This Week in Writing

• The New Yorker published “How To Be a Good Bad American Girl” on the 6th. In it, Anna Holmes recalls the complexities and subversive behavior of two timeless literary super-heroines, Scout Finch and Harriet Welsch.
• The #TwitterFiction Festival began March 12: “Twitter is where the world tells its stories all day, every day.” Learn more here.
• On the 13th, the National Book Critics Circle announced their award winners for 2013, including works from Frank Bidart and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Read the full list here.
• On March 14, Nick Richardson at the London Review of Books posted a translation and analysis of the classic “Lorem Ipsum” placeholder text which, translated to English, reads “like extreme Mallarmé, or a Burroughsian cut-up, or a paragraph of Finnegans Wake.”
• Walter Dean Myers published an opinion article for the New York Times in on Sunday (3/15) asking: “Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books?” Myers is the former Library of Congress Ambassador for Young People's Literature and the author of the YA bestseller “Monster.”
• Let Books Be Books is an online campaign that opposes books designated “for boys” or “for girls.” The Independent (3/16) says a good read is just that. 

~Sophie Opich

So Long, Mad Ones

Photo by: rolfekolbe

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the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" 

                                   —Jack Kerouac, On the Road

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So this is farewell, HFR horde. For the past two years, I've had a crazy amount of fun with you. We've bonded over rejection and acceptance letters, gotten down to business with lit-mag roundtables, and cracked up over "in your pants jokes" (100 Years of Solitude in your pants! The Origin of Species in your pants!). You know as well as I that social media is as much a blessing as it is a curse; I've found that in my enthusiasm for all things social, I've lost my creative focus, and it's time for me to get that back. I've had a fantastic time getting to know each of you and hearing how your writing is going. I've loved celebrating your acceptances and awards and finding inspiration in watching you overcome creative struggles. Writing is not an easy business, but I'll be damned if I can find one with a better community.

I may be stepping down from Hayden's Ferry Review's social media helm, but I am by no means gone. If you care to stay in touch, I tweet as @fingida, blog at Keep It Lit, and can be found, of course, on Facebook. Thank you again for all the great discussions, for the insights and excellent advice, and for putting up with my unending obsession with coffee. I promise, if we ever meet up, I'll buy you a cup just to show my true appreciation for the wealth of good you've shared with me and the entire HFR community.

Keep burning, lovelies,
Stephanie

Tweeted Questions: Lit Mags From Scratch

There's been a burgeoning of literary magazines in the past year or so, and the interest in the literary community seems quite alive and well. If you've ever considered starting a literary magazine of your own, you can thank Ms. Courtney Maum (@cmaum), one of our Twitter buddies, for prompting following panel discussion with the question:

I would love to know the behind-the-scenes process on moving a lit mag from a germ of a (maybe alcohol-fueled) idea into a living thing.

Specter, Mensah Demary   Specter Literary Magazine has only existed a few months and we're approaching our second issue. Still, there's a lot we'd like to do differently, should someone invent a time machine. That said, motivation and passion are prerequisites for launching a literary magazine. By and large, there's no pay involved; there are easier ways to attain attention as well. The space between idea and reality—in any endeavor, including lit mags—is where one's passion will be tested. You'll ask yourself why you should bother with site design, with mission statements and staff, and so on. What's the point? Passion for literature, for the literary community in general, motivated us to get up and get going—and to sustain our efforts.

Ninth Letter, Jodee Stanley   The most important part of starting a new lit mag, especially if you’re working with a group of people, is talking, talking, talking, and WRITING THINGS DOWN. Brainstorm about what you want to publish, where you want your journal to fit into the literary landscape, WHY you want to publish a journal, and how you'd like to see it happen. This is how it was done at Ninth Letter—once the founding editors spent some time talking together, they realized that they all had the same sense of what they wanted to see literary publishing doing (taking more advantage of the printed form, showcasing a wider variety of narratives), and from there they were able to draft a mission statement that, although it was primarily an internal mission statement, helped guide them through the more practical concerns of how this product would be put together and marketed to the public. Go through your brainstorming notes and highlight repeated words—those will be a good jumping off point to defining your mission. For us, words like "interplay, intersection, exchange, merge, undefined, new definitions," and so on kept cropping up in discussions, which really helped us focus on the collaborative project Ninth Letter came to be.

Joyland Fiction, Brian Joseph Davis   Joyland was indeed alcohol (and travel) fueled. Emily Schultz (Joyland's co-publisher) and I had made a lot of friends over a couple of years of touring our books and we wanted a way to keep working with our contacts. I also had a vague notion that distributed editorial with really divergent tastes among the editors could be an interesting model for an online journal. The magic moment was when we convinced our original web designer, Bill Kennedy, also a great digital artist I've worked with on several projects before, to build the site for us. I made the logo in a half hour, sent emails to our original four editors seeing if they'd be interested, and from there it kept going because it kind of worked.

CutBank, Josh Fomon   For CutBank, our vision started back in 1973 with William Kitteridge and some great grad students, but each year there is a rebirth of sorts with every new editor. To quote our former Editor in Chief, Kate Rutledge Jaffe, "Essentially, we're phoenix-like—okay, we don't turn to ash, but we do have to be reborn yearly via graduate student scrappiness, vision, integrity, and enthusiasm."

