Little Magazine Interview Index

The Little Magazine Interview Index, one of the most extensive of its kind in the United States, holds approximately 7,000 English-language literary magazines, most of which are full runs. The collection is international in scope, with the majority published in the United States and others from Canada, England, South Africa, Ireland, Scotland, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. Little magazines are non-commercial and avant-garde in nature, often associated with significant literary, cultural, and artistic movements. They feature the work of established as well as obscure writers, many of whom eventually achieved critical and public recognition as a result of those early publications. They have been especially influential in the historical development of modern and experimental poetry.

The historical basis of this collection rests on an extensive private collection (of Dr. Marvin Sukov), acquired by the University of Wisconsin in 1959. Journals have been regularly and systematically added and the collection currently maintains hundreds of active subscriptions, which are held in Memorial Library’s Department of Special Collections and listed in the UW Libraries’ online catalog. The collection is a rich and resonant resource, much used by scholars and researchers.

Interviews given by literary authors and artists are an important component of many little magazines. They provide valuable insights into their creative processes and the context of their works. Interviews, however, are rarely or inadequately indexed in printed indexes and journal databases. From 1975 through 2013, the wealth of interviews appearing in current issues of little magazines was indexed in a yearly file, compiled by librarians with the help of student assistants, and published in Serials Review. This cumulative, online Index provides instant access to thousands of interviews in a single location.

The Index project has as its purpose:

• To allow researchers to locate the interviews given by creative writers and other artists over several decades,
• To provide access to authors, interviewers, and journal issues in which interviews appeared,
• To identify the journals regularly publishing interviews.

For information regarding use of the Little Magazine Interview Index, contact Special Collections at the following location:

Department of Special Collections
Memorial Library
University of Wisconsin-Madison
728 State Street, Madison, WI 53706-1494
(608) 262-3243
askspecial@library.wisc.edu