Emerging Writers Network

Donations to Dzanc to be matched!

As noted over at the news blog of Dzanc Books:

Dzanc Books has just received a very exciting offer - an anonymous donor has offered to match the first $10,000 donated to Dzanc Books, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, between now and January 31, 2010 for those of you looking to make a last second tax-deductible donation for 2009, or get a good jump on such for 2010.

This means ANY donation you can make, $1, $2, $5, etc. will be matched, and therefore doubled. This is a fantastic situation for Dzanc Books, and will allow us to do many wonderful things in our community related efforts.

Please, if you are able to make ANY kind of a donation, visit our support page at the website and do so - it's an offer that is too good for Dzanc not to capitalize upon.

Experiences With Editors - Dawn Raffel

Dawn Raffel on working with one specific magazine editor:

I’d like to put forth an appreciation of Robley Wilson, who is one of the under sung heroes of American fiction. A brilliant novelist, short story writer and poet, Robley Wilson was also the editor of the North American Review for more than two decades during its glory years, when the magazine was publishing Margaret Atwood, Louise Erdrich, Raymond Carver, Andre Dubus and a lot of other writers who later became very well known. His magazine was remarkably eclectic (long before I heard the terms “microfiction” and “flash fiction,” he was out there running “four minute fictions”); there was no one style, and along with short stories, readers could find serious nonfiction: essays and reportage. Decades before the green movement, the NAR was paying real attention to the environment. 

One day when I was working as an underling in the fiction department at Redbook, I answered my boss’s phone and it was Robley Wilson. Luckily for me, my boss was out of the office. I ended up having a longish conversation with Robley, after which I decided to risk sending him the short story I had been poking at for three years. I didn’t think he’d say yes but I figured he would be nice enough not to laugh at me and might offer some useful criticism. Several months later—he read everything but was never known for speed—he stunned me by accepting the story. This was over the phone again, and I was so excited that he genially told me to calm down because I was getting only $40. He did not ask for revisions and he did not make changes; instead he told me I had “something” and suggested I find a good teacher. (Translation: Yes, you can do this and yes, you have a long way to go.) Another tip: Tell everyone I was working on a collection because eventually I would have one.

Robley published one more of my stories in the NAR after that, and then I did find a teacher: Gordon Lish. I have thanked Lish a few million times and will probably thank him a few million times more before I check out, but I also want to publicly acknowledge Robley Wilson, whose genius as an editor was to read everything with an open mind and a laser-sharp sharp eye, and to shine a light on the people he believed in. He has long since left the NAR but a few years ago he was guest editing Lost and published one of the stories in my forthcoming collection, again with no changes. He once told me that he would rather live with a story’s flaws than insert himself into the text. Every time I see Robley, which isn’t often, I am surprised all over again by how tall he is and how softly he speaks. In his quiet, hands-off, unassuming way, he launched the careers of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of writers. As readers and writers, we are in his debt.

Dawn Raffel’s new story collection, Further Adventures in the Restless Universe, comes out from Dzanc Books in March, 2010. She is the author of a previous collection, In the Year of Long Division (Knopf) and a novel, Carrying the Body (Scribner).

Experiences With Editors - Samuel Ligon

Samuel Ligon on the various editors he's had the pleasure of working with:

Though I’ve heard horror stories from other writers, I’ve never had a bad experience with an editor, and, in fact, my work has benefited tremendously from editorial help I’ve received over the years. Carolyn Kuebler at New England Review has an excellent eye for line edits. Chris Chambers at New Orleans Review helped me make the entry to a story much more fluid. Derek White at Sleepingfish asked me to change one word that ran through an entire story—an offensive word that I did not want to change, given my fondness for offensive words. But struggling with that one word forced me to re-imagine the story, and I ultimately discovered the right word that deepened the entire piece. Alison Callahan at HarperCollins provided the most insightful, specific, and useful critical read for Safe in Heaven Dead of any editorial response I’ve ever gotten, and in so doing helped me reanimate and finish that novel. Sharon Dilworth at Autumn House Press had great instinct and advice in helping choose the stories that would ultimately be included in Drift and Swerve.

