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Interview with
LitJournals
Conducted by
Dan Wickett
on
5/23/2005
The following is the May Literary Journal Editor E-Panel, with interviews of another 9 editors of great Literary Journals. It can also be read at the following link: Mike Czyzniewjewski – Mid-American Review www.bgsu.edu/midamericanreview Mid-American Review is celebrating its 25th year of publication this year. The journal evolved from a magazine called Itinerary, put out by students of the Bowling Green State University creative writing programs, featuring only their own work. That lasted about 8 years (8 issues), and then in 1980, two BG grad students, Scott Cairns and Steve Heller, turned the journal into Mid-American Review, a national publication. MAR recently celebrated its silver anniversary with two special issue, a double issue this past fall featuring new work by some of our favorite past contributors, and this spring, what we called The Unpublished Writers Issue, featuring work by authors never in print before. Our journal is dedicated to bringing the best new literature possible to the largest possible audience. Or so says our mission statement. But I do think we pull that off. Rusty Barnes – Night Train www.nighttrainmagazine.com Night Train is a 200-page twice-yearly all-fiction journal founded in 2002 by Rod Siino and Rusty Barnes in Somerville, MA. Night Train IV and the Rail Stop program was the subject of a half-page article in the New York Times (LI edition) recently, and has received notice in newspapers across the US including the Boston Globe and the Boston Phoenix. Rusty Barnes currently oversees the journal. He graduated from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and Emerson College and has published in a variety of journals. Linda Swanson-Davies – Glimmer Train www.glimmertrain.com Leelila Strogov – Swink Magazine www.swinkmag.com R.A. Miller – Arriviste Press www.arrivistepress.com I'm R A Miller -- although everyone I've met since age 13 just calls me Miller -- and I'm the Managing Editor for Arriviste Press and it's Web counterpart www.arrivistepress.com. Arriviste Press is a combination of things, and "literary journal" might be the least applicable title (but when you say it, Dan, it makes me feel all erudite and collegiate and tweed-wearing). First and foremost, we're a book and digital products publishing company. Secondly, we're an entertainment Web site. Part of our editorial mission for the latter is to entertain via literature, and we make a conscious effort to publish at least one work of short fiction each month. Hopefully what we publish is literary -- the academic folks on this list may argue the literary merit of Steve Almond or Tom Perrotta or Arthur Bradford -- but I think what we publish transcends mass-market fiction, even if it never makes the literary canon. Jill Adams – Barcelona Review www.barcelonareview.com Peter Conners – Double Room www.webdelsol.com/Double_Room Double Room is an on-line only journal founded in 2001. We focus exclusively on prose poetry, flash fiction, and related evolving forms. Each issue also contains a featured visual artist and a “Questions on the Forms” section where contributors are asked to respond to questions relating to PP/FF writing. In addition to his work on Double Room, Peter Conners is Marketing Director/Associate Editor of BOA Editions. His own writing appears regularly in such journals as Fiction International, Salt Hill, 3rd bed, American Book Review, and elsewhere. He is editing PP/FF: An Anthology for publication by Starcherone Books in April 2006. His web site is www.peterconners.com Carrie Berry – Bonfire, an international Conflagration http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fandango.virtual/bonfire/index.html I left a successful career in electronics manufacturing management so that I could focus more on my writing. In the course of workshopping with other writers, I found that my management instincts would not be silenced. My publishing company, Fandango Virtual, seemed to give me the ideal balance between my right and left brain needs. Bonfire is our second journal, which debuted earlier this year, is published quarterly in the UK. Our other journal, Gator Springs Gazette is now in its fourth full year, first online and in print for almost two years. Our objective with Bonfire is to provide a showcase for emerging literary talent in a form which will come to be highly regarded by discerning readers across a broad range of tastes. We want to publish work which is accessible but which also demands participation by the reader. Our writers may not yet be well known, but we hope to be a springboard for many of them. Brock Clarke – Cincinnati Review www.cincinnatireview.com This can also be viewed at the EWN website (or linked to) at: Any situation where an editor is not listed after a question with a response is due to the editor choosing not to reply to that particular question. Dan: Thanks for taking some time out of what must be a busy schedule to get the word out about Literary Journals! Mike: Well, since this is a day late, I guess I didn't! But for us, the semester ended on Friday, and now summer happens. We can get caught up. We can make our fall issue. We can start reading for spring. We can judge our Fineline Competition for prose poems/short shorts. We can focus more on our own writing, too, as all the editors at MAR are writers, too. It's a good feeling--3.5 months of doing just this. And tanning. Don't forget tanning. Rusty: It's good to get the word out any way we can, and EWN is a great way to go at it. Linda: Glad to try to help, Dan. Leelila: My pleasure. R.A.: Are you kidding? What do frustrated writers enjoy more than talking about themselves? Jill: Thanks for contacting us. Peter: Thanks for asking, Dan. Like grains of sand through the hourglass.... Carrie: Thanks, Dan, for giving us the opportunity to shout. Brock: Sure thing, no problem. Dan: I know some of you took over positions and others founded their journals. What exactly led to your taking on the position you currently hold with your Literary Journal? Mike: I edited lit journals in college, both at a CC and at the University of Illinois. I looked for MFA programs with magazines where the students could take part. I got into BG and was happy to have MAR. I was happy to be a part of something larger. I volunteered around the office, and after my two years of grad school, the fiction editor job opened. I applied and got it, as I'd worked a lot of volunteer hours, and was well read in contemporary fiction (I read A LOT the summer between undergrad and coming to BG, like a book every other day or so). After a couple/few more years, the editor-in-chief left, and I was awarded the position, around late 2000. This past year, I promoted my friend and associate editor, Karen Craigo, to the rank of co-editor. We split it down the middle now, and it's a good partnership. She does a lot of the things I can't do and vice versa. Plus, she smiles a lot, and I don't. People who don't know me tell me I look like I've just strangled a squirrel and feel bad about it. Karen balances that out. Rusty: The longish official answer is here: http://www.nighttrainmagazine.com/history2.html The shorter answer is that Rod and I both felt the frustrations of the writing life in the time since we had left grad school, and wanted to create a journal that we'd be proud to be published in: one that helped writers, built community, and most of all, published great stories. We were both unemployed at the time, and it seemed like the perfectly illogical thing to do. Rod handled much of the business end, we both dealt with the editing, and I did the search for printers and the distribution racket, which I was relatively familiar with from years of bookstore work. Linda: My sister and I started Glimmer Train Stories back in 1990. We were looking to create a journal that we'd be excited about finding in our own mailboxes. Leelila: I'm of the founding variety, and what led me to Swink is a combination of narcissism, a genuine love of great writing, willpower and insanity. This is not really a normal thing to do unless you have a masochistic streak, which I guess I probably do. But there is a quiet joy at certain times that seems to make the agony worthwhile; it's an altogether very