We are entirely student run and our funding fluctuates year to year, which means that we really have to be passionate about getting administrative work done (and there is a lot of it) as well as coming up with enough funds to put out consistent, quality writing. Thankfully, a community exists around the magazine that fosters enthusiasm and dedication; readers are equally important as editors to keep the cogs of the machines running. Most importantly, it's imperative to reach out into the community of writers; when a lit mag is first burgeoning, one has to not only reach out to established writers, but also must foster the truly unique voices that will find loyal readers.

Black Fox, Racquel Henry   The idea for our magazine started with several events during our MFA residency program. We were realizing that a lot of people weren't open to genre work, no matter how good the writing was. We wanted to create a space where writers of all genres could be published, as long as the work was of quality. When we agreed to take on the endeavor, we sat down to brainstorm an actual name for the magazine. Once we had the name, we had to figure out how to get the word out for submissions. We decided our first step should be to create a website. The website would have all the information about the magazine and how to submit. We researched literary magazine after literary magazine to see how they operated, and that's how we decided how we wanted ours to be run. We listed ourselves on various free forums, put up flyers at local universities and even paid for ad space in a writing magazine. We also discovered the power of Twitter. It was a slow start, but we were able to put out Issue 1 and submissions have picked up.

Barge Press, Shawn Maddey   Barge Journal (and Press) actually took about a year to develop from an alcohol-fueled germ of an idea into an alcohol-fueled colony of ideas before my brother and I even decided to begin trying to figure out the first aspect of making a run with it. It really began as simply the two of us being passionate about a few key things: the arts and our personal shared aesthetic, really wanting to share and spread and support that aesthetic, and wanting to promote Pittsburgh as an artistically strong and unique city. A lot of this time was spent figuring out what we wanted to promote, how, why, the best way to go about it, etc.—then poof, one day we realized that we had all the foundation we need to rock this shit, and, even more importantly, the conviction that we could do it in very different ways that would befit our aesthetic for the bizarre. We were all learning on the job, and nothing's that easy when that's the case.

One of the first things you learn, through any number of weekly drunken editorial sessions, is simply how to have a discerning eye. There were many early submissions we held on to for way too long—out of fear we wouldn't get anything better? Out of uncertainty in what we really wanted? Whatever it was—but you have to learn to get over that. It's really not dissimilar from a writer submitting to mags like ours (and I, like most other editors, have certainly been on both sides). As a writer, rejections don't hurt, you learn to improve your writing from them... If you don't learn that, if you don't adapt to it, you've got no direction and no business in this business, as an editor or a writer. (On the other side of the coin, sending out acceptances is just as awesome as receiving them.)

Then there's actually putting the book itself together. Compiling all the pieces—did I mention that the whole time you need to keep updated on people's bios and mailing addresses, especially if you're sending them pdf galleys like we do? All the details you don't notice at first, like missing italics or incorrect font size, line editing, trying to figure out what's a typo and what isn't. Then there's finding a printer. This isn't terribly difficult, but it is time consuming. Keep in mind, unlike many other places that rely on grants or outside funding, every issue we print comes out of my own pocket. Every penny. (That's many pennies, especially for someone working as a mere server at a brewpub.) Certainly, there are other mags that share this perspective. I'm not saying we're singularly unique in that respect, but it certainly seems we're out of the norm, and cost becomes very, very real, and very much a potential hindrance. You have to look at quote after quote, seek out printer after printer for the best price, wait for samples to make sure they're pro, learn about bleeds and costs and paper stocks, cover stocks, it goes on and on, but this is really the nuts and bolts of publishing. Perception-wise, there's a giant difference between natural and white text stock, between 10pt. cover stock and 12pt., between matte finish and gloss finish (and which looks better specifically with your cover design). But when you hold that first printer's proof in your hands, it's like Christmas no matter what time of year. Seeing your work take form as a real-life object, knowing all the hours that were poured into it, it's amazing. Now's the next frontier: figuring out how to sell the damn thing. Naturally, we've got plenty of ideas.

Hayden's Ferry Review, Beth Staples   HFR also grew out of an MFA program, and was going strong for twenty years before I took over. So as to not repeat what's already been said, I'll just offer up one piece of advice, and that would be to define a clearly articulated mission. Personally, if I were to start a new journal, I'd want that to be way more specific than "the best fiction, poetry and nonfiction." There are lots of well-established journals already touting that. Part of my job these last few years has been to figure out how HFR does more than that, or something different than that, which is why we've grown our translation and art sections. I think it boils down to this: you want to be able to answer the question, "Why should I subscribe to (or submit to) your journal?" The mission, of course, influences all sorts of other choices: design, marketing, logo, format, grant writing (I said grant writing, for reals!) etc. etc. In such a competitive (and non-lucrative) market, I think individuality should be a big priority.

Black Fox, Racquel Henry   The common denominator I'm noting is that there is, without a doubt, a love of literature. We are clearly all in this for the sake of good writing and definitely not the money.

Barge Press, Shawn Maddey   We've all cited love of literature as having to be the necessary motivation in starting up a journal or press. And that's true. You should love it to your core. There's honestly a great deal of people out there that embrace and support passion and vision; loving literature, to me, means taking advantage of that. It means being as passionate as you can be about your work and wanting desperately to not just produce literary publications but to work hard to always be expanding awareness of the small presses and always broadening literacy and readership for the betterment of your community. It's quite honestly shocking how many people are completely unaware of even the concept of small presses and literary magazines/journals. Best advice I have: the community in the broadest sense is your best friend in this venture and it will welcome the efforts you make to better it, plus the face-to-face sale is a crazy powerful weapon that the big houses, no matter how much money, can't duplicate.


