Fantasy Magazine.

Fantasy magazine was begun in the summer of 1931 by Stanley Dehler Mayer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This "little magazine" was intended to be a forum for the publication of "good free verse." Issued initially as a quarterly, Fantasy invited submissions from its readership and featured several Pennsylvania poets in its first issues, among them Homer D'Lettuso and Joseph Leonard Grucci. In its first number, the magazine offered a five dollar prize for the best essay on a living American poet published in the magazine. Though these essays appeared frequently during the first years of publication, their regularity decreased after 1933. A longer-standing tradition was Fantasy 's poetry contest in each issue. Contestants were required to write on a particular theme (e.g., "Christmas," "Night," and "Nudism"), vying for a five dollar prize and publication in the front of the magazine. Judges for the contests included Edgar Lee Masters and Stephen Vincent Benét. The winner of the poem contest on the theme of "The Negro," Lewis H. Fenderson, gained a certain notice because he was an African-American.

Beginning in 1933, the magazine expanded its scope to include short stories and longer essays from such writers as James T. Farrell and LeGarde S. Doughty. Mayer's brief section of comments on new works of poetry expanded into a full book review section, containing signed reviews from the likes of Lloyd Mallan and Charles Glicksberg. Along with the changing format came a broadened scope of coverage on literary themes. The first issue for 1938 included an essay on "Convict Poetry" and featured submissions from prisoners, among them the issue's prizewinner, Ralph W. Hunter. By 1941, Fantasy had featured an essay on Surrealism by Eugene Jolas and one on "Paging the 'Western' Novelist" by Arnold Mulder.

...