USU's Isotope Wins Prestigious Grant

The Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts announced that “Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature & Science Writing” has won a prestigious literary publishing grant for fiscal year 2007.

The journal is housed in Utah State University’s Department of English.

 

Of the 50 magazines and presses that were funded in this round, fewer than five were first-time applicants, according to the NEA. Isotope was one of those rare first-time applicants to be funded. Other journals and presses that obtained NEA dollars were long-time heavy-hitters such as the American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, Wesleyan University Press and Milkweed Editions.

 

With its $5,000 NEA Access to Artistic Excellence grant, Isotope will move to increase its retail distribution across the country, according to Managing Editor Leslie Brown.

 

“These grants are the lifeblood of literary publishing, and we’re thrilled to have won one,” she said.

 

The funding will allow the magazine to develop press kits to send to national magazine distributors and to increase its print-run to accommodate the needs of retail bookstore distribution, Brown said.

 

While the magazine enjoys an international circulation of about 1,000 — a solid figure in the competitive world of literary publishing — at present Isotope is sold only on regional retail basis through distributor Kent News Agency.

 

“Our experience with Kent will help us make the leap to national distribution,” Brown said. “It’s not that we’re unhappy with them at all. We’re just ready to take the next step.”

 

This “next step,” according to Editor Christopher Cokinos, will further increase the magazine’s exposure across the country.

 

“We’ve been getting a lot of attention lately,” he said. “That is gratifying.”

 

Some of that attention is publicly visible, such as the “Voices of Antarctica” feature that was named a “Notable Special Issue” in the last Best American Essays anthology. As well, the Utne Reader Web site recently said of Isotope that the magazine can “satisfy scientists and lovers of literature alike.”

 

But some of the evidence of the magazine’s increased profile is behind-the-scenes.

 

Cokinos said the number of presses contacting Isotope to consider excerpting material from forthcoming books is increasing. Recently the magazine has run work that’s later appeared in books published by Beacon Press and the University of Arizona Press.

 

“I think a lot of people are seeing that what we do in making nature writing a bit edgier in some respects — and in making a home for scientists to tell their stories in a personal and literary way — is pretty special,” Cokinos said. “There really isn’t another journal out there doing quite what we are.”

 

He added that the journal’s visibility is a boon to the English Department, the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the College of Science and Utah State in general. Those units fund the magazine, along with the Utah Arts Council and the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation.

 

He added that the NEA award would not have happened without Managing Editor Brown’s hard work on the application.

 

“Some time ago the university gave Leslie a time increase here at Isotope, in part to give her the room to diversify our funding sources,” Cokinos said. “Clearly that was the right thing to do. We’re really lucky to have Leslie working for us.”

 

The current issue of the magazine is still available. For more information on the journal, go to the Web site.

 

For more information, contact Brown at (435) 797-3697.

 

Contact: Leslie Brown (435) 797-3697

Writer: Marina Hall (435) 797-3858