I live in Sydney, Australia so I find it difficult to regularly read this publication. Firstly, the selling price is almost 100% more than what it costs in the US so I am only able to purchase the magazine every now and then. Secondly not all newsagents have this particular publication in stock so sometimes it is a battle to just find it on the shelf. I was holidaying in Hawaii recently and was very happy to find a copy - although I found it very difficult there too! Is it only here in Australia where we have newsagents? (I couldn't find a dedicated shop selling newspapers/magazines anywhere around Waikiki) But... Eventually I did find a copy at a newsdesk at the departure terminal of the airport! So I was very happy I had something to read on the plane trip home. But anyway, I am currently studying journalism and really enjoy reading the articles as well as some of the fiction pieces. Because I am not able to read it as regularly as I would like to, I am not sure exactly how it works. If there are any regular readers out there please help me out! I'm just wondering can anybody submit to the magazine? Or do they have working authors and journalists that contribute? If anyone can contribute, do they publish first person journalistic pieces? All the pieces I have come across tend to feature something (an individual, company etc) but are written from the perspective as though the author/journalist has followed this person around and is recounting their experiences with this person. I am just wondering whether first person pieces are published at all? Thanks!
From their website: "Fiction, poetry, Shouts & Murmurs, and newsbreaks should be sent as PDF attachments. Do not paste them into the message field. Due to volume, we cannot consider unsolicited Talk of the Town stories or other nonfiction." To answer your last question, I do remember seeing first person pieces in the magazine (it could just be my imagination, however), though they don't take unsolicited submissions for these types of pieces.
I usually read it online, and I believe they have a subscription option for online or for an iPad version. Do those work for you? I'm not sure how electronic subscriptions work internationally. They have regular writers who contribute to them and have staff writers as well. These tend to be well-proven people and it is very hard to get a piece accepted. I believe they will accept pieces from others -- that is, writers who do not work for them or have a pre-existing relationship, but the New Yorker is a very top quality publication and it is extremely difficult to get a piece accepted.
yes, they accept work from 'unknown to them' writers, but as liz noted above, it's very, VERY hard for new/unknown writers to get anything accepted... i know, having tried a time or two... i did get a quite nice note back from an editor, along with my rejection notice, though...
I subscribe to the print edition of the New Yorker. It's a top-quality magazine. A subscription saves you a ton of money over the newsstand price - I don't have the actual numbers in front of me, but if you want to read it regularly, a subscription is the way to go. Because they have a very large circulation, they can and do pay top dollar for non-staff-written work. This means that every aspiring writer out there submits to the New Yorker first. That's why it's so hard to get a piece published there, unless you're already known and respected. I have no idea if they have rules about first-person journalism. Sorry I can't help you there. But subscribe! It'll save you money, and you'll get every issue regularly.
