Long Island University Literary Journal Receives Accolades

July 9, 2004 - Brookville, NY – The accolades keep pouring in for Confrontation, a literary journal published semi-annually by Long Island University. It was recently cited in The New Yorker as a “cutting-edge [literary] magazine” by John Updike. Publishers Weekly has called it “one of the best literary bargains in the country.” Most recently, the journal and its editor-in-chief, Martin Tucker, were profiled in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers.

“We print the traditional and the experimental; We print the known and the unknown," said Dr. Martin Tucker, faculty emeritus at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University and the editor-in-chief of the publication. “It’s our responsibility to be of service to writers and to spread the word about literature."

In the course of its 35-year history, the prize-winning magazine has published short stories by Kaylie Jones, author of “A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries” and daughter of legendary novelist James Jones (“From Here to Eternity” and “The Pistol,” among others); the work of seven Nobel laureates and the work of many other distinguished writers, among them Arthur Miller and best-selling fiction writer and biographer Thomas Fleming.

Dr. Tucker said one of his proudest moments came with the publication of an essay about T.S. Eliot in which Eliot’s secretary commented on the noted author’s participation in his first wife’s commitment to a home for the emotionally disabled. Dr. Tucker got to know the author of the piece through her mother, his former landlady in London, and for five years asked her to write something until she relented and wrote the story. In it, she reveals that, in some ways, Eliot may have been complicit in his wife’s odd behavior and her ultimate institutionalization.

“Our title comes from confronting an issue," he said. "It’s not about a confrontation that is argumentative. We are trying to see the various sides.”

Confrontation, which has a circulation of 2,000, has always been open to new voices and a flair for the eclectic. The mission and responsibility of the publication is something Dr. Tucker and the staff takes very seriously. “Literary magazines are very important because they nurture the new and beginning writer," Dr. Tucker said.  “If you look at the history of literature, many American and British writers began by publishing in little magazines because the doors were open to them. It’s great if someone gets to be published for the first time in The New Yorker, but that doesn’t always happen.” The publication itself has published many distinguished authors in the beginnings of their careers, including Cynthia Ozick, Joseph Brodsky, T.C. Boyle and Paul Theroux.

For additional information, contact Confrontation Magazine, c/o the English Department at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, 720 Northern Blvd., Brookville, N.Y. 11548 or phone 516-299-2720; fax 516-299-2735, or email mtucker@liu.edu.