Journal marks 20th year with special edition
SMC Jim Krusoe vividly remembers the day when he walked into the office of the president at Santa Monica College to interview for a lecturer position in the English Department, only to be asked about his thoughts on starting a literary review.
The interview would spawn both Krusoe’s career as a creative writing instructor at SMC as well as the birth of what has become one of the most respected literary journals in the country, now in its 20th year.
The college celebrated the two decade mark of the Santa Monica Review on Friday night with a series of readings by published authors and Krusoe, the founding editor of the journal who is still a creative writing professor at SMC.
“What I wanted to do was to have a magazine that would have world class writers mixed in with new writers,” Krusoe said on Friday.
The staff at the review marked the birthday with a special anniversary edition, the first in which the cover was printed in color. The book kicks off with a piece written by Krusoe, who served as the editor for seven years before passing on the post to Lee Montgomery.
The nationally distributed magazine publishes twice a year in the fall and the spring and served as a launching point for several writing careers. Among the notable writers were Charles Baxter and John Cage.
The magazine is currently headed by Editor Andrew Tonkovich, a former student of Krusoe’s who currently serves as a lecturer in the English Department at the University of California Irvine and hosts a weekly radio show.
“It’s a real opportunity for the aspiring writers to find a place,” Tonkovich said in an interview on Thursday.
Tonkovich, who has written for several magazines, has never had a piece published in the review. In fact, his first and only submission was rejected by his immediate predecessor.
The 20th anniversary edition, which costs $7, is 226 pages and features 14 pieces. The review, the size of a standard paperback book, does not include any poetry, photography, drawings or paintings but rather places an emphasis on fiction and non-fiction, a shift made about 10 years ago.
“We wanted to create a little niche of serious, sometimes avant garde writing, funning writing, political writing,” Tonkovich said.
The magazine has developed a reputation as being a place for quality writing,Tonkovich said, adding that he has received calls from literary agents in the past, inquiring about certain writers in the review. While some SMC student works have been published in the past, the magazine is geared more for student reading, not publishing, Krusoe said. The journal receives thousands of submissions from around the country each year.
“These literary reviews in many ways are the first step to getting published,” Krusoe said.
Krusoe recalls the early days of the journal before technological advances, laying out sheets of submissions on desks in his classroom, putting the magazine together and gluing in corrections.
The journal is considered to be the longest running of its kind in the country, a longevity that Tonkovich credits to Krusoe.
“You can’t swing a dead cat in Southern California without hitting a serious writer who hasn’t crossed paths with Jim Krusoe,” Tonkovich said. “The fact that it is still around is a tribute to Jim and to the college because that is the real story.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 19, 2008. Read the original PDF.