We've enjoyed the challenging and interesting questions we've received from our friends on Twitter. If you have a question about writing topics, publishing, the ins and outs of literary magazines, or anything else you might wonder about (how many editors does it take to figure out how to turn on a perfectly functioning, new coffee pot?), let us know! Tweet us, message us on Facebook, or email us at hfr@asu.edu.

Tweeted Questions: Calling All Lit Mags

Tweeted questions just don't stop! (And we love it. More, please!) Continuing with our quest to answer any and all questions we get through Twitter, our discussion panel is taking on a question from fellow mag, Revolution House.

Do you have advice for new mags?

Specter, Mensah Demary   Don't start a literary magazine for any reason other than a love for literature and writers, as well as discovery (the best thrill, so far, is finding a fantastic story from a newcomer or, in some cases, from a vet who had the story rejected multiple times). Beyond the intrinsic qualifications, my advice is to begin. Don't be afraid. Learn as you go along because you will make mistakes, but nothing too detrimental.

Also, don't be cheap. Spend $10 and buy a domain name for your lit mag. Find a solid hosting service with reasonable monthly rates for dedicated server space. If you're going to invest your time, you might as well invest a little bit of money, too. It's the Internet; presentation is everything, and first impressions are fleeting.


Ninth Letter, Jodee Stanley   Get involved with the literary publishing community. Seriously. Go to AWP [Association of Writers & Writing Programs] and any other conferences/bookfairs/literary events you can get to. Follow your favorite lit mags and literary publishers on Facebook and Twitter; engage in conversation with other editors. Once you've published a couple of issues you can and absolutely should join CLMP [Council of Literary Magazines and Presses] so you can participate in ongoing dialogues with editors and publishers. The literary publishing community is welcoming and supportive, as well as being an unbeatable source of information of all kinds.


Black Fox, Racquel Henry   I'd agree with Jodee. Getting involved in the literary community is good advice. Engaging with other editors and publishers is not only enlightening, but supportive. I think it's important for us to support each other and support the writers that we publish.


Joyland Fiction, Brian Joseph Davis   Joyland is online, free, and is funded by grants and donations. Without traditional subscribers, we run hard into the central problem of literary journal entropy: your readers and supporters are the people you, more often than not, are going reject. We ourselves haven't quite licked that problem, but we're trying all the time to improve it. My general advice is to come up with a rejection policy that makes sense, is clear about response times or whether you respond at all. I do believe how you reject is as important as publishing good work.

One problem that afflicts literary journals every now and then is only publishing from an immediate circle, and we have solved that by having eight different regional editors. They do have total control over what they publish. I'm not saying follow our editorial mandates, but if there are lessons you could learn from us, they’re: trust your editors, and start publishing people you don't know as fast as possible.

Contact established authors you like and ask for writing, as well. Both Emily and I worked in publishing and journalism for years before Joyland so we had a few contacts, but we've also done a lot of outreach to complete strangers whose work we love and it's always amazing. No author is ever going to be offended by being asked for work. Conflicted, yes, but offended, no.


CutBank, Josh Fomon   Foremost, don't overextend what you are capable of doing. Start with something manageable so you can grow and subsequently produce more far-reaching goals as you learn to negotiate the amount of time the entire process takes. When beginning a journal, it's not a bad idea to try to solicit work because that gives you greater control over the content and vision of what you want your journal to be. Not enough can be said about social media; it's a great way to expose your journal to a lot of people.


Black Fox, Racquel Henry   One thing that never occurred to me was the idea of soliciting work. I must agree with Josh. That may not be such a bad idea. We've always asked for work from other writers on Twitter, Duotrope, etc., but the thought of actually seeking a writer out and directly asking for a piece never crossed our minds. I quite like that idea, and that may be something we try.


Colorado Review, Stephanie G’Schwind   My advice is to make sure that your partners in crime (and heaven help you if you try this alone) each have different strengths and areas of expertise. Maybe you and a couple others want to select the work to publish, to discover those new voices. Great! But then ideally, you'll have someone who's an organizer, someone who will create structures and schedules for dealing with submissions, editing, and production. You'll have someone who can copyedit, who loves the nuances of the em dash, the semicolon, and that sort of thing. And you'll have someone who can design and lay out the pages and get the issues to and from the printer. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the details. See if you can recruit some dedicated volunteers to help or perhaps start an internship. And finally, join CLMP; it’s a great community of editors, most of whom are more than willing to share their experience and advice with newcomers.


Black Fox, Racquel Henry   Make sure you do your research. Research was the key to our process. There are so many resources out there for literary magazines, but you'll never find them if you don't do your homework. Also, don't give up. Everyone told us that starting a literary magazine was hard work and that most of them fail. We did it anyway. There is nothing like struggling with something and then seeing it succeed in the end. Take the small victories and don't focus on what went wrong along the way. Last, don't do it unless you really love it. All of our editors love words and we are dedicated to continuing the fight to sustain good literature. It won't work unless it's a labor of love.


Barge Press, Shawn Maddey   You really need to take the time to hardcore examine yourself as a reader and/or writer. I honestly don't believe anybody can approach a big fat pile of submissions with the only goal being "I want to choose the very best pieces." What does that even mean? Everybody likes different things, for different reasons. The more vague and general your goals in reading and publishing are, the more dishonest you're being, and the less focused your editorial work will be. Only saying you publish the best work you can find is always a lie—everyone's got an agenda here, everyone's out to say their brand of literature is what's worth reading. Agenda is really not a nasty word; be bold, embrace agenda, and know exactly what yours is, because that's what will make you strong and that's how the conversation moves forward.