I’ve only had one experience in which I felt an editor was absolutely wrong about a significant edit. That editor wanted to cut a last line I thought was crucial to the story. Cutting the line would have radically changed the story, I thought. I still feel that way. I said I wouldn’t make the cut, and the editor left it alone. That was the only time I thought the editor didn’t understand the story. Often, they understand it better than I do. 

My second published piece was in StoryQuarterly, when Diane Williams was editing. She chopped four or five pages off the opening—maybe a quarter of the story—and it was a perfect edit, teaching me a lot about point of entry. My strangest, and in many ways best experience with an editor was with Gordon Lish at The Quarterly, where my first published story appeared. I was young and ecstatic that the story had been taken. When I got the proofs, there were several edits  I remember—the word “thighs” was cut, as was some throat-clearing, superfluous language. But what seemed strangest to me then was a comment at the top of page, let’s say 10 of the proof. “Cut three words,” it said. Three words? Any three? I had no idea. I started looking at the page. I mean really looking at that page. I ended up cutting about, I don’t know, maybe forty words and inserting 37 new ones. That would teach him, I thought. When I look at that story today, I still recognize the page Lish made me read so closely. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I learned about reading and editing my own work from that experience—paying so much attention to every single word—and how cutting one word can cause previous or later sentences to collapse.

I know I’ve been lucky to have had such great editors, and I know that bad ones exist out there. I also know how to say no to an editor, though I haven’t very often, because they’ve usually been right, helping me improve, expand, tighten, and deepen the work, and teaching me something about how to read and understand it. Thanks.

Samuel Ligon is the author of a collection of stories, Drift and Swerve (Autumn House 2009), and a novel, Safe in Heaven Dead (HarperCollins 2003).  His stories have appeared in The Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, StoryQuarterly, Noise: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth, Post Road, Keyhole, Gulf Coast, New England Review, and elsewhere. He teaches at Eastern Washington University and is the editor of Willow Springs.

Experiences With Editors - Philip F. Deaver

An experience with a publishing editor from a specific series - the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction - which long-time readers of the EWN know is probably my favorite:

In the fall of 1986, I was notified that my collection Silent Retreats won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction.  Melissa Pritchard was a co-winner that year, and the two books resulting, hers (Spirit Seizures) and then mine, would be published by the University of Georgia Press in the ensuing months.  And so according to a plan set up by the press, in mid-summer of ’87 I was contacted by phone by the Flannery O’Connor Award series editor, Charles East.  For the next few weeks, line by line, story by story, we worked through my collection.  We did it all on the phone.  He told me, “Look, we’re going to print this no matter what – so let’s make it as good as it can be.”  I never met him face to face, but after all that time on the phone, his kind, reflective, appreciative voice and vector, I feel to this day that we were very good friends.  His eye for detail was far greater than mine; he saw deep into the stories.  He got the humor.  He appreciated – actually seemed to love – the characters, even the ones I wanted readers to hate.  He was gentle, and at the same time he was exacting.  He caught double meanings of sentences I only saw one way.  Without exception, every change he recommended showed full understanding of my intent and his recommendations showed an appreciation of my writing voice.  I would say we worked about twenty hours over those months, including much time on the phone and then close review of the galleys by mail.  A lot of it was line editing, but he saw conceptual issues and line editing as equal – for him, it was all in the interest of fully realizing and finalizing work that was already “there.”  I’ve had many other editors over the years since, but it is this man’s way with me, his blend of warmth and generosity with unrelenting editorial precision and artistic insight, that I’ve sought to imitate in my work with students and mentees.  After a long illness, Charles East died in early October of this year, and so even though I thanked him many times over the years, it would be crazy for me to miss this EWN opportunity to raise a toast in his memory. 

