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Abstract
The present study argues that the quick and steady growth of magazines in the early twentieth century informed the availability, popularity, reception, and influence of, as well as shaped the creative and critical work done by, modernist women writers. In particular, it examines the publishing careers of Mina Loy, Kay Boyle, and Mary Butts and posits that the women were able to forge professional identities for themselves through the various periodicals in which they appeared. While all of the authors published books, their careers in avant-garde and mainstream magazines, as well as in newspapers, reveal the importance of the British and American periodical press in developing, maintaining, and sometimes harming their status as writers. By examining the significant impact that their contributions to, and appearances in, periodicals had on their relationships with their peers, their readers, their artistic choices, and, to some extent, their failed canonization, we can further our understanding of the role the press played in fostering contemporary womens modernism and upending our current beliefs of the movements core characteristics, as well as recontextualize both aesthetic innovation and the politics of professionalism.