Sunday, July 11, 2010

Follow-up: The Last Page (one more thing I like about Smithsonian Magazine)

I failed to mention one of my favorite features in Smithsonian Magazine in my June 25th post: The Last Page, a one-page humorous essay that has appeared in the magazine for several years now. I often turn to it first when I pick up a new issue. Some of my favorite recent pieces include Green Eggs and Salmonella? ("Beware the hidden hazards lurking within popular children's books"); and Words to Remember ("Amanda McKittrick Ros predicted she would achieve lasting fame as a novelist").

I can't find a direct link to its archive on the magazine's web site, but you can hunt it down online two ways:
  • Go to the full issue magazine Archive, click on each individual issue, and look for The Last Page as the last listed item, or
  • Try your luck with an advanced search I devised on Google, searching for The-Last-Page as part of the URL (this may not bring up everything).
It's also worth noting that The Last Page is cited on many writers' web sites as an excellent potential market for humor writers and essayists—probably because, right now, it pays $1,000 for accepted pieces, according to the magazine's The Last Page Humor Column Writer's Guidelines.

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