Phliip F. Deaver is writer in residence at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL and teaches fiction and poetry in the brief residency MFA program at Spalding University.  He is currently back to writing short fiction.  Learn more about him at his website, http://philipfdeaver.com/.

Experiences With Editors - Lori Ostlund

Lori Ostlund hits us with experiences of working with both journal and publishing house editors:

Perhaps it’s the season for such things—taking stock that is—but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the last year, particularly as it relates to my writing.  I have had, by my reckoning, a lovely year—eight stories and a book—but I’m 44 and have been writing over half my life, so my feeling was that it was about time.  I came into this knowing very little about the whole world of editing and publishing—I had no MFA, no writer friends, and I did my time in the slush heaps.  Over the last year, however, as my luck has changed, all of the editors I’ve worked with have been, without exception, great.  Georgia Review, for example, edited with an eye to each word and comma.  Aaron Burch at Hobart was a pleasure to work with, expediting the consideration process when asked and offering a seemingly small suggestion that made the opening of my story more cohesive.   Two editor experiences stand out: Nancy Zafris, the Flannery O’Connor series editor, and Carolyn Kuebler and Stephen Donadio at New England Review.  While I have appreciated their editing comments, perhaps the most important contribution they’ve made is their enthusiasm and guidance as I worked my way through the publishing process. 

I’ll begin with New England Review since my relationship to them goes back to 2006, actually 2005, which is when Carolyn Kuebler first wrote to me about my stories.  After a couple of notes, she accepted a story, which ran in 2006.  For the next couple of years, nothing really happened, beyond a lot of “good” rejections.  I did not try NER again during this time because I felt sheepish about not having placed work elsewhere, but when my book won the Flannery O’Connor Award, NER took two of the stories and Carolyn was always generous with advice regarding publicity and blurbs for my book.  While I know that the slush piles are daunting for writers and editors, Carolyn and Stephen seem particularly careful in their efforts to notice new writers, and I credit that early publication with keeping me focused and not entirely discouraged during the dry years as I was writing the rest of the book and trying to get stories placed.

When Nancy Zafris chose my collection as one of the two recipients of the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction (the other was Black Elvis by Geoffrey Becker), only two stories of the eleven had been published.  Nancy was amazing.  Really.  And I imagine that anyone who has worked with her already knows what I mean.   She gave me daily instructions on how to proceed, which involved writing to the journals where the stories were currently under consideration and asking them to expedite, something I probably would have been too nervous to consider on my own.  Next, she gave me a list of journals that she thought each story would be a good fit for, and she then queried editors she knew and had me query those she did not.  She was always excited on my behalf when stories were taken, and after years of rejections, this was an extraordinary experience.    She also gave feedback on the work itself.  When Kenyon Review wrote to her saying that they liked the story but had trouble with the first three pages (flashback within a flashback), she first played around with the structure and then sent me her suggestions for where the story should begin.  KR was right about the problem, and she was right about the solution.  I had worked on that story for four or five years, but I simply couldn’t see either.  Even now that Nancy’s job with my collection is technically finished (and was months ago), she stays constantly on top of things, wondering how sales are going, asking about reviews, and recommending the book to numerous people.  (Plus, she’s funny.)

Lori Ostlund’s first collection of stories, The Bigness of the World, won the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and was published by the University of Georgia Press in fall 2009.  Her stories have appeared in New England Review, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Hobart, and Prairie Schooner, among other journals.  In 2009, she was one of six emerging women writers honored with a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award.  She teaches developmental English and story writing at The Art Institute of California-San Francisco and is at work on a novel.

