Conjunctions' milestone fiftieth issue gathers together the many voices, forms, and styles that have defined the legendary literary journal since it was launched by Bradford Morrow in 1981. Established masters like William H. Gass, John Ashbery, Richard Powers, Edwidge Danticat, Rae Armantrout, Robert Coover, and Lyn Hejinian join rising stars such as Ben Marcus, Paul La Farge, Edie Meidav, and Peter Orner to create a landmark compendium of stunning...

For Tributes, Conjunctions invited a number of contemporary writers to pay homage to American literary masters who made something possible for them-whether that was the act of writing itself, writing a certain book, writing in a particular manner, or living in a way that was consonant with the act of writing. This is an anthology of personal enthusiasms, a colloquium Whitman might have seen as a progress of vistas. John Sayles offers an appreciation...

Conjunctions: 61, A Menagerie gathers essays, fiction, and poetry that imagine the world of our fellow beings, animals. Cultural mythologies and pantheons are populated with snakes, monkeys, cats, jackals, whales: a cast of characters whose stories reveal how complex and wildly contradictory our species' relationship with other animals is. They're friends, enemies, tools, food. Descartes deliberated about whether animals have souls, deciding they...

From the moment homes and homelands came into being, exile ensued. While narratives of exile share themes of banishment, loss and longing, they are as diverse as the human experience itself. Writers as different as Homer and Heinlein, Aeschylus and Camus addressed this subject. In The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie conceives of exile as "a dream of glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution. It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always...

Exploring the myriad ways in which we go about preserving what might otherwise be forfeited. Whether trained specialists or lay people who care about something, preservationists come from every stratum of life. The archivist, the linguist, the local town historian. The paleontologist, the heirloom seed-saver, the family photographer, the Monuments Men. Old two-by-two Noah and taxonomist Linnaeus. The suburban girl who collects enough yard sale books...

New writings on our fear of-and fascination with-the "other" from Joyce Carol Oates, Peter Straub, Kelly Link, Jeffrey Ford, and more.Alien is a powerful and flexible word. Aliens are "other." Aliens are the stuff of science fiction and fantasy. Aliens are traditional literary figures that cause us to see ourselves anew. Indeed, when we witness our "normal" lives through these strangers' eyes, we become the unfamiliar ones.Conjunctions: 67, Other...