The 20-year-old literary magazine Open City announced on Wednesday that it has ceased publication, but that the ten-year-old books imprint will continue publishing full-length books. Open City was founded in 1990 by Thomas Beller and Daniel Pinchback, and has, since 1999, been co-edited by Beller and former managing editor Joanna Yas. The magazine published early work by many important writers, including Irvine Welsh, David Foster Wallace, Mary Gaitskill and Sam Lipsyte. The book imprint will publish a “best-of” anthology called They’re At It Again in June to commemorate the magazine’s run.
“The twentieth anniversary and the anthology mark a bittersweet moment on which to end the magazine's run, but we are going out with a festival, not a funeral. Open City has long been an incubator for emerging talent, and that will have an afterlife in the continuation of Open City Books," said Beller in a press release.
The book imprint has published titles by authors such as Lipsyte, Bryan Charles and poet and indie rock band leader David Berman. Open City Books next title following the anthology will be the novel The Smell of Pine by Lara Vapnyar, due out in March 2012. Vapnyar’s last book, Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love, was published in 2008 by Pantheon. Open City is distributed by PGW.