unhealthy relationship. R.A.: I am the founder. I intended to create a fully digital book-publishing company with a companion Web site to focus on feature-style journalism and downloadable music. I failed on all accounts. People who read for pleasure have not adopted e-books, even three years after our launch, and a little company called Apple released a music service much better than mine about a year after mine -- so my role in life had to change. I believed (and still do) that media consolidation is crowding out certain specific types of writing: short story writing and feature-style journalism (2,000-5,000 word in length). Esquire and GQ, which used to introduce the mass market to true literary talents like Hemingway, are forced to compete with Photoshop-happy pubs like Maxim and FHM, and true narrative journalism and short fiction is evaporating... so I refocused on publishing print books and turning the Web site into a short-form showcase. Jill: The Barcelona Review was founded by myself and web designer Michael Garry Smout in 1997. Living and teaching in Barcelona, as well as reading for a big house publisher here, I came to realize what a wealth of great short fiction there was that often didn’t make the leap from one country or region to another. A good novel has a chance of making that leap, but not always short fiction. The internet was still fairly new and happening then - hard to believe, but there weren’t that many online-only literary reviews at the time - so we decided to use the net as our medium in order to reach an international audience. We actually created three separate reviews - one in English, one in Spanish, and one in Catalan. Each has its own editors and its own identity; we sometimes offer a translation from one language to another, but that is all. The multi-lingual format has certainly helped in reaching the international literary community. Peter: Double Room grew out of telephone conversations that I had with Web del Sol founder Michael Neff back in 2000. I was conducting writing workshops in public schools at the time, so we were originally talking about an on-line high school literary journal that he was starting. Somehow we got onto the topic of prose poetry and the unfortunate demise of Peter Johnson's seminal journal Prose Poem International. Michael had a web page going for PPI on Web del Sol and asked if I'd like to expand on what he had started there. I agreed, but, particularly because I was interested in the blurry lines between prose poetry & flash fiction, I wanted to include ff in the pp mix and also have a place where people could discuss various aspects of those forms. I also knew that I didn't want to do this alone. Before I agreed fully to forming Double Room I called my long-time friend Mark Tursi, a poet and PhD candidate in Creative Writing at University of Denver, and asked if he would start the journal with me. Thankfully he agreed, and in short order he had pulled in a friend he'd met in the MFA Program at Colorado State University, our web designer Cactus May. That was – and remains - the core of Double Room. Carrie: Founder by design, editor by default. I had felt there was a need for a journal of this type for quite some time and got tired of waiting for someone else to do it. Brock: The department in which I teach--English and Creative Writing--at the university at which I teach--the University of Cincinnati--had decided they wanted a prominent literary magazine, and so, prior to my arrival on campus, they secured the funding, etc. I just sort of walked into the position, happily. Dan: I don’t know if you can hear the collective laughter over the internet, but is it safe to say you do this out of love, and it wasn’t some get rich quick scheme? Mike: Love. I look(ed) at it this way: It's the back door into the world of writing. I've published stories recently, but when I started, I got more rejections than I had room for in a shoe box (and I have large feet). I could participate in a larger-scale type of success, the journal, than I could with my own writing. When I was fiction editor, I started contacting writers, writers started to remember my name. I could go to AWP and have people know me. But I also knew I was contributing, that I was making something that helped other writers, made the big picture bigger. Now that my own stories are in a lot of journals, I still feel like my main contribution is to helping other writers find an audience, to take a beautiful piece of art and use the means that I have to share it. That's more satisfying that anything I could do on my own, and it's why I put in dozens of hours a week--as a volunteer. Rusty: No one does this to get rich quick, and mostly that's not even the point. Love probably has nothing to do with it either. We wanted to see a journal that reflected our aesthetic and needs, and obsessed over it enough to make it happen. You have or see a need that's not being fulfilled journal-wise, and you move to fill it. It's a way to stay in touch with other writers, and to feel as if you're contributing to the life of the culture. Personally, I feel, even if my writing career never takes off in the way I imagine, I can get a great deal of enjoyment and satisfaction from shepherding other people's visions to print. Linda: HAH! Indeed. :-) We still put personal funds into the business each and every year, expect we always will. Leelila: It was a get poor quick scheme, so yes … R.A.: Well, I started with a healthy combination of both. I hoped I could leverage the supposedly high margins in digital publishing to carve out a nice business for myself. I can assure anyone reading this that those high margins do not exist. However, I was a Journalism and English major in college, and I started my career as a stringer reporter, and I love the fact that what I do today is related to my studies. Jill: Well, like I said, we started in 1997 and I have yet to earn one euro from TBR. I guess that says it all. Peter: Double Room is an on-line only journal and we are hosted by Web del Sol, so there is no money spent or collected on the part of our editorial staff. I can expand on that question though by referencing my day-job at the poetry publisher BOA Editions. That job involves sales, marketing, printing expenses, operating expenses, warehousing books, shipping, etc., etc. It is a small business, and thus all sorts of money issues are involved. But I've never met a person employed in the world of small press publishing who does it for the money for this simple reason: the sums are small while the love is large. Carrie: It feels at times like a get poor scheme. It is a labour of love and sometimes one of hate – I’ve certainly seen no middle ground yet. It’s kind of like quicksand at times – the harder you struggle, the more stuck you get. Brock: No, no, it was some get rich quick scheme. It'll work, too, I'm sure of it. Dan: In order to run a Literary Journal, do you believe you need to have knowledge of literature, or business, or some mixture of the two? Would it be helpful if more truly business astute people were involved in the running of such journals? Mike: I think it would help a little, especially with distribution, and basic accounting, but really, it's more organizational skills. And a lot of correspondence. We're lucky to have a big staff at MAR. I have a great managing editor, Ashley Kaine, who now handles all of the queries and subscriptions. Karen and I used to do that. Sometimes each of us answered 25 e-mails as soon we got into the office in the morning, all having to do with where this story was, how many poems can I send at once, what are your exchange ad specs, etc. If you can handle lots of correspondence, and have a good desk calendar that tells you when to do things, it's okay. Not a lot of money exchanges hands, and never will, even if you have Donald Trump's game show lackeys in the office thinking up new schemes to sell lit mags. I'm good at the layout and design stuff, and we think we pick good work. That's more important. Yeah, we have piles of papers all over, and once in a while, can't find something or forget a deadline (case in point, but when a reader picks up a copy of MAR, they don't see that, see me crying an pulling out what little hair I have left because I can't figure out how to single-space something in InDesign. Artists should make