On a kind of similar note, don't be afraid to be a hard-ass. It may take a while, but rejections get a lot easier, the more you send them. Don't settle for anything less than exactly what you want. But know why you're rejecting and why you're accepting, most importantly. Doing all personal rejections in the beginning is a great thing and will make you a dramatically better reader. Bottom line is, you may be one of the nicest, gentlest humans on the planet, but if you're editing a mag, your goal is now to weed out the bad ones (and the good ones, too) and promote only the perfect ones. You don't hurt anybody's feelings with rejections, and, if you do, you're just doing the rest of us a service because they shouldn't be playing writer to begin with.

Never overlook the power of networking. Barge started with a core group of four people on the same page but with different skill sets to contribute. Hallie doing layouts, Christine editing and reading, me doing the same and kind of working as the "voice" and overseer of the organization, and Justin bringing the ideas and, very importantly, the network. Meet artists and designers—they will very often be down with what you're trying to do and they're a very active set of people. Make the right friends and you'll get a lot of awesome work done on the cheap or even free—plus now you've got even more people invested in your product who will help promote it.

Oh, and probably the best advice I can think of: if your drunk ideas are your best ideas, run with that. Just make sure you TAKE NOTES. Extensive, highly detailed notes.


Hayden's Ferry Review, Beth Staples   What's resonating a lot with me is what Stephanie said. It's helpful to have a diversity of talents on your staff. You of course have to love literature, but you also have to understand design, finances, social media, appealing to a readership, finances, managing subscriptions, technology and, oh yeah, finances. The problem Brian mentions is well-noted. The people you reject are, still and hopefully, your readers. That's a difficult negotiation. It's great to put out a wonderful magazine, but it's also important to recruit an audience for it. You'll find the number of people who SUBMIT versus the number of people who SUBSCRIBE is a troubling ratio. I think it's easy to underestimate the time and attention you have to put into issues besides finding the best work. Literary journal staffs are usually small, which means that everyone on board has to wear multiple hats, even ones that make their heads look stupid or feel uncomfortable. This metaphor is running away with me, but I hope you see what I mean.

Tweeted Questions: What's the Role of Small Press?

This summer, we got a question on Twitter about the role of small press. (Really, what's the point of them, anyway? Kidding.) And while we've taken our sweet time answering this question, we also invoked the help of several editors from various literary magazines and had a thorough discussion about the role, place, and function of small presses and literary magazines. So grab yourself a mug of something hot, and settle in. Many thanks to butnsr12, who prompted this discussion by asking:

What role does the small press fill other than as a stepping-stone to the 'big times'?

Specter, Mensah Demary   Small presses are, in my mind, independent of "the big time." They publish the books the large houses no longer want, if they wanted them at all. They're more daring in what they publish (as well as who), and because of their size, they're swifter to adapt to changes in technology. They may be more open for experimentation, for working closely with the author to bring about his/her vision. Maybe small presses fill that gap, that space where the publisher and the writer work together on a project.

Still, I can't discount the large houses because they still publish worthwhile books. I like to think that some are still trying to "fight the good fight," which is the continued growth and promotion of the literary arts. That said, I try to stay away from the idea that small presses are "altruistic" and large houses are "malevolent." The goal is to publish the writer, to feed the ever-hungry (and perhaps fickle) reader.

Ninth Letter, Jodee Stanley   Small presses and literary journals are where contemporary literature grows and evolves. Let's be honest, the "big times" (NY book publishers, slick magazines) are by their very nature forced to consider the market and the bottom line. That's why so many magazines stopped publishing fiction—they (and/or their advertisers) felt that it wasn't attracting enough readers to make it worth the pages it took up. Big houses may want to keep literary authors on their lists, but in the face of budget cuts, the authors whose books sell the least will be the first dropped, regardless of how important the writing they do may be to the literary conversation. Small presses and literary journals don't have these issues—this community's main concern is keeping literature alive. New trends are born here, new schools of poetry, new ways of writing narrative and expressing truths. Writers who want to be part of this dialogue, and readers who want to follow it will always look to independent publishers and journals for the really exciting stuff.

Black Fox, Racquel Henry   I have to agree with Jodee on this one. Small presses are mainly concerned with keeping literature alive. Small presses are not afraid to publish a piece that takes risks. The larger houses are more concerned with publishing work that sells. It's just that priorities are different. The book that goes against the grain is more of a priority for a small press.

Joyland Fiction, Brian Joseph Davis   That dynamic might have had some traction in the '90s—and the small presses hate being considered "the farm teams" by the way—but it's just not true now. If you want to write a certain kind of writing, maybe something really bold, or writing for other writers, then the small press is a destination, not a consolation prize or stepping stone. The small—and large—publishers that are still doing well are the ones that have always acted as community hubs for specific kinds of writing and books. If they can continue to do that, especially with all the tools that make it really easy now, then they'll continue to do fine.