Experiences With Editors - Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum fills us in on a great publishing house editor:

I can join in the chorus of writers posting here who have said that their experience with editors has been overwhelmingly positive.  (The stories in my last collection, Swimming With Strangers, are so much the better for the expert work of editors Hannah Tinti at One Story, Sandra Costich at The American Scholar, and the very patient and insightful Sam Ligon and Adam O’Connor Rodriguez at Willow Springs.)  But I want to especially sing the praises of Jay Schaefer, formerly of Chronicle Books and now of Algonquin, who edited both Strangers (Chronicle Books, 2008) and my first collection, This Life She’s Chosen  (Chronicle Books, 2005).

 

When I sent the manuscript for This Life to Jay, I was two months out of my graduate writing program.  The manuscript had been my thesis, and none of the stories in the collection had been previously published anywhere.  I was agentless, and sent the collection fairly blindly, relying on the verbal recommendation of one of my professors (she said she knew an editor at Chronicle and would mention my collection the next time she had dinner with him) to save my manuscript from languishing in the slush pile.  Beyond her good word, Jay had no reason to even glance at my stories.  But as it turned out, he did pick them up, and then called me a couple of weeks later to tell me—in a phone call that changed my life—that he wanted to publish the book.

 

I cannot say enough good things about Jay and working with him on that first book, and on the second collection three years later.  He is the kind of editor writers—especially new writers—dream about.  First and foremost, he truly loves the short story form.  I, like most writers, had fully absorbed the notion that editors would only show interest in a collection if I could first produce a novel.  (Novels sell, right?)  So I was pleasantly surprised with Jay’s enthusiasm for my collections.  He was a careful and meticulous reader, always very patient with my questions and willing to patiently read seemingly infinite drafts as I struggled to get things right.  He intuitively understood what I intended with the stories, and was able to help me see where I’d missed the mark and to guide me back.  Reading his suggestions, I’d often wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that?”  His edits improved the stories in so many ways, yet he was also always respectful of and faithful to my original vision. 

 

Beyond his excellent work, Jay is simply a nice guy.  From our very first phone conversation, I was able to trust him—about the writing and the business of publishing—and as a young writer I found that invaluable.  Jay cares about his writers as artists and as people.  (Evidence of this: he called me the day of my first bookstore reading, knowing how anxious I was, to wish me good luck.  And a year later, when my son was born, one of the first congratulatory cards in my mailbox was from Jay.) 

 

I’ve heard enough horror stories about editors from other writers to know how blessed I’ve been to work with Jay.  He’s given me, beyond everything else, a sense of what publishing can be at its best: a happy collaboration with a commitment to producing good writing at its heart.

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is the author of two collections of short stories:  Swimming With Strangers (Chronicle Books, 2008) and This Life She’s Chosen (Chronicle Books, 2005), which was selected as a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers title. She has been the recipient of a PEN/O. Henry Prize and a Pushcart Prize nominee, and has received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the MacDowell Colony. She teaches fiction writing at Purchase College, SUNY.

Source of Lit - Everyday Genius

Everyday Genius, the online literary journal from Adam Robinson and Publishing Genius, is one that I certainly should have highlighted more than I did (which may simply, which would also be sadly, this post).  Let this post be the first in the rectification project toward eradicating that mistake (and no, I did not get one of those Word of the Day calendars for Christmas).

Amelia Gray, okay, I know you've read that name here one or a dozen times this past year, reminds us all of the true meaning and spirit behind Christmas with her wonderful short story, Christmas House.  As with all of Amelia's writing, go enjoy, wonder, think, and then realize about two days later that this story is still stuck in your head.

Source of Lit - The Quarterly - Spring 1987 - John Madera

John Madera?  What did he publish in that first issue of The Quarterly?  Nothing that I can find, but he did do a full issue review at the community blog, Big Other, that I believe he founded.  It can be found here and is quite insightful.  While looking for one of the authors from that issue, I stumbled onto this post that I must have missed back in October when he posted it.  I look forward to comparing my own thoughts and views with John's as I continue going forward through this issue.

