Joe Salvatore stood outside of Housing Works Book Café, trying to figure out how to carry five heavy bags stuffed with 80 literary journals. On a normal day, a haul that big would have cost him more than $1,000. On Sunday, he paid only $160, thanks to the discount offered at the Seventh Annual Literary Magazine Fair.

The magazine fair, offering more than 120 literary journals for only $2 each, was part of this weekend’s Literary Magazine Magathon, which also included a Saturday afternoon reading in the DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room of the New York Public Library’s main branch.

“One of the things writers complain about is how expensive literary journals are and how they can’t buy all of them,” a co-editor of the New York-based Open City magazine, Joanna Yas, said. “Editors complain that writers aren’t reading our magazines, and they say, ‘That’s because they’re too expensive and there’s too many of them.’ There’s no excuse today.”

Mr. Salvatore, a creative writing teacher at the New School who founded the literary journal LIT, used the $2 price to go on a magazine binge that will ultimately benefit his students. But most of the other attendees were struggling writers trying to meet editors or established figures in the small press industry representing their magazines.

Window shoppers were rare — as were strangers. Attendees seemed to know each other, know of each other, or had appeared in each other’s magazines. The editor of Smartish Pace, Stephen Richert,called the community “pretty incestuous” — but lovingly so. “You could probably find a poet who’s in 10 of these issues right now,” he said.

Among the journals present were storied veterans like the Georgia and Hudson reviews, as well as new titles like Alimentum (The Literature of Food).Most of the widely known literary journals — ones that have crossed over into popular consciousness — stayed home. The Kenyon Review, the New England Review, and the Virginia Quarterly were represented by several stacks of their latest issues, but none had sent a spokesman. The Believer, Granta, and the Paris Review were not represented at all. Indeed, the majority of the magazines featured at the magazine fair were specialized, small-print oddities; they had names like Aufgabe, Jubilat, the Mad Hatters’ Review, and the Lillies and Cannonballs Review.

Almost all of the editors representing these journals were in their late 20s and early 30s, and many were either recent MFA graduates or creative writing teachers at nearby universities.

“You don’t make money. You get tired, and you have to work, and you have to take care of your kids,” Ms.Yas said, adding that the youthful turnout at the magazine fair was not necessarily a good indicator of the scene’s actual demographics. “The older people don’t want to come, so they send their interns.There are definitely older people editing these magazines that are just not here.”

Well, maybe some were. Ms. Yas pointed to Martin Tucker, a gray-haired, 78-year-old poet who has been editing the poetry journal Confrontation since the 1970s.

“Your enthusiasm happens when you’re young,” Mr. Tucker, in a blue jacket that looked like it belonged in the closet of Gay Talese, said. “You’re usually in the little magazine world when you’re young.”

Also, with smaller, literary magazines, Mr.Tucker said, the chances for a young unpublished author are much greater. One of the organizers, Jeffrey Lependorf, also pointed out that it was “an opportunity to meet a hell of a lot of editors in person and shake their hands. So that when they send in their manuscripts, they can say, ‘It was great meeting you at the Lit Mag Festival.'”

Mr. Lependorf serves as the executive director of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, which was the main sponsor of Sunday’s event along with the New York Public Library and the magazines Fence and Literary Latté.

“I tell my students, you know, send your stuff to literary journals,” a poetry editor at the Boston-based journal Agni, Rachel DeWoskin, said. “The truth is, people do read them, editors read them, agents read them. In addition to being a real artistic force, they’re a professional outlet for people.”

Some magazines participated in the Magathon with the express purpose of recruiting unknown talent. Miriam Stanley, senior editor at the New York-based poetry and prose journal Rogue Scholars, said she makes a habit of seeking out unknown writers. “I go from poetry venue to poetry venue in New York City and I listen to everybody and I find people who I feel are really, really good,” she said. “Often, these are people who need recognition, and often they get discovered by someone taking the time out to go to open mics.”

Others were not so enthusiastic. One editor described an interaction involving an eager writer who tried to pitch a story.The youngster then kept chatting away and praising the editor — without even knowing the editor’s name. Chances of publication? Not likely.