CutBank, Josh Fomon   Small presses aren't the big time? Kidding. But I'm going to defer to Kate Rutledge Jaffe, our former Editor in Chief, on this question: "I think small presses are incredible avenues for new writers looking to gain an audience, a place for readers to find inspiration, a fun way to discover new work and to watch as established writers take big, rewarding risks. Small presses and literary magazines also serve as a paper (and increasingly an online) community of bold writers determined to reach an audience with their work. And the curatorial aspect cannot be glossed over; each small press has a unique vision and eye for work, and publishes works that complement each other and the overall identity of the press. Find a small press whose aesthetic aligns with your own and you'll have found a friend, someone to introduce you to incredible, surprising work you might have otherwise missed."

Colorado Review, Stephanie G’Schwind   I often think of each issue of Colorado Review as a snapshot of a conversation—a conversation about what's happening right now in poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. This is what people are working on and trying out, what they're thinking about, what they're obsessed with. And I hope that it sparks further conversation—for the both the readers and the writers. And while it’s been true for us that agents pay attention to what we publish and often contact us about writers we’ve featured (presumably to invite them to the “big time”), we’ll always be a place for writers to get started, and come home to.

Black Fox, Racquel Henry   We think small presses play a very important role in the deliverance of good literature. There are so many talented writers out there; we simply offer enough places for those writers to be heard. Small presses sometimes enlighten people on what they're missing—they break the rules. In a way, small presses keep the literary world on its toes. They sometimes shock, invoke happiness, sadness, anger, etc. Also, no matter the size of the contribution, small presses are responsible for continuing the tradition of reading for pleasure. Because of small presses, people still DO read literary magazines.

Barge Press, Shawn Maddey   Not sure what "big times" is, but I would guess that if "big time" is your goal, you should probably just shoot for that and skip all of this nonsense. You can get published in a hundred lit mags, put out a billion chapbooks, and it might earn you some cred, or it might not. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and just say that there probably aren't too many mags out there thinking they've got the next Stephen King or Joyce Carol Oates on their hands. There's simply way too many writers and way too much going on in the small press world for that to really hold much water anymore, not to mention, where the mainstream is concerned, a declining interest in the literary forms and styles small presses tend to present... that's why none of us can afford to pay. Besides, my idea of the function of the small press is dramatically cooler than all that.

By submitting to and publishing in small presses, as an author, you're becoming part of a community. But that community isn't necessarily about stepping-stones and self-promotion—though if you can use it that way, all the more power to you! That community is all about discussion and interrelation. If writing is simply writing and you're looking for legitimation to get an agent or major book deal, then the actual market of journals would be very small and limited to a few highly established guys with high print numbers who would be making profits off of the fantastic collections of literature they've put together, people clamoring to see the next big thing. Maybe, to some degree, this was the case in the past, like pre-2000s, and even more dramatically pre-1970s. Any other endeavor would just be futile, the whole thing would just be a big minor league system for the top dogs to pick from; the little guys wouldn't even have a chance, or a purpose.

So why, oh, why do we publish? Just like why, oh, why do we write. Like any writer (and most of us who are editing and publishing are also writers), we have something to say, and, increasingly, the ability and outlets to say it. The only other option is that all content is created equal—that the "best work" is the best work, without room for debate. In that case, why bother? I can't decide what, objectively, the best work is any better than the next person can, and certainly couldn't afford a print run of 10,000 the way others can. Pointless. The truth is, there is no such thing as any kind of concrete and objective truth to any aesthetic. The truth is, this world is made up of many voices, very few of them trying to strike it rich, most of them just doing it for the love of the game. That's what really makes it special and fun—you really just gotta fucking love it.

Hayden's Ferry Review, Beth Staples   This question is a tough one because I find the general sentiment behind it problematic. I recently heard the author Reif Larsen speak, and he said (I wrote it down, so this is verbatim), "I think writers forget why they write: to keep writing." I think too often people focus on some kind of outcome: I'll write a story to get it published in a journal, I'll get published in a journal so I can get an agent, I'll get an agent so I can be famous... I think literary journals exist, in part, to support writers. Is that not an end in itself? The continuation of the art, the support of the artist? And then to find an audience of dedicated readers and bring them to exciting work. We're part of an exciting and vibrant community, and we contribute to that community in all sorts of ways: by creating conversation, by getting excited about literature, by letting writers know that people "out there" care that they're writing. Whether they get a six-figure book deal is, to me, beside the point.

Barge Press, Shawn Maddey   Everyone seems to be pretty much in lock-step with each other, right down to the laughable notion of comparing us to the big-time... not that the comparison itself is idiotic or laughable, just that we're all in so deep in this that it's humbling—we've all had to confront that we are not the “big time” and won't and can't be. But I don't find it insulting so much, as if we're the minor leagues, but still, I just see it as a thought that probably rings true for a lot of people, and one that ought to be dispelled. The clearer the line is between the concept of major publishing houses and the small presses, the better off the small presses are (especially in an era where people are craving the off-beat, the local, the organic, non-industrial products that are carefully crafted rather than merely produced, assembly-line style.)

Community is a definite recurring theme here, and seems something we've all latched on to as one of the defining factors, philosophically, that separates us from the large houses. It is important, for sure, to be part of the community of writers, but, given what we are, I think it's even more important to promote literature as part of the community of artists in general and, more than anything else, the individual communities we live in. Merely appealing to the community of writers is narrow-minded and begs for stagnation and irrelevance—two things which don't do a very good job of promoting our art.