Source of Lit - The Quarterly - Spring 1987 - Tom Spanbauer

The next story in the debut issue of The Quarterly was Tom Spanbauer's "Sea Animals."  At 12 pages long the story is one of the longer short stories in this issue, though it is dwarfed by a couple of efforts that would probably be considered novellas.  Spanbauer's story begins

I asked her to show me what was wrong with him.

The second sentence is

It was still winter when I asked, sometime within the first ten days of his one hundred days, after he got home from the hospital, before the time when she thought she had smothered him, before the time when the pigs got out, before he dies in the spring, after the chores were done, and after school and before supper.

Two widely different sentences, but both do perform a very similar task - let the reader know what he/she has in store for them.  The first sentence, spare and short allows the reader the knowledge that something is wrong with a character in the story.  The second sentence, still spare in its language, yet long and windy in nature, is as close to a re-cap of a story as a second sentence ever might be.  Each of the sections between commas within this sentence receives full sections of elaboration during the rest of the story.  The writing within those sections remains spare in nature - it appears to be a trait, at least within this story, for Spanbauer. 

An interesting aspect of the story is that the narrator is a young child, and one with a sister in third grade.  This sister attends school while the narrator performs chores around the family's farm.  As the narrator plays with Lincoln Logs and Tinkertoys, I came to the conclusion that his not being in school was due to being too young to attend, and not so old as to be out of school.  This would lead to our narrator being fairly unreliable in his memory of the events of his younger brother's birth, and very short-lived life.  Especially in cases where he specifically notes that his memory does not coincide with that of those that were older than he was

On the day of the funeral it rained.  Barbara says it was sunny, but I remember that there were umbrellas and that we all stood under umbrellas, and that I was wearing my overshoes.

How much of his memory do we as readers believe?  Does it matter? 

Source of Lit - The Quarterly - Spring 1987 - Amy Hempel

The first issue of The Quarterly, a literary journal with the tagline, The Magazine of New American Writing, right on the cover, was published in Spring 1987 by Vintage, with Gordon Lish at the helm as Editor.  After a drawing titled "A Mother's Love," by Don Nace and referred to as a Nace Page in the Table of Contents, the first actual writing in this debut issue was Amy Hempel's short story, "The Harvest."

It began:

The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.

Having only recently "discovered" Hempel's writing earlier this year, and having really enjoyed this particular story, I quickly noticed that "The Harvest" only seemed about half of the length of the version I'd read in her Collected Stories.  I'm not sure what the process was back nearly 23 years ago, but the point where Hempel's narrator truly becomes one of the most unreliable narrators I've read, when she utters the line: 

I leave a lot out when I tell the truth

is actually preceded by the following:

About the piece of fiction I have with you in this issue--I just wanted to say that

and it actually appears nearly 290 pages after the preceding sentence, and does so in what appears to be a Letter to the Quarterly, from Amy Hempel.  Did readers of "The Harvest" back when this first came out maybe only see that first half?  And not get hit with the massive unreliability of the narrator?  Everybody doesn't read every page of each literary journal they pick up.  It would be interesting to find out what process led to that breaking up of the story - did Hempel write that first half and then get prompted by LIsh to write the second half?  Did she send in the full story and he suggest the split?  Did she?

Beyond that, this is probably the fifth or sixth time I've read the story now, and the narrator's unreliability still does come through, in more subtle ways than the big, bold means of doing so listed above, such as the early admission that

one of my legs required four hundred stitches, which, when I told it, became five hundred stitches, because nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

and that's followed by

The five days that they didn't know if they could save my leg or not I stretched to ten.

This story has many spot-on sentences - dialogue that doesn't read like that from many stories, but instead read the way that people actually talk - disjointed and jumpy and not point a and then point b.  The story also brims to me with humor, albeit slightly to completely dark, but that's usually my favorite kind.

The split of this story has "The Harvest" ending at the point where the narrator goes to the beach and tells a young boy that the scars on her leg are from a shark bite, and yes, she's going back in is a pretty powerful image, which is an ending that certainly made the story feel complete.