art. Business people should make money. Lit mags aren't about money. Rusty: You can do it with people who have no knowledge of business, but you're going to get frustrated along the way if you do, and you're going to learn some business whether you like it or not—you'll have a hard time otherwise. Once the journal is completed and printed, the rest of the world thinks of it as a product, and you need to divorce yourself from your creation to some extent if you want to have any success in the marketplace, whether of commerce or ideas. Find someone who worked in a bookstore newsstand to help you, at the very least. They'll likely know how you can get the word out, and more importantly, can help you with the pitfalls of distribution. Knowledge is power and all that. Linda: Certainly a mix of the two makes sense. Both aspects are challenging. I do not particularly think, however, that it would be helpful to have "real" business people in the field simply because, well, if profit were a necessity or even a priority, no new literary journals would be created. Leelila: It's a combination of the two. It would certainly help if more business-savvy people were involved in running lit mags, but the truth is, a knowledge of good writing is far more important. In essence, you're tasked with marketing a product. If the product is lousy, and the marketing is great, the venture will still fail. If the writing is great, however, and the marketing is terrible, the venture will probably still succeed; it will then just be a matter of to what degree. R.A.: Any endeavor that requires collecting more money than you distribute necessitates business knowledge. However, true business people will run screaming from the literary journal as a business proposition. Literature can be entertaining, and it can be educational, but the consumer market no longer expects to pay for either service. Advertising business models are difficult to establish, and with either approach you have to develop a product that will appeal to a critical mass of people. Many people who enjoy literature enough to pay for it (or be advertised to for it) are outside that critical mass. I don't think you need to cite chapter and verse to create a good literary product, but you must have an eye (or ear) for good writing. You must understand the fundamentals of character development, of conflict, of language and presentation. Jill: The one thing I would definitely not like to see: more truly business astute people getting involved! Then you’re talking solely about ‘markets’ and ‘marketing,’ and from that standpoint, you’re off on the wrong foot. Peter: The American educational systems in-place to teach literature and creative writing are vast, well-organized, and ever-expanding. As recent reports have shown, literature may be losing readers, but my feeling is that the readers who are consuming literature are better informed and sophisticated than ever before. Savvy. About literature, but also about culture in general and the way that we receive and process information. Any successful literary enterprise today must be powered by a vast knowledge of literature, but also an awareness of how to reach those readers through the static of popular culture. Those are broad types of literary and business knowledge that can each be broken down into smaller categories ad infinitum, but, yes, I do believe that a combination of literary and business savvy is crucial in making an impact with your publishing efforts. Carrie: The balance should lean towards knowledge of literature, though it doesn’t hurt to have some business savvy before getting involved in a pursuit involving money. I fear many of these ventures would never have been entered into if those involved had a strong business consciousness. Brock: It helps if people who know how this particular business works are involved with the magazine. Luckily, our managing editor--Nicola Mason--has huge experience in both the operational and literary sides of things. Dan: Where does the funding for your journal come from? A university? Patrons? Subscribers? Fundraisers? Mike: BGSU gives us some money, but less than they did in 1980. Where they really come through is with facilities (3 offices), closet space, phones, a fax, and laser printer we abuse the hell out of. They like us, too, and give us that kind of support. We like them in return. A lot of our budget comes from books sales, some from subscriptions, but a lot comes from our contests. I don't want to say we make a profit, as all that extra money goes into the mag, but we come out a bit ahead. Recently, we doubled the prize money from $500 each contest to $1000, as we thought we were coming out a bit too ahead. But, of course, more people entered. Since the money goes right back into production (more money = larger issues = more writers published), we sleep well at night...on pillows made of gold. Rusty: Night Train is an independent non-profit journal relying on donations and subscriptions. Beginning with Night Train III, Associate Publisher Tom Jackson and Managing Editor Susan Henderson also developed the Rail Stop program, where we seek out communities across the US with railway or literary connections and offer them space at the back of our journal—usually used for a feature essay, photos, and a business directory—in exchange for their financial sponsorship of our journal. Night Train has stopped in Galesburg, Illinois, Kings Park, NY, and Petaluma, California, thus far. It's been a nifty idea that has gotten us a great deal of attention and has enabled us to stick around for longer than we might have otherwise. We financed one issue from our pockets, one from donations, and the remainder have come through donations, subscriptions, and the Rail Stop Program. Linda: Subscribers are most important in reducing our out-of-pocket expenses; competitions help though they're much more work and, of course, the cash awards come out of that income. Leelila: Subscribers, donors, me. More accurately: me, donors, subscribers. R.A.: Book sales provide most of our revenue, with some advertising revenue associated with our Web site. We have a couple of publishing-related services that we expect will generate additional revenue during the course of 2005. Jill: We receive a small grant from the Institut de Cultura, the Barcelona arts council. It helps cover basic expenses and pay for a few translations, but it’s not enough. Donations are always welcome. Peter: We are hosted by Web del Sol, so not directly involved in any funding process. But I do know that WDS is a registered non-profit organization (thus open for donations and grants) and that they do offer inexpensive advertising to presses, writing programs, festivals, conferences, etc. Actually, considering the size of their readership I'm surprised that more places don't advertise on WDS. Carrie: To date, funding has been out of our own pockets, though we have a small and growing subscriber base. We would love to have some other sources, but some technicalities prevented us from getting Arts Council Funding that some other journals enjoy. Brock: It comes from private grants, from the university, from subscribers. We're always open to patrons, of course. Any patrons out there in the audience tonight? Sorry, that was stupid. Dan: How do you decide how many issues to publish of each issue? Does the greater percentage get sent off to subscribers? Mike: When I took over, we printed 700, and right now, we're out of all those issue. Now, we print 2500. What we figured out in the last couple of years is that the magazines are the best promotion you can give out, and the cheapest. At AWP in Vancouver last month, we gave out 500 copies of the magazine, half of the anniversary issue, half of the Unpublished Writers issue. We had a donation jar on the table, and got like $100. But those 500 books cost us like 70 cents each, as the more you have them print, the cheaper they are. We could give out pens and magnets and bottle openers and such (we actually gave out bandage dispensers. no, really.), but the best way to promote MAR is to give an interested writer a copy of the book. Not only do they see it, take it home, and have it on their shelf, but those stories and essays and poems get a larger audience. So it's good for promotion to print out a lot of copies and give them out, but more than that, our