Top Stories

An essential anthology of fiction, art and more from the experimental, punk-feminist 1980s downtown journal, with work by Kathy Acker, Constance DeJong, Cookie Mueller and more

Published between 1978 and 1991, Top Stories was a prose periodical specializing in experimental writing with a collaborative, punk-feminist ethos, edited by New York-based photographer Anne Turyn (born 1954). Turyn founded the publication in Buffalo, New York, before moving the operation to Chelsea in the 1980s, where issues were produced in Chinatown, distributed by mail order and through Printed Matter, and printed in runs between 500 and 2,000. With 29 issues in total, the publication played a key historical role in the development of the group of artists and writers who helped define the "downtown" scene of the 1980s.
All 29 issues of the periodical are collected in this anthology, which compiles experimental fiction, art, photography and graphic design.
Contributors include: Donna Wyszomierski, Laurie Anderson, Pati Hill, Suzanne Johnson, Linda Neaman, Gail Vachon, Jenny Holzer, Peter Nadin, Judith Doyle, Kathy Acker, Lynne Tillman, Jane Dickson, Kirsten Thorup, Janet Stein, Anne Turyn, Lee Eiferman, Constance DeJong, Ursule Molinaro, Romaine Perin, Cookie Mueller, Ascher / Straus, Susan Daitch, Lou Robinson, Lisa Bloomfield and Mary Kelly.