Tumblr Index: Your Guide to Artistic and Literary Tumblrs, Part III

Lists
April 24, 2013 | 15 6 min read

[Ed Note: Don’t miss Part One and Part Two!]

coverThe Millions has been on Tumblr for over a year now, and in that time we’ve discovered hundreds of fellow literary blogs on the platform. A year ago, I rounded up a list of my favorite Tumblr neighbors, and due to that list’s great response, I rounded up an additional batch six months ago. My goals both times were simple: to get more eyeballs on these great pages, and also to alert Tumblr agnostics of the vibrant literary community blossoming on the site. Hopefully I achieved both.

Today I’ve compiled the third installment in this series, and also the final piece to run on our main site. I do this not because I’ve run out of worthy selections. On the contrary, I believe Tumblr has matured into its own self-sustaining ecosystem of art and literature, and so I want these master lists to be natives within that ecosystem, too. This way the posts will be much more shareable on the site, and the blogs we list will be more immediately accessible to Tumblr users. As such, this third installment in our Great Taxonomy of Literary Tumblrs project will also serve as an introduction to a new, ongoing feature on The Millions’s own Tumblr blog: Tumblr Index. Going forward, the series will occasionally highlight a smaller and more detailed list of 4-5 blogs worth following. We’ll be able to keep readers clued into new developments on Tumblr as they happen, and we’ll be able to better explain what it is about each blog that we really enjoy. To follow the series, either follow our Tumblr or simply track the #TumblrIndex tag in the months to come. We hope to see you there!

One additional note: this list features much more art and photography than either of its predecessors. I felt readers might appreciate a visual break between book marginalia and curiosities.

0.0 Shameless Self-Promotion

0.1 General Best Practice

  • Tumblr’s Official Book News Blog: This is the platform’s official dashboard for alerting users of new book deals, meet-ups, and general happenings in the online literary community.

1. Single-Servings

2. Publishers

  • Oxford University Press: We asked them to set up a blog last time, and boy did they deliver.
  • Melville House: Serving up outstanding novellas and sarcasm since 2001.
  • NYRB Lit: Bringing contemporary fiction of high literary caliber to eReaders around the world.
  • Wave Books: Seattle’s indie poetry publishers.
  • Workman: These New York-based publishers focus mostly on nonfiction, but their Algonquin imprint is also worth checking out.
  • Black Balloon: Be sure to check out their ongoing Horatio Nelson Fiction Prize.

3. Libraries — Note: Tumblr is rife with libraries. They’re everywhere. I’ve included just two examples of individual branches below, but if you’re interested in more, I recommend these two guides: Archivists and Tumblarians.

4. Literary, Cultural, and Art Magazines or Blogs

  • Kenyon Review: They’re not listed first because we share a color scheme, we promise.
  • The Rumpus: Not only is their output excellent, but check out that Tumblog name! Wordplay, ahoy!
  • Ploughshares: There’s a reason they lead all journals in Best American Short Stories selections.
  • [PANK]: A consistently outstanding journal deserving way more attention than it gets.
  • The Electric Typewriter: Rounding up great essays and articles from some of the world’s best.
  • The New Republic: The revamped mainstay goes digital. (P.S. Guys, bring back your Daily Reader!)
  • Heavy Feather Review: Vouched Books defined HFR’s style as “Bold and Big and Varied.”
  • SunDog Lit: Drawing together voices from all over the country, this magazine is one to watch closely.
  • TriQuarterly: Northwestern University’s journal of writing, art, and “cultural inquiry.”
  • Helicon: Northwestern University’s undergraduates can throw down, too.
  • Tongue: This literary journal celebrates “an expansive, poetic dialogue among communities of thought.”
  • Bushwick Review: “It is not only a literary and art magazine, it is also a growing community of creative people.”
  • Superstition Review: Arizona State’s online literary magazine.
  • Columbia Journal: Columbia University’s MFA students highlight worthy writing and art.
  • Stillpoint: Brought to you by undergraduates at the University of Georgia.
  • Memory House: This University of Chicago journal highlights first person narratives.

5. Comics

6. Art

7. Film

8. Photography

  • NYC Past: Admire the city that no longer exists while you wait on a stuffy, overcrowded subway platform for a train that isn’t coming.
  • Collective History: This blog looks at the world as it used to be, and in the process teaches us about things that feel new. (Pig Cafeteria is a personal favorite.)
  • Explodingtorium: Archival material from San Francisco’s Museum of Human Perception.
  • National Geographic (Found): Inspiring images from the world-renowned magazine’s archives.

9. LOL

10. Poetry

  • Poetry Society of America: The nation’s oldest poetry non-profit shares tidbits of literary curiosities.
  • Google Poetics: “Should I yes or no / should I leave you / should I go yes or no.”
  • Free Crap On the Side of the Road: In our last installment, one reader alerted me to his ongoing poetry project: haikus about detritus on the side of the road. It’s incredible.

11. Bookstores (And their locations)

12. Honorable Mention

  • OSU English: Ohio State’s English department seems pretty hip – must be why everybody in Columbus seems to be reading.
  • Found Freebird: A collection of objects found inside of used books. As Adam Sternbergh noted, this really should be a Tumblr.

 

[Ed Note: Don’t miss Part One and Part Two!]

works on special projects for The Millions. He lives in Baltimore and he frequents dive bars. His interests can be followed on his Tumblr, Nick Recommends and Twitter, @nemoran3.

● ●
● ●
● ●
● ●
● ●
● ●
● ●
● ●
● ●