authors reach a larger audience. We owe them that. Getting into a journal that only the contributors and their parents read doesn't do anyone any good. But about 1500 go out to actual subscribers, to answer your actual question! Another 700-800 are distributed over time, and then a few boxes always wait around, and eventually, are given away to someone who wants them. The mice in the closets here are rather illiterate, after all, and the ones who read prefer genre fiction, mostly cyberpunk holiday romances. Rusty: In general we've printed anywhere from 1000 to 3000 copies, and have little to no backstock. There are copies required for our contributors, their gift subscription recipients, contest entrants, and our back-stock. We publish as many copies as we need to honor these commitments, and to fill a financially reasonable portion of what our distributors request, keeping in mind what gets returned, and keeping a slight cushion. Distributors ask for much more than they know will sell, probably because they deal with so many of us--who basically are not profitable for them to distribute--that they simply try with volume to make up for all our sales deficiencies. We use many more promotional copies than most journals probably do too, because we're constantly illustrating to potential members of the Rail Stop program what we've done before. Subscriptions make up roughly a quarter of what we print, maybe a little less. Linda: By this time, we have a pretty good feel for how many issues we'll need. Our subscriber base is pretty steady. Yes, subscribers get most of the print run. Leelila: For the first issue it was a guess; we just got circulation numbers from a bunch of other lit mags, published, and then prayed. We sold out of our first print run and had to go into a second, so we obviously did all right, but it was sheer luck. Now that we have distributors and subscribers, the praying has subsided. Our subscribers make up about half of our circulation; the rest of the issues go to distributors and bookstores. R.A.: With the Web site, that decision is moot. Anyone can see anything we've ever published. With our printed books, we work with a printer that caters to small presses, and we can print in batches of a few hundred books at a time. We manage the inventory risk pretty well. Jill: Being internet only, this doesn’t apply to us. Peter: We are bi-annual and always have been. With all the steps involved in putting together and launching a new issue, and the fact that we all have other responsibilities outside of Double Room, and the fact that we collaborate on DR long-distance (Mark is in Colorado, Cactus is in Texas, I am in New York), that is the number of issues that we are capable of producing at the quality we would like to maintain. I would also argue that it takes that long for truly interested readers to make it through an entire issue. Carrie: We are just starting out, so it is difficult to gauge how many issues to print at first. We printed more issues than we expected to sell of the first issue to use as review copies. We are printing a slightly smaller number of the second issue, but I don’t mind having a few on the shelf. I feel confident that all of them will sell eventually. Brock: Right now, since the magazine is still in its infancy (we're just putting out our third issue right now), we're still figuring out how many should go to where. Obviously, we want subscribers, more and more and more of them, but we also send a good number of copies to bookstores, libraries, reviewers, and so on. Dan: How do you get bookstores to carry your journal? Do you target independent stores, or big chains, or just regional stores? Mike: MAR has a contract with DeBoer, which does a good job of spreading journals around. This is the most challenging part of being an editor, getting them out. I've seen MAR in City Lights in San Francisco, and a little corner bookstore in Worcester, Mass that smelled like cod. That's awesome. But over the holidays, I was visiting a friend in Chicago (my hometown) and stopped in a Lakeview magazine store to see if they had MAR. The store carried about 50 journals, but not MAR. I was crushed. I thought about arson. Ironically, when I was in Chicago last weekend, I saw that the store was closed. Probably too many people walking in, not finding MAR, and boycotting as a result. Fans of MAR, we've won! Long story short, distribution is at best random, but we keep fighting the fight. Rusty: We approached several national and regional distributors with a press-packet in hand, along with mock-ups of our table of contents and cover for our first issue, and met with resounding silence. It's near-impossible to get distribution at all without a product in hand, and difficult even with it. I knew from working in bookstores for years who to approach and how we might more easily get into the chains, and so we managed; our second issue was first to have national distribution. Chain bookstore distribution, like them or not, is one major way potential contributors—your potential selling points— judge your journal: can their friends get copies easily, without having to subscribe? Independent bookstores are much better at helping you spread the word about your journal in the literary community, though, so you need to court both with equal energy. I feel it's better to get the journals out there to be read at cheaper prices, though than keep them in a warehouse or gathering dust in your basement. We've always sold our back issues at half-price. Be resigned to not making money at first, or ever. Breaking even is the goal, and if you get beyond that, more power to you. Word needs to spread, and it won't happen if the journal's not out there in the world somehow. If you have copies of Night Train I or II, you'd do well to hold onto them, by the way, I have maybe five personal copies left of each, and that's it. Linda: With just the two of us, targeting particular outlets would be pretty much impossible. We sell through national distributors and come close to breaking even with them. Leelila: Bookstores followed the press; once we got some good write-ups in newspapers and magazines, we were contacted by various store managers nationwide. We're now in both the big chains and the independent stores, which I think is important, but it certainly has more to do with our dealings with distributors and the media than any individual contact we've made with booksellers. R.A.: Again, the only things we sell through bookstores are full-length books. We have a good distributor. Jill: Again, being internet, we’re spared that particular task. Carrie: We haven’t yet targeted bookstores though we are considering a local trial. We just don’t have the resources to knock on doors or the physical presence to attract a big distributor. We intend to carry out most of our business through virtual connections (Fandango Virtual). Brock: Bookstores, as you know, are loathe to carry literary journals. Luckily, before I was a writer/college professor/editor, I was a private eye. So, I've taken to tailing bookstore employees and managers, using my high tech surveillance equipment, until I get something with which to blackmail them into carrying our journal. And when that doesn't work, we ask the stores (regional, independent, etc.) to carrying our magazine, and when they say yes, we thank them. And when they ignore us, we keep asking. Dan: Do you consider your journal to be a regional journal or not? Mike: Not at all. We publish writers from all over the world. However, there is sometimes that perception, that because we are the "Mid-American" Review, we want stories about farmers and snowstorms and corpulent mall-goers. Writers put that in their cover letters: "Here's a good midwest story for you, about Jessup Cornfedder, an asparagus farmer who meets a girl named Dixie who works at Applebee's." It kind of makes me smile, as actually, I think we're pretty eclectic, and I even lean toward the bizarre. Rusty: We're New England (Boston)-based, but have no regional focus whatsoever. Linda: We consider ourselves a national journal. Leelila: No. While Swink's presence is certainly strongest in NYC and LA in terms of readings and events, our readership and author-base is all over the country. R.A.: No. We've published articles and stories from writers all over the country and several foreign