This didn't up, but I don't think we should ever shy away from intellectual confrontation and debate. I recently had a run-in with an editor who was not so chill, from a mag I won't name. To him, print was the only legitimate form of literature, and he seemed almost scornful that his mag was going half-digital. I tried to argue the benefit of digital publishing, but I think he wrote me off as either an idiot or a drunk, because he was not very amenable to my salient logical gymnastics. Where there was an opportunity to have a legitimate philosophical debate, he simply turned his nose at me, rather than defending his point of view. This guy is, thank fucking god, an exception to the rule—everyone else I've interacted with has been the salt of the earth: warm, welcoming, and fun. The moral is: Don't be a stuck-up prude. Stand by your beliefs, yes, but embrace the opportunity to defend them, or at least discuss them. Literature always has to be something people can relate to, and nobody relates to self-absorbed wieners. Not to mention, being a self-absorbed wiener does absolutely nothing to advance the art form.

Unusual Call for Submissions

OccuPoetry is seeking poetry about economic justice/injustice, greed, protest, activism, and opportunity. Submissions need not be limited to Wall Street's greed nor US-based poets; we consider the Occupy Movement a world-wide movement for a more just world. OccuPoetry accepts formal and free-verse, mail art, and collage poetry. Details and submission guidelines here.

"Imitation is the highest form of flattery." The online literary magazine qarrtsiluni, now in its 7th year of operation, has just issued a call for submissions to an imitation-themed issue. The deadline is November 30. Details here.

Writer Advice's latest submission opportunity regards a moment in time that altered your world forever. Share 50 to 500 words of prose or up to 24 lines of poetry. It can be as small as picking up the telephone or as big as a hurricane. It can be as global as the impact of 9-11 or as personal as the discovery that your perfect baby has a chronic disease. It can be the start or end of a job or the time you responded to a Craigslist ad and found love. What moment altered your world forever? Submit to Lgood67334@comcast.net. DUE: December 10, 2011.

A unique opportunity brought to you by Unstuck's premiere release! To celebrate the upcoming release of the first issue, they're holding a fee-free contest with some unusual prizes. This is a micro-lit contest (miniature stories, miniature essays, and poems). Entry fee: $0, natch, although the contest is OPEN ONLY TO THEIR TWITTER FOLLOWERS. Link to UnstuckMag's twitter here. Last day entries will be accepted: December 31, 2011. Details here.

Each month SWITCHBACK provides a prompt and asks writers to send their best work inspired by that prompt. The winning entry as decided by their editors is then featured on SWITCHBACK. The November prompt is: "Nobody ever knows anything for a fact." Details here.

Contest Winners!

Do you ever crave something really delicious? We suggest you get yourself a cup of coffee and try an Elizabeth Barrett Brownie, or maybe a smidge of Truman Compote. Or maybe you’re actually looking for something that will whip you into shape in no time. Well, all the code heroes are using Hemingweights nowadays!

All right, enough with the puns. We’re just giving you a taste of what we heard from the HFR horde on Twitter this week when we challenged everyone to give us their best author-inspired products. We had some great entries, and these are the winners!

• “Jorie Graham Crackers: when your post-poststructural hunger just won’t abate.” —@JamesDucat

• “Tired of regular pens? Try our new Bukowski Bics! Select from our flavors of Bitter, Old Man, Beer, and Bar Fight.” —@fartmaster5000

• “Worried about winter at Walden pond? Get your Henry David Throws today!” —@chidorme

• “Judy Bloomers!” —@eleanorstrouser

• “Sick of idling in line so long that you could’ve read an epic trilogy? Get your J. R. R. Tollpass.” —@ka_booms

Each of these witty wordsmiths won a copy of Word of Mouth, part of a new series published by our own Virginia G. Piper Center. This volume features candid conversations with writers and poets including Charles D’Ambrosio, Francine Prose, Kimiko Hahn, Bob Hicok, and Franz Wright. Thanks again to everyone who participated and made our Wednesday lively. If you didn’t get in on this challenge, we hope to hear from you next time!

Tweeted Questions: Answers Revealed! (Part II)

A List of Plots, Storylines, Techniques and Situations we Often See Overused or Poorly Executed

We recently received a request on Twitter to post plots and storylines that we see too frequently in our submissions queue. So we rounded up opinions from our best readers and editors. These plots and plot devices often make us yawn, wince, and occasionally scream in anger. But we want to be clear: we think no subject is off the table. The trouble with the things on this list is they need a unique perspective, and a clear intention. We’re happy to read your work about anything, but here are some common pitfalls…

1) A complicated point of view. It’s hard to write from the POV of a child well, and we see that done poorly lots. We also see the use of the second person for no apparent reason (or just for the sake of it). Using “you” doesn’t make a boring story not-boring. Another problem is using an omniscient or unsteady POV without care or intention: it’s hard to give more than one POV its due in a short story. If you’re going to try it, make sure all of the voices are necessary to the story you want to tell.

2) Stories about bad relationships are a dime a dozen around here, which makes sense given the fact that horrific relationships are a universal aspect of humanity (gulp). What we typically see is an individual in an unhappy marriage or relationship because he or she either gets cheated on, abused, and/or neglected. Often the characters talk about how sad this is, over dinner, their fingers playing delicately or angrily with the stem of their wine glasses.

3) The mid-life crises also makes up a big part of our rejections. These stories usually involve a middle-aged male regretting an extra-marital affair or missing his wife. A lot of times he’s sitting at a bar. He says to the bartender, “I’ve made a mistake that I now regret. Don’t ever do what I did or you’ll end up hating your life like I do right now. On this bar stool.”

