From Our Staff | November 11, 2008

The Missouri Review is no stranger to the digital world. We were the first literary magazine to launch a website–in the early 1980’s at that, before the internet was truly the world wide web. Beginning in 2007, we started recording all our content, and will soon offer an audio version of the magazine for readers on the go. We feature digital copies of our stories, essays, and poems on our website and through Project MUSE. We blog, we podcast, we produce videos to post on our website. And now, we’ve taken our digital dominance to the next level: we’ve created a TMR facebook.

For those of you who don’t know, facebook is a social networking site similar to Myspace. People without facebook don’t realize its significance until they finally break down and sign up for one of their own–then they start to feel the gravitational pull that the simple little website exercises over most of its users. Status updates can alert all your friends (or long-lost high school peers, ex-boyfriends, and co-workers) about what’s going on in your life– you might be a more literal person, and post what you’re actually doing; perhaps a philosophical soul, who posts meaningful song lyrics or poetry or quotes; maybe an enigma who crafts ridiculous, nonsensical status just to remain a mystery. The photo feature allows you to post pictures to share with others–but watch what you put up, because potential employers are now prowling pages (hyperlink: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/03/10/2008-03-10_employers_may_be_searching_applicants_fa.html) and checking out job applicants. The “looking for” portion of a user’s profile also says a lot about them– everyone knows a romantic relationship isn’t official until it’s proclaimed on facebook. You can also post videos, notes, events, and information about yourself–favorite books, movies, music–on your facebook profile page.

So what does TMR have to do with facebook? Do we want to declare an online relationship, post photos of our wild nights, or write on someone’s wall? Not really. We just want you, the readers of our blog, the fans of our magazine, the contributors to our issues, to stay as up-to-date on TMR as possible. We’ll be using the page to announce our contests and preview our latest issues. So if you have your own facebook, feel free to search for “The Missouri Review” and become a fan of our page–and invite other lit-mag lovers as well!