countries. Jill: We have readers from over 95 countries, so regional we’re not. I like regional journals and subscribe to a few, but our aims and goals are different; we look for the best that’s out there in every corner we can reach. Living in Spain, especially a cosmopolitan city such as Barcelona, makes that easier. Peter: No, we consider DR to be an international journal. Because we are on-line, each issue is available to anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the world. We are also proud of the work that we publish by international writers and artists. Our last two issues contained large selections of translated work by Swedish poet Aase Berg (translated by Johannes Gorranson) and French poet Jean Michel-Maulpoix (translated by Dawn Cornelio). We have also featured artwork by Israeli artist Benjamin Shiff and French artist Nicole Peyrafitte. Carrie: The name says it all, Bonfire, an international conflagration. Brock: No, we do not. Dan: With so much technology available these days, do you believe a staff member needs to live in the area the journal is published from? Or is it possible to be productive and live elsewhere, maybe visiting once or twice per issue? Mike: I'd really hate to see MAR go to that. So much of what we do happens on the spur of the moment, the editors in the office, their heads together, great ideas borne like Athena from our skulls. Maybe not that grand, but I hate dealing with e-mail, with no discussion, no teamwork. I sound a little like we're the Superfriends or something, and I respect journals who handle things that way, but for me, half the fun is working with other people. Again, I have a great staff. Rusty: The internet makes the virtual journal possible and practical now. Our editorial staff is spread across the US and overseas. We email and use internet discussion boards to conduct 90% of our business, and accept submissions only via email. We often send galleys in Adobe PDF via email as well, with only the contract having to take the snail-mail route. I've never physically met several staffers, and we manage just fine. On the other hand, interns and physical help in a physical location would be helpful as well, and we're working toward that in alliances with other Boston-based non-profits. Linda: That would have to depend on the journal. In our case, there's a lot of work to be done and no staff to do it but ourselves. We could be based anywhere, but we've got to be where the work is done. Leelila: It’s certainly possible for a staff member to live elsewhere. R.A.: Absolutely, 100% not. I founded the company in Boston. My designers and technical people are still there. I'm now in Chicago. My writers are everywhere. Jill: I don’t think one needs to live in the area, no. We have readers who filter through the submissions, for example, in England, the US, and Canada. Our Spanish editor has done the last few issues from Peru and I once did an issue from Florida. Peter: We all live in different places and most of the work of DR is done by email and phone calls. Mostly email. This is not the optimum way to run a journal, but it also gives us access to different writers, artists, sensibilities, etc. that we wouldn't have if we all lived in the same place. Carrie: The internet has removed many of the obstacles and created a few others. All aspects of the process from submissions to manuscript preparation, subscriptions and public relations can be handled through virtual means. The only problems are in the actual delivery of the product – someone still needs to ship them out. Brock: I suppose it's possible; it's easier, though, to have everyone in the same place. Dan: Does the journal solicit stories/essays? If so, have you ever had to kick back a story or an essay for editorial reasons? If so, how difficult is that to do? Mike: Yes to all of the above. We solicit work, but I do so less and less. When I took over as fiction editor, I solicited everyone I liked to read. It worked out in some cases. Peter Ho Davies sent a great story that we ran in my first issue on board. Everything I've read by him is great. I wrote Aimee Bender, she sent, and we ran the story. She's maybe my favorite writer right now. We solicited, of course, for the anniversary issue featuring past contributors, and had a good response (Robert Boswell, Stephen Dunn, Denise Duhahmel, to name just a few), and I solicited a lot for our all-Ohio issue, put out in 2003 for the state's bicentenial. People responded to that. They wanted to be included, but in a lot of cases, I think they didn't want to be excluded. Otherwise, I've cut back, and your questions allude to the whys. Some writers have sent subpar work, and some have sent work we just didn't like that much (there is a difference). We rejected them, or rather, I was forced to reject them. Those are hard letters to write. You ask for more work, and sometimes that works out, sometimes you don't hear from them again, and sometimes, though rarely, you get a nasty note back. But that's part of it, and I know that now: When you solicit someone, you have to, at the same time, know you might have to reject them if they send. That makes you more selective. A lot of writers, both the ones who submit and the ones we solicit, think it's automatic, but that's far from the case. Rusty: We don't solicit nearly as much as we used to, but it's always touchy when you ask someone to send something which you then have to reject. Most writers understand it's not a reflection on them or their work, but some don't, and that's a risk you take, I suppose. If the story doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. Linda: We do not solicit stories, though we did for our first issue since no one knew we were looking for stories at that point. Yes, we had to reject a few which was excruciating. Leelila: We do solicit on occasion and have rejected pieces several times that have arrived in this manner. I don't think it's difficult; we're all adults and understand that rejection is a part of the process. If I say that something isn't right for us, that's just what I mean--it isn't right for us. It doesn't mean how could you wipe your ass on a piece of paper and expect me to publish it. Well, maybe sometimes it does. R.A.: We receive unsolicited stories all the time. For budgetary reasons, I kick the vast majority back. Also, many of the people who submit are not of commercial caliber -- and they know this -- and they submit only to get editorial feedback (or because they are world-record lonely and starved for attention). My instinct is to try and respond to everyone, but I can't play composition teacher to the world. More and more frequently, I find myself ignoring the really piss-poor submissions. I've never kicked back a story I've solicited, but I've only solicited 3-4 throughout our history. Jill: Yes, we do solicit work and we’ve had to turn some down by well-known authors. It’s bloody difficult and takes all the tact you can muster. I know many high paying markets offer a certain percentage of pay even if a story is not accepted, but we are not in the position to do that. So it’s all about tact, lots of tact. Peter: Yes, we solicit some work for every issue. In fact, our first couple of issues were strictly by invitation. But we do that less as time goes on. It's a tricky business, solicitation, and we had a couple of dicey situations with rejecting solicited work when we were just getting started. The bottom line though is that if Mark and I don't agree on a piece it doesn't get published. We learned quickly to let people we were soliciting know that our request was not a guarantee of publication, but more a show of appreciation for their work in general. The bottom line though is that rejecting work is never easy, especially if it's solicited, but most writers know (or will quickly learn) how to handle rejection. If they can't do it gracefully, we'd rather not deal with them anyway. Carrie: It is very difficult to have to reject something you’ve asked for, which is why we are not inclined to do it. At this point, we are receiving enough high quality submissions not to have to worry about commissioning something specific. Brock: Yes, I solicit work, and sure, I've had to then say sorry, but we'd love to see something else. I think most writers react well to being asked to see work, and as long as you keep asking, that