
 * Paul Theroux
 * Mario Vargas Llosa

Comics

 * Art Spiegelman
 * Peter Kuper
 * Marjane Satrapi
 * Chris Ware

Poetry

 * John Berryman
 * Hayden Carruth
 * Billy Collins
 * Mahmoud Darwish


 * James Dickey
 * Rita Dove
 * T. S. Eliot
 * Robert Frost


 * H.D.
 * A. E. Housman
 * Randall Jarrell
 * Ted Kooser


 * Marianne Moore
 * Pablo Neruda
 * Ezra Pound
 * Adrienne Rich


 * Carl Sandburg
 * Henry Taylor
 * Robert Penn Warren
 * William Carlos Williams

Editors

 * James Southall Wilson 1925-1931
 * Stringfellow Barr 1931-1937
 * Lambert Davis 1937-1938
 * Lawrence Lee 1938-1942
 * Archibald Bolling Shepperson 1942
 * Charlotte Kohler 1942-1974
 * Staige D. Blackford 1974-2003
 * Ted Genoways 2003-

Recent Awards
Since 2005, the magazine has been nominated for twenty-five National Magazine Awards. In addition to five wins—for General Excellence (2006), Fiction (2006), Single-Topic Issue (2008), News Reporting in the Digital Medium (2010), and Multimedia Package (2011) —VQR has received nominations for Essays, Reviews and Criticism, and Photojournalism.

Since 2006, the Virginia Quarterly Review has received Utne Reader magazine's Utne Independent Press Award for General Excellence (2009) and International Coverage (2010). Over that same span the magazine has been nominated three times for Best Writing.

In 2005, VQR received the Folio Award for Best Redesign (in the Association/Nonprofit category) and the following year received the Folio Award for Editorial Excellence (also in the Association/Nonprofit category).

In 2004, the Council of Editors of Learned Journals awarded VQR the Parnassus Award for Significant Editorial Achievement (its top award for a literary journal) and the following year awarded the magazine the Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement (its top award for an academic journal).

Morrissey Suicide and Publication Suspension
On July 30, 2010, Managing Editor Kevin Morrissey committed suicide. Editor Ted Genoways was accused of harassing and bullying Morrissey. Genoways denied the bullying and in an August 1 e-mail to VQR writers said he did not "feel responsible" for Morrissey's death.

After staffers had completed most work on the VQR Fall issue to be published in Morrissey's memory, in August 2010 Genoways took charge of the issue. Several staffers removed their names from the masthead in protest, and most resigned or took leave of absence. National and local media devoted extensive coverage to the situation and the conflicting accounts of what happened. New University President Teresa Sullivan called for a "thorough review"  of both financial and managerial practices at the magazine. In the meantime the University had put the Winter issue of VQR "on hold," to "let the internal review progress." The university later stated that it was cancelling the Winter issue, and stated it might publish a "bonus issue" at some future date, or reimburse subscribers for the cancelled issue.

After completing its investigation, in a controversial report published October 20, 2010, the University concluded that since Mr. Morrissey had filed no formal complaint, Mr. Genoways would remain as editor: the University would take corrective action as a personnel matter but would not fire him. U. Va.'s human resources department will revise "how employees report [problems] and receive assistance." The University stated its intent to reorganize VQR under a new reporting structure, and bring its finances under outside supervision.

From August 2010 through January 2011 it was unclear when the next issue would be published: the magazine remained "in limbo." In late January 2011, the University announced that VQR had published a new issue, marking "the start of its 87th year of continuous publication."