Williams and Little Magazines

In his Autobiography William Carlos Williams describes little magazines as having “saved [his] life as a writer” (135). Poetry and other small magazines (including The Dial, Others, and The Little Review) were vital in growing Williams’s audience and in hosting and shaping the conversation around his modernist poetics. In 1920, Williams even joined artists Marsden Hartley, Lola Ridge, and Robert McAlmon in founding their own, Contact.

We invite papers on Williams, print culture, and the little magazines. Possible subjects include:

Collaboration in the modernist movement
Williams and Harriet Monroe
The effect of little magazine publication on modernist form
Williams’s involvement with Contact, Others, et al.
Modernist disagreements as played out in the pages of little magazines

For consideration, please submit a brief proposal (a 300-word abstract and 100-word bio) by January 1 to Daniel Burke at dburke7@luc.edu. For information on the ALA and its 2026 meeting in Chicago, please see the ALA website at https://americanliteratureassociation.org