takes the sting out of being rejected. Dan: Does the journal actively search the slush pile to look for new writers? Does the journal consider it a priority to discover newcomers to the world of being published? What sort of percentage of stories, essays and/or poems published come from previously unpublished writers? Mike: We keep an eye out, but we're only going to print the work we like, and that's final. As mentioned above, we did an Unpublished Writers issue this past spring, but prepped for it for over two years, running ads all over, putting notice in SASEs with rejection slips, etc. It was tough, but we printed some GREAT work, and are happy with our efforts. We will probably do it again for our 30th anniversary in five years. It's a good thing to do, but not something you can do all the time. Unpublished writers, in this way, have it easier than somewhat-published writers. Everyone's looking for new, fresh talent, and every editor likes to put that line in the contributors' notes: "This is the author's first published ________." Harper's did it this month, a freshman at Princeton. Good for her, good for Harper's, as it's a good story. Of course, the Updikes and Oateses of the world will get theirs. Familiar names bring sex appeal, and hey, those people are usually pretty damn good. They got where they got for a reason. Who this leaves out in the cold are the writers with publications, but no fame. That writer with 5 or 10 good story or essay or poetry publications. No one is looking for that person, I think, so it a way, in terms of lit mags, it can work against you, minor success. But in the end, the best stories and essays and poems will find a magazine, and the best writers will get the good news. I really believe that. Rusty: We make it a priority to find the best stories, and early on they often came from someone with little publishing experience. Once you build even a small profile, though, it becomes much harder to get a story in, because more experienced and often better writers start submitting. You're always on the lookout, to be sure, but odds get longer as the journal becomes better-known. I haven't kept track of percentages, but certainly we have and will continue to publish little-known writers. Linda: Oh, we LOVE finding new writers, absolutely. It's one of the most rewarding parts of our work--giving great new writers a chance, presenting brand new voices to our readers. Leelila: This is an absolute priority for us and we treat our unsolicited manuscripts like a gold mine as a result. We generally showcase a few people in each issue who have never been published before. There are also many more writers included who are at the very beginning of their writing careers--i.e. who have only been published one or two times before. R.A.: Yes, we dig into our slush pile. Some months, I turn down stories because we only have X-amount in our budget, so I'll dig back into slush when we have a light month. Jill: About 50% of our stories come from new and emerging writers and 50% from known authors. Naturally, nothing makes an editor happier than discovering new talent; that’s quite a thrill. But it’s also a real pleasure to introduce a known name, like George Saunders or Irvine Welsh, to a larger readership. And it’s marvelous to have their stories in our archives. I like the mix. It ensures our standard and the new and emerging writers have the benefit of appearing with the known names. Peter: Yes, we have open submission periods and the majority of each issue now comes from those submissions. Speaking for myself, I'm not particularly concerned with discovering newcomers, looking for new talent, or printing work by well-known writers either. If the work is excellent, we'll publish it, regardless of who wrote it. Quality work is produced at all stages of a writer's career and everyone produces junk from time-to-time too (though the most lucid writers keep that work to themselves). A good editor can separate the quality from the junk regardless of the name and/or reputation attached to the work. We strive to be good editors. Carrie: Our focus is wholly on the newly emerging writer, so probably in the high nineties, percentage wise. Brock: Sure, thus far about one quarter of our work has come from the slush pile. And we prefer not to call it the slush pile--slush is such an ugly word. We just call it the Pile. Dan: Does it help an author at all to have an agent when it comes to publishing in your journal? Mike: Not at all. I deal with agents maybe 5 times a year. Since we tend to not pay, agents are uninterested. They tell their clients to send their own stories out, and that works for us. Even when we do pay, it's $50 max, and 15 percent of that (the standard agent cut) is $7.50. Not worth their time, so when I actually have an agent contact me, I'm suspicious. Note to all writers: Don't ever give money to an agent. I've run across some of these people, "agents" who take money to send out stories. Don't do that, ever. Agents only get money when you do, and that's the standard 15 percent. I've heard awful stories of writers getting taken. Don't send an agent a check. They're stealing from you! Rusty: Not at all. Very few agents submit stories to us, and if they did, it wouldn't matter. Linda: Not as a rule, but if it's an agent we happen to know and respect and work with often, we know they won't send us inappropriate work. Leelila: It makes absolutely no difference; we treat agented manuscripts exactly as we do other unsolicited work. R.A.: Usually it hurts them. We don't pay much, and the big-name writers we publish come to us either as a favor to help us out (which we appreciate) or because they're about to start a book tour or publicity campaign and they want to generate some pre-buzz. We don't have the time or will power to negotiate with agents -- not for fees, not for specific placement, etc. Jill: Not for me it doesn’t. Many cover letters either mention an agent or perhaps come from an agent and I haven’t found the quality to be of a much different standard. Ultimately, the work must speak for itself. Peter: I have no idea whether any of the writers we've published have agents or not. I actually think it'd be really funny to have work submitted by an agent. Unless it was a secret agent. In that case I'd be concerned. Carrie: No. Brock: No. Dan: How does your journal pay those who are published? In copies? In cash? By page? Or simply with the privilege of being published? Mike: We pay $10/page, up to $50, when funding is available. But that hasn't been in over 3 years. Under this system, for a regular, 192-page edition of MAR, it costs about $1250 to pay writers. Twice a year, that's $2500. We just don't have it. We'd rather print more copies of an issue, print longer issues, or bring a reader or two to campus with that money. $10 isn't going to change a writer's life, and neither is $50, but if we save that $2500 and start printing 224-pages books instead, that's much more sensible. It's not that we don't respect our writers, but really, this isn't about money. We pay in copies, two per author. If they ask, we'll send them more. Again, our mice don't like serious literature, and if Aunt Mabel and Uncle Deter in Christmas, Indiana, want a copy, then we're more than happy to oblige. Rusty: We pay two copies, a one-year subscription, and two one-year gift subscriptions. Linda: Cash on acceptance. Leelila: Sometimes in copies and sometimes, when we have it, in cash as well. We shoot for $100 for prose and $25 for poetry, but sometimes we pay more and sometimes we give nothing but copies. It depends on how much we want a piece and how much it wants us. R.A.: We pay cash. $50 for fiction; $75 for journalism. Jill: TBR has no money to pay, but in lieu of pay we do sometimes offer a professional literary translation of a story into Spanish. For a 4,000 word story, this could run about $300.00. And can also help to get a writer noticed by Spanish publishers. If funding does not permit us to do a translation, then there are certainly other benefits: being showcased in a review of international repute with well-known names; and also getting read by many an agent or publisher. Several of our contributors have been contacted simply from appearing in our pages. Peter: We do not pay our authors and we, in turn, are not paid ourselves. I assume we're