The Pinch is a literary journal published at the University of Memphis

University of Memphis

The University of Memphis is an American public research university located in the Normal Station neighborhood of Memphis, Tennessee and is the flagship public research university of the Tennessee Board of Regents system....

. The journal is published biannually. Work that has appeared in The Pinch has been reprinted in the Best American Essays and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Two stories that have previously been published in The Pinch have been short-listed for the Pushcart Prize

Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....

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The journal was founded by William Page in 1980, under the name Memphis State Review. The journal's name was changed to River City in 1988 and to The Pinch in 2006. (The name "The Pinch" comes from Memphis's old Jewish ghetto, as detailed by Memphis writer Steve Stern

Steve Stern

Steve Stern is a critically acclaimed author from Memphis, Tennessee. Much of his work draws inspiration from Yiddish folklore.- Biography :Stern was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1947, the son of a grocer...

.)

Among the writers whose work has appeared in the journal are Robert Bly

Robert Bly

Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...

, Philip Levine

Philip Levine (poet)

Philip Levine is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for over thirty years at the English Department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well...

, Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times described her as "far and away, this country's [America's] best-selling poet".-Early life:...

, Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...

, Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...

, Donald Justice

Donald Justice

Donald Justice was an American poet and teacher of writing. In summing up Justice's career, David Orr has written, "In most ways, Justice was no different from any number of solid, quiet older writers devoted to traditional short poems. But he was different in one important sense: sometimes his...

, Marvin Bell

Marvin Bell

Marvin Bell is an American poet and teacher who was the first Poet Laureate of the State of Iowa.Bell was born in New York City and raised in Center Moriches, Long Island...

, Dinty W. Moore

Dinty W. Moore

Dinty W. Moore is an American essayist and writer of both fiction and non-fiction books.-Life and work:Dinty W. Moore was born August 11 in Erie, Pennsylvania, the son of William P. "Buddy" Moore, an automotive mechanic, and Mary Catherine O'Brien, a former journalist...

, Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...

, Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton was an American writer and educator from Buffalo, New York. From 1979–1985 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland...

, Mary Gaitskill

Mary Gaitskill

Mary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories , and The O. Henry Prize Stories .-Life:Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky...

, John Updike

John Updike

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....

, Linda Gregerson

Linda Gregerson

Linda Gregerson is an American poet and member of faculty at the University of Michigan .-Life:Linda Gregerson received a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1971, an M.A. from Northwestern University, an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, and her Ph.D. from Stanford University...

, Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and literary critic from Kentucky.With four siblings Mason grew up on her family's dairy farm outside of Mayfield, Kentucky. As a child she loved to read, so her parents, Wilburn and Christina Mason, always made sure she had...

, and Scott Russell Sanders.

Awards

• Michelle Seaton’s “How To Work a Locker Room” was reprinted in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009
• Ander Monson's "Solipsism" was reprinted in The Best American Essays 2008.
• Anis Shivani's "Dubai" was shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize
  Pushcart Prize
  The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....
  
  in 2008.