4) It’s hard to write a story about art or writing without making it seem overly self-conscious, like navel-gazing or like a failure or imagination. Many writers choose the struggling artist as their protagonist. Writers writing about writing or writing classes or writing workshops or writer's block get submitted a lot. Does this sentence annoy you? You see what we mean.

5) Writing from the perspective of someone with a psychological disorder is hard. This isn’t necessarily overused or uninteresting – in fact, it has a lot of potential, but writers seem to think it’s more original than it really is. We see a lot of stories that incorporate people who have autistic-like symptoms and/or think in ambiguous images. Sure, we love people with unconventional ways of viewing the world. But if the narration is so disjointed that we can’t make sense of the story, you lose us. You know how your drug trip or last night’s dream is only interesting to you? Ditto here. We need some context for the "crazy," some guiding logic or narrative to keep us invested.

6) We do love and encourage inventiveness and experimentation, but experimentation for the sake of experimentation is problematic. There still has to be character, and there still has to be story, and the formal elements better be necessary and navigated with care. Please do not send your character to heaven or hell. We get it, it’s hot down there and the devil is really mean and/or surprising witty! Your character might wake up to find he’s a tree/bird/dinosaur, but these unique situations are not inherently interesting. We promise. Neither are footnotes. Really. We get it: footnotes used to only be in academic papers! But we’ve all read DFW. The word on footnotes in fiction is out. Again, we're not against these things, but they need to earn their place; they can't be replacements for plot or character development.

7) Stories with awesomely bad gratuitous sex scenes – on second thought, keep them coming.

8) Unfortunately for you M. Night Shyamalan fans out there (if those even exist anymore), we don’t much care for the shocking ending or the curveball. Finding out that the protagonist is crazy or having the protagonist kill herself or reveal her homosexuality at the end are plot cop-outs. We’d rather explore the significance of a character situation than have you withhold the simple fact of it. A story should renew our attention constantly. That doesn't mean we want something happening all the time, but we do want the most important detail(s) of the story to be dealt with throughout and not just at the end.

9) We also tend to get a lot of stories about young adults drinking, partying, and/or doing drugs. The extent of the narrative arc usually involves someone doing something stupid when he or she is intoxicated and then regretting it later. It’s just a little too obvious. Do we need to expound on this one? To put it bluntly, even if that keg stand you did was really awesome, we’re not all that interested in what you did last weekend.

10) Finally, we have sob stories (yes that sounds cold, but hear us out). These stories usually involve a loved one with a terminal illness or a drug abuse problem. Yes, these situations are hard, but they’re also at this point fairly familiar. We know these situations are difficult and sad. If a story simply reinforces how sad and difficult they are, we’re in standard territory. Sorry. We feel mean about this one, but it’s true.

These kinds of plots are overworked for a reason. They generally represent our common fears, experiences, or desires. But any story can be fresh and interesting with the right angle and the right storyteller. There have been a lot of stories published. It’s the writer’s job to tell the familiar in a new/unique/unprecedented way, not to rehash things we’ve seen before or tread familiar ground. That’s really hard, we know that. But we also know it’s possible to surprise, astonish and amaze us. Our admiration is at the ready. Get writing!

Thanks to Aaron, Brian, Karen, Todd, Lauren, Rutger, Anita, Christian, Chris, and Beth for their contributions to this list.

Note: Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern has a great list, "What Not to Do," that might also be of interest.

Tweeted Questions: Answers Revealed! (Part I)

Recently, we asked our Twitter followers to tweet some questions to us, and herewith are a few of them answered. Keep the questions coming, and we'll make a point of answering them every so often. For those of you who've already asked, we'll have more answers up soon!

Two questions from our pal EthanChatagnier:

1) If I've received an encouraging rejection from a mag, how long should I note that in my future cover letters?

To be honest, Ethan, I've never considered this before. But my gut is saying there's no statute of limitations. You might say something like, "Thanks for being encouraging about my work in the past..." if it's been a while. But I think it's always fair to mention. Here at HFR, we get thousands of submissions. We'd like to give personal feedback or some kind of encouragement to everyone, but it's just not feasible. Any time you get feedback or encouraging words, an editor has gone out of his/her way to make sure you submit again. Even if your next two, three (or 40?) stories/poems don't make the cut, that editor saw something noteworthy and accomplished about what you sent, and that's a point of distinction. To my mind, that's always worth a mention.

2) I know most editors frown on story summaries in a cover letter. Do they want one sentence on what the story is about?

I don't. I think we frown on these because we want your story to speak for itself. If you feel like you have to tell me what it's about, then I'm worried you're afraid I won't "get" it. And if that fear is there, maybe the story isn't ready to be submitted. Since we've moved the HFR submission process online, we actually don't ask for a cover letter at all. The submission manager has a "comments" section that many submitters use for that purpose, but our readers are instructed not to look at the comments before reading the work. We don't want publications or biographical information or any other commentary to interfere with our reading of the work itself.

A here's one from bravenewlady: How do you determine your staff & editors? democracy? dynasty? divination?

We've got an amiable oligarchy here. I (Beth Staples) am the Managing Editor for HFR, the only permanent (and paid) staff member, and I control--well--mostly everything. Each year I choose six new genre editors who are all MFA candidates at Arizona State--two for poetry, two for fiction, two for our international section, and one for art. These editors have paid their dues reading submissions for the first two years of their study here.