all in it to spread great new writing, ideas, and art to as many people as possible. Hallelujah. Carrie: We are currently paying in copies. We expect to be offering a more attractive compensation method by the end of the first year. Brock: We pay $25 per page, and in contributors’ copies, plus a year subscription. Dan: Does your journal accept electronic submissions? Mike: No, not yet, but we're working on it. I don't like to read things online, in fact, I detest it, but I know that's the future. But I want to do it right. If I can set something up like One Story does, or Kenyon, then I'll do it, where the writer can start an account, submit, and track their submission. I'm the local webmaster, but that kind of system is beyond me. We're checking into the university providing some funding for that now. Probably within 3 years, I'd guess, but for right now, timber.... Rusty: We accept only electronic submissions, and have considered only electronic submissions since 2003, yet we still receive 10-15 snail-mailed submissions per week, which we no longer read, for the record. Linda: Electronic submissions--using our site: www.glimmertrain.com--is actually the ONLY way we like to get submissions. (We nearly closed up shop a few years ago from the labor of dragging stories around endlessly.) And now, with electronic submissions, we can read ALL of the stories that come in, ourselves, which we love. Leelila: No for the print journal, yes for the online theme issues. R.A.: Electronic only. Jill: Sure do. Peter: Exclusively. Because we co-edit the journal long-distance this also allows us to email pieces back and forth to discuss them, edit them if necessary, etc. Carrie: We do not accept anything but electronic submissions. Brock: No. Dan: How about simultaneous submissions? Do you feel it’s fair for an author to have a story out there for up to six months with a journal without submitting it to others at the same time? Mike: I feel VERY strongly about this: Yes to simultaneous submissions. Don't want to step on the toes of my peers (trust me, I've had it out with them already), but as your questions posits, it's ridiculous to tell writers what to do with their work. I've gotten some nasty e-mails when I've withdrawn an accepted stories, and my reaction to that is, Where's my contract? Without a contract, don't tell me what to do with my work. Of course, I've never actually said this. I'm not a brave man, Dan. Think of it this way. There are AT LEAST 50 journals I'd like to see my work in. I have a list, from my favorite (or "best") to least favorite, and I start at the top and work my way down. Maybe that top journal's not going to take my work. Maybe the 31st journal on the list is. If I don't simultaneous submit, figuring 3 journals a year, it would take 10 years for that one story to find its match (I love that word, "match." I use it all the time when referring to the work we take vs. the work we don't. Editors look for matches, and writers should take some solace in that.). And 10 years is way too long. What I do, and what I advise people to do, is send 5 or even 10 of the same piece out a time. Yes, you will run the risk of pissing of an editor whose policies contradict this notion, but think about it: 10 years. With so many journals, pissing off an editor a year is much more affordable than withering away and dying before finding the match. Editors will get over it, anyway. 10,000 submissions a year makes you forget. Rusty: It's a tough world out there, and writers should simultaneously submit to markets which accept simuls. As well, pay attention to guidelines, and when you submit simultaneously, be sure to do so to roughly equivalent markets. Linda: We used to accept simultaneous submissions, but we don't anymore. We read so many, many stories a year that we can only publish the ones we adore. When we mentally commit to a story, it drives us wild if it's no longer available. Our response times are listed right on our site, by category, and people should only submit to categories with response times they can manage. For standard-story submissions, 16 weeks is the maximum wait. Not too bad, I don't think. Leelila: No, I don't think it's fair. We accept simultaneous submissions and think everyone else should too. R.A.: For shorts, we take only digital rights, so multiple submissions are fine by us. We tell writers pretty quickly if and when they will be published, or if we're holding the work in slush. Jill: I get some testy e-mail on this one. We used to accept simultaneous submissions, but we got so many ‘bulk’ submissions - many from those who had never even bothered to read our guidelines or the review itself - that we were forced to change policy. Like any editor, we want submitters to be familiar with our fiction - our standard and our cutting-edge style - and only to submit if their work seems appropriate. We also wanted to cut out all the bulk e-mailing of submissions. So we no longer accept simultaneous submissions in the interest of weeding out the totally inappropriate. That still occurs, of course, but less so, I think. Our reply time at the moment runs 4-5 months. With about 6 readers that’s the best we can do with the hundreds and hundred of submissions we receive. This is stated clearly in our guidelines and in a reply we send to each submitter upon receipt of the ms. So if it’s not acceptable to a writer, we’re not the review for them. As I say, it’s the best we can do. Peter: We absolutely accept simultaneous submissions. All we ask is that writers let us know if a piece is accepted elsewhere. I find that to be the most reasonable arrangement. Carrie: We accept simultaneous submissions and appreciate being notified. While we judge everything strictly on the basis of the work itself, I must admit I feel slightly less guilty about rejecting a simultaneous submission. Brock: That's kind of loaded question (six months is too long for anything, including, in my opinion, gestation). But we do allow simultaneous submissions. It seems to me a reasonable thing to allow. Dan: How important do you consider your internet presence? Does your website allow for the reading of select stories from the current issue? How about past issues? Mike: I think its crucial. In fact, I won't send my own stories to a magazine without a website. It's 2005, come on! I tell my students the same. Our website address is all over everything, every rejection slip, every T-shirt, every tote bag, and of course, in our issues. People find out info there, how to send, how to subscribe, Ashley's e-mail so they contact her instead of me about queries (sorry, Ash!). And mostly, because I think MAR is gorgeous, people can see it. They can look at an archive of our covers. They can indeed read sample work, full-text stories, essay, and poems from a couple of issues ago. We have a complete author index, all 25 years. I'm a big baseball fan, a big stats guy, and it's important to me that our authors, those from our current issue and those in our first issue, have their name recognized on this tool. You can't buy a copy of MAR v. II, no. 1 because we have one copy, on our shelf in our office (E-bay?). But those authors are at least listed on the internet, and if you go to Yahoo! or Google, you can type their name or title in and find them. Again, I think we owe our authors that. Plus, from a marketing standpoint, how could you NOT have an internet presence? We should take a cue from the spamming people, the mature ladies porn the Rolex dealers. We should do more with the Internet. It's not going anywhere. Rusty: Our website is our main means of communication, other than the print journal itself. You can learn everything you want to know about the journal and its editors there. We try to update at least once per month. Right now there are PDF selections from every back issue, and partial samples from the current issue. Sometime in the next few months our first three issues will be available in their entirety online. Linda: No, we do not publish stories online. Leelila: I think our website is pretty important. It allows our audience and potential audience to read a few excerpts from given stories, to see our table of contents (for both current issues and back issues), to get a sense of our focus on design, and to generally see what we're up to. R.A.: Obviously, our Internet presence is