Top Stories was a prose periodical published from 1978 to
1991 by the artist Anne Turyn in Buffalo, New York, and New York City.
Over the course of twenty-nine issues, it served as a pivotal platform
for experimental fiction and art through single-artist issues and two
anthologies. The entire run of Top Stories is collected and reproduced here across two volumes.
Top Stories primarily featured female artists, though in
Turyn’s words a few men “crept in as collaborators.” Although primarily
“a prose periodical” (as its byline often stated), the issues varied in
form and aesthetics, pushing the boundaries of what prose could be and,
from time to time, escaping the genre altogether. In fact, the only
parameters required for participants were that the periodical’s logo and
issue list be included on the front and back covers, respectively.
A great deal of the works are short stories by the likes of Pati
Hill, Tama Janowitz, and Kathy Acker, whose Pushcart Prize–winning “New
York City in 1979” appeared for the first time in book form as part of
the series. Constance DeJong contributes “I.T.I.L.O.E.,” a widely
unavailable work that features the artist’s trademark prose and is sure
to please fans of her novel, Modern Love. The largest issue of the periodical is undoubtedly Cookie Mueller’s “How
to Get Rid of Pimples,” which consists of a series of character studies
of friends interspersed with photographs by David Armstrong, Nan
Goldin, and Peter Hujar altered with freshly drawn blemishes.
Top Stories also celebrates less conventional literary
forms. Issues by Lisa Bloomfield, Linda Neaman, and Anne Turyn take the
form of artists’ books, juxtaposing image and text to construct tightly
wound, interdependent narratives. Jenny Holzer and Peter Nadin present a
collaborative work in copper ink comprised of truisms by Holzer on
corporeal and emotional states and drawings of abstract bodies by Nadin.
Janet Stein contributes a comic, while Ursule Molinaro provides a
thorough index of daily life (and the contempt it produces) consisting
of entries that were written just prior to lighting a cigarette.
Primary contributors include Kathy Acker, Laurie Anderson, Sheila
Ascher, Douglas Blau, Lisa Bloomfield, Linda L. Cathcart, Cheryl Clarke,
Susan Daitch, Constance DeJong, Jane Dickson, Judith Doyle, Lee
Eiferman, Robert Fiengo, Joe Gibbons, Pati Hill, Jenny Holzer, Gary
Indiana, Tama Janowitz, Suzanne Jackson, Suzanne Johnson, Caryl
Jones-Sylvester, Mary Kelly, Judy Linn, Micki McGee, Ursule Molinaro,
Cookie Mueller, Peter Nadin, Linda Neaman, Glenn O’Brien, Romaine Perin,
Richard Prince, Lou Robinson, Janet Stein, Dennis Straus, Sekou
Sundiata, Leslie Thornton, Kirsten Thorup, Lynne Tillman, Anne Turyn,
Gail Vachon, Brian Wallis, Jane Warrick, and Donna Wyszomierski.
David Armstrong, Nan Goldin, JT Hryvniak, Peter Hujar, Nancy Linn,
Trish McAdams, Linda Neaman, Marcia Resnick, Michael Sticht, and Aja
Thorup all make appearances as well, contributing artwork for the covers
or as illustrations.