VOLT is an annual literary magazine founded in 1991 by Gillian Conoley. It publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art.
VOLT was created on an unusually sunny afternoon in San Francisco in 1991. VOLT is published by the Pacific Film and Literary Association, a non-profit organization registered in California. Innovative in design and content, VOLT publishes a range of adventurous writing. The magazine’s size (9″ by 12″) offers a larger space than usual for an individual poem or piece of prose. Often, work utilizing white space and typography can be found in VOLT.
Founded and edited by poet Gillian Conoley, VOLT appears every summer. Each issue includes cover art, frequently by such artists as Eve Ascheim, Joan Mitchell, Hawley Hussey, Jo Whaley, Stephen Curry, Tom Burckhardt, Andrea Belag, and Brian Lucas. Contributors have included Yusef Komunyakaa, Norma Cole, Aditi Machado, Will Alexander, Jeffrey Pethybridge, Leslie Scalapino, Kazim Ali, Barbara Guest, Harryette Mullen, Brian Teare, Valzhyna Mort, Jorie Graham, John Yau, Andrea Abi-Karam, Julie Carr, Asiya Wadud, Peter Gizzi, Brenda Hillman, and Carmen Giménez Smith, among many others. Fiction Editor is novelist Stefan Kiesbye.
VOLT has received many awards and honors, including several Pushcart Prize Anthology selections, a Fund for Poetry grant, and several selections for The Best American Poetry (Scribners). VOLT was named one of the top literary magazines in the country by Every Writers Resource and has received praise from the City Lights Booksellers and Publishers Blog. VOLT’s continuing design innovations and layout are created by Production Editor Steve Galbreath. Contributions to the magazine are welcome and fully tax-deductible.
VOLT has signed on to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). This action means we will not collaborate with Iraeli academic and cultural institutions complicit in maintaining Israeli occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights. It does not change our relationship with individual writers, artists, or readers.
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