crucial. Everything we do (aside from print books, of course) is available on our Web site. Jill: Being an internet review, of course everything is available, not only the current issue, but all of our back issues. The archives are arranged in alphabetical order by author. It goes back to 1997, and contains, if I do say so myself, some pretty impressive work. Peter: The bulk of this question is answered by the fact that we are exclusively an on-line journal. To expand though, the best creative perk that we get from being an on-line only journal is related to our Questions on the Forms section. This is the section where contributors are asked to respond to a menu of questions relating to the reading, writing, and teaching of prose poetry and flash fiction. Each issue, Mark and I create a new set of questions based upon the answers we received from contributors to the previous issue. In so doing, we are facilitating an on-going discussion on prose poetry and flash fiction that spans the entire life of our journal. Because we have published a wide range of authors, aesthetically speaking, this discussion has always been lively, engaging, and entertaining. I've also heard from many professors who have used Double Room - and particularly our Questions on the Forms section - as a teaching tool. The effectiveness of this section would be greatly diminished, if not eliminated altogether, if we were a print journal. Carrie: We have not existed long enough to have an online archive and we are still up in the air about whether it is something we really want to do. We have recently offered the opportunity to purchase a pdf of the first edition for a nominal fee so that potential contributors can get a feel for what we are looking for without having to buy the full price print version. Several people have taken us up on this offer. Brock: It's fairly important--we do have selections from stories/poems/non fiction/art work on the web. Of course, the print magazine itself is more important, to us at least. Dan: What is the purpose of Literary Journals having annual editor’s awards? Simply for recognition for the authors, or is there something else? Mike: We do it, for the reasons above: We make money to produce the magazine. But note this, writers: We have several agents (the good kind) who subscribe, those looking for talent to represent, and each every time, they want the contact info for our contest winners. EVERY TIME. So it's a way to get your name out, to bring some attention to yourself as a writer. Win a contest, get noticed. It's one way in. Of course, winning is hard. We get a lot of submissions, and there's only one winner a year. Rusty: Night Train doesn't have editor's awards, but it's nice to be recognized in any form for good work, I suppose. If you're going to give money away though, it's probably better to run a contest, because you're giving your readers something new, and giving more writers a chance to get in to your journal. Linda: Competitions serve two purposes for us: 1) Competition winners get a nice hunk of money and lots of agent attention, both of which help a writer get a footing. 2) Competition reading fees reduce our annual losses to some degree. Leelila: The purpose is two-fold: 1) To lure writers with excellent work into submitting (our logic is that they're more likely to submit something great when they know it could make them $1,500), 2) To bring in revenue (even after the pay-out to contest winners, there are usually some funds left over from the entry fees to cover other expenses). R.A.: I've never given much thought to awards. They seem to offer a publicity opportunity for journals, and we use contests as a low-cost way to dredge up new talent, but I've never thought any award for a creative act -- be it literature, music, or film -- was really of much value. It's a subjective thing. Jill: TBR doesn’t have any sort of “in-house” competition. We do nominate stories to the Pushcart Prize and other outside competitions of note. Undoubtedly, winning a major award, such as the Pushcart, brings the writer much recognition, and we do what we can to help our contributors gain such an award. Peter: Double Room does not sponsor any contests or awards. Carrie: I think anything that brings recognition to the author will also bring recognition to the journal. I have respect for those journals who are willing to stand behind their best contributors by honouring them in all the ways that are appropriate. Brock: I don’t know --- we don’t have them. Dan: If you could get one simple message out to potential readers of your journal, what would it be? Mike: Find your match, but don't look too hard, as you should do what you do and get better at that. If you have talent and work hard (and I stress the "if"), you will find your niche. Persevere. You're not going to get work in every journal, but if you keep at it (and mind you, we might be talking 10 years of keeping at it), the cream will rise to the top. Someone will take notice of talent. After all, that's what we're all looking for. Stick with it! Rusty: Read the journals you submit to, and support them or other worthy journals. I have a library of hundreds of litmags, I subscribe to 20 or so, maybe more, and I feel as if many writers have the necessary cash to do this and ought to feel the moral imperative to support the places they submit to. Linda: Glimmer Train's focus is on literary short stories that are meaningful. We also include unusual and personal author profiles that most serious readers and writers appreciate. Overall, we strive to create an intimate journal of great short stories readers will value and remember. Leelila: Actual is always better than potential. R.A.: For my site and every other journal that is even moderately entertaining to you, sign up for the e-mail list or subscribe to the publication. The costs are usually nominal (or free, with e-mail), and even if your token effort isn't enough to pay the bills, it's enough encouragement to keep the staff motivated. Jill: If you are a writer of contemporary fiction and/or enjoy reading contemporary fiction, then you can find some of the best short stories available today - in print or on-line - with just a simple click, all for free. Our bias is towards cutting-edge fiction, by which I mean writing that doesn’t follow a formula of any kind; leans towards marginal themes; has no parameters in terms of subject matter and language; shows originality and imagination - the fiction of A.M. Homes, George Saunders, Irvine Welsh, and Dennis Cooper, for example. If you like those names, you’ll like TBR. And you can find similar writing in translation from writers you might not know, such as Cuba’s Pedro Juan Gutiérrez. More traditional fiction is also offered if it contains some element of surprise or says something in a new way. Much of what we publish, in fact, is fairly traditional in that it tells a story; it tends to have a beginning, middle and end, even if not always presented chronologically. Some of my all-time favorite short stories fall into this category - Charles D’Ambrosio’s “Her Real Name,” for example; Adam Haslett’s “The Beginnings of Grief”; and Javier Marías’s “Fewer Scruples.” What you won’t get: anything feel-good, PC, soft, formulaic, mediocre or “promising.” What you will get: top-drawer fiction that has a kick. Peter: Some of the most innovative, provocative, and thrilling work being done today is located in the PP/FF realm of prose poetry, flash fiction, and related cross-genre territories. Double Room seeks to publish the best of that work. We also strive to forward that type of writing by creating an environment where PP/FF work is featured, discussed, reviewed, encouraged, and respected. Carrie: There is nothing like the joy of holding it in your hands. Brock: The standard advice is read the journal before you submit. That's certainly true. But my other advice would be: men and women and possibly animals will find you more sexually attractive if you read our magazine. Dan: Thanks again for your participation in this. I hope it brings some more readers your way! Rusty: Thanks for letting me be a part of it. Linda: Thanks so much, Dan, for the opportunity. R.A.: Thanks for inviting me. Jill: Thanks, Dan. Ciao, ciao! Carrie: Thanks, Dan. It was a real pleasure. Brock: Me, too.
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