Our reading staff is a little more open, but also monitored by me. Our bottom tier of readers is comprised of interns and community volunteers. Our next tier of readers is more experienced: former editors, MFA students and alumni, volunteers with some previous reading experience. Put all these people together, and the process looks like this:

1) A submission comes in, and is reviewed quickly by our "first looks" editor, who gives the submission a priority level (1-4) based on a reading of the first few pages (prose) or first poem (poetry). This is not a fool-proof process, but it does help us get to the most exciting work more quickly. This editor has been reading for HFR for YEARS.

2) I assign Priority 1-submissions immediately to the genre editors.

3) The other submissions I assign to a first-level reader, who reads them (in priority order), makes comments, and gives the submission a "yes" or a "no."

4) I then assign the submission to a second-level reader, who does the same.

5) A submission with two "yes" votes goes to the genre editors. A submission with two "no" votes gets declined with one of four different rejection letters. A submission with one of each vote goes to a third reader (another second-tier reader) to break the tie.

That was a bit of a digression, huh? But hopefully a helpful peek at the process. For people who want to act as volunteer readers, I ask that they send me an email (beth.staples@asu.edu) saying why they're qualified, and then I'll assign some sample submissions for review. After I've taken a look at their comments, I'll let them know if they can come on board.

So, divination, I guess.

Thanks for your questions! Find our Twitter feed here and ask away!

An Anonymous Reader on the Wonders of Nicholas Rombes' Serialized Story

Dear HFR Blog,

I enjoy reading the “News around the Net” section. I feel in the proverbial loop when I do. Someone, knowing I am a fan of Jane Austen, asked if I’d heard the new controversy over her untimely death. I said, “why, yes, yes I have.” (My source: the December 4th post.) It is a truth universally acknowledged that someone bringing up a famous author instead of last night’s episode of [insert mainstream hit television show of your choice here] must be in want of a conversation. After a gripping exchange on the true importance of investigations into the celebrity dead, I brought up another item I’d seen on that same blog post. And found another point of conversation: the luddite literature movement. Here is the item as it appeared on your blog: “There's Rick Moody and his Twitterature, then there's this. Some people are focused on bringing writing into the electronic age, Nicholas Rombes is bringing it back to the 19th century. Touche, Mr. Rombes.”

I don’t like Twitter much. I like Rick Moody a lot. I like it when people use fencing terms to acknowledge a conversational point awarded. I followed both links in the post. Result: I still like Rick Moody. I still don’t like Twitter much. Reading the second link, I decided to subscribe to the Nicholas Rombes serial story Nightmare Trails at Knifepoint, a novella that’s mailed in bits, in individual pamphlets, over the course of the year. This chain of events actually caught me off-guard. But the siren-song of the unknown was too loud. So, through the wonder of technology (internet ordering) I nabbed an old-school snail-mail subscription to the Dickensian art form of the serial.

The novella is described as “a lightning-flashed noir, a haunted detective novel for our disordered age. Ephraim P. Noble is a new kind of hero who must face the incoherence of a vast underground tunnel system built at the same time as the interstate highway system in the 1950s, a clock that doesn't keep time but creates it, his doppelganger, a mad (as in sanatorium) hunchback, a shadowy woman with long fingers whom he just happens to love, and a dark mystery as complicated as life itself.” Who doesn’t want to read about shadowy woman with long fingers? Cue Jerry McGuire scene: “You had me at “doppelganger.”

There are also these bizarre “narrative cards” that are illustrations to the story and rock pretty hard on their own. Letters have come on old stationary harvested from various locations (Hotels? Navy Ships?), with cut-and-pasted bits from catalogues, and my name has been typed, scrawled, or sharpie-penned into various spots to make me feel that yes, indeed, the mystery is mine to uncover.

The unexpected bonus is the waiting. I like the stories well enough; they remind me a bit of my younger-years affection for Edgar Allen Poe. But it is the wondering when the next pamphlet will arrive that is really giving my instant-gratification instincts a run for their money. I know this was the basic premise for the Twitterature postings too. Maybe I just have a threshold that needs doses bigger than 140 characters to feel the effects. Because I can honestly say I am excited about the next installment of the NT. I’m becoming the kid in A Christmas Story: stalking the mailbox for my decoder ring. Perhaps disillusionment looms, perhaps I will be told to drink my Ovaltine. But who can argue with that when there’s an insane hunchback in the wings?

Thanks for spreading the news about such a wide-variety of ways to enjoy the worded-world.

Signed,
Reader of Austen, pamph-lit, and your blog

Twitterature is coming

In an attempt to break down the barrier between publishers and readers, bestselling author Rick Moody will publish his latest work via Twitter. The story will consist of 153 postings of 140 characters and will be put up every ten minutes from 10:00 am to 6:30 pm starting on November 30th and running until December 2nd. The literary journal Electric Literature is hosting what it calls "a grassroots exercise in participatory epublishing. Check out their Twitter feed here.

And yes, the story has been written specifically to be posted on Twitter, so we will not have any posts being cut off the in the middle of a word or anything lame like that.The idea is to tweet and retweet the story to followers and encourage them to do the same, helping literature reach a place it has never been before and attract new, more wide ranging audiences.

It's a clever idea, if not a little silly. But it's still a chance to read some new work by an extremely talented writer and respect the painstaking work it must have taken to write an entire story so it can be understood in 140 character bursts, as well as a chance to see how this whole thing turns out.