With Tuesday’s news that Chiquita will pay a $25M fine for providing millions of dollars in aid to Colombian terrorist group FARC, suddenly VQR’s forthcoming fall issue, dedicated entirely to South American issues, looks downright prescient. To that end, we’ve just posted publicly a history of Chiquita’s practices of of running cocaine on their freighters …
Category Archives: Work
VQR Submission System v1.0.
After hundreds of hours of work, 249 issues in FogBugz, and thousands of lines of code, the VQR electronic submission system is done. It won’t look real exciting to 99% of y’all, but believe me, this system represents the absolute technological pinnacle in the delivery and management of electronic submissions to publications. The last couple …
No cat poems. Or memoirs.
From the Oxford American’s otherwise strait-laced submission guidelines: “We do not publish pornography, society gossip, or poems about cats.” I should like to add this to our submission guidelines at VQR as soon as possible.
Blue smoke and mirrors.
From the VQR archives, a 1982 review of Larry Sabato’s “The Rise of Political Consultants: New Ways of Winning Elections” that contains some great history about Virginia politics: One may wonder whether it was just coincidence that the decline of the Virginia boss system occurred almost simultaneously with the rise of the consultant system. The …
Ash Gilbertson’s photos of Iraq.
At VQR we’re providing Ashley Gilbertson’s “Last Photographs” as a preview of our summer issue. Gilbertson is a seasoned Iraq War photographer, and the photo essay is a chilling and revealing account of his most recent visit there. He was interviewed about the essay on “Fresh Air” last week, and we had him in town …
The future of Star Wars, from the past.
Star Wars fans will get a kick out of VQR’s 1982 article about the future of the nine-part series. 06/13 Update: The article can now be read by non-subscribers. I’m sorry about that.
The long-distance walking craze of the 1870s.
From the Autumn 1980 issue of VQR: The United States of America, in those bursting decades after the Civil War, was in the full grip of a long-distance walking craze and didn’t care who knew it. Journeymen printers and mechanics walked 20 to 60 miles a day, looking for work, and Horace Greeley often boasted …
Continue reading “The long-distance walking craze of the 1870s.”
The Accidental Plagiarist.
Erik Campbell’s “The Accidental Plagiarist,” from the Spring VQR, is getting a great deal of attention from the internets. Campbell’s thesis is basically that you shouldn’t even try to be original because, really, it’s not possible. Accidental plagiarism is inevitable. Anybody who writes publicly, on blogs or otherwise, will appreciate it.
“Eight Gentlemen from Virginia.”
The late Sen. Emily Couric on the genesis of Hunton & Williams, from the Summer 1990 issue of VQR. 05/09 Update: I failed to make the linked article publicly-accessible but, rather, kept it restricted to VQR subscribers. I’ve opened it up to be read by all now — sorry about that.
Bulletin wins top prize at Ellies.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was just presented with the General Excellence award in the under 100,000 circulation category at the National Magazine Awards, beating out Virginia Quarterly Review. (We won the category last year.) It’s disappointing, obviously, but The Bulletin is an impressive publication, so there’s no begrudging them their victory.