E-Panel: Literary Journal Editors VI - June 2005

The following is the sixth E-Panel of Literary Journal Editors - those participating are as follows:

Keith Gessen – n+1

www.nplusonemag.com

Shanna Compton/Justin Marks – Lit

http://nsu.newschool.edu/writing/lit -- we are also putting up a new blog at http://lit-magazine.blogspot.com

 

Introductions:  Outgoing editor: Shanna Compton. New editor: Justin Marks.

Shanna: Hi Dan. Thanks so much for inviting LIT to participate in this forum. Since I just signed off with issue 10, I thought I'd also take this opportunity to introduce Justin Marks, our new editor.

Justin: Hi. Let me second my thanks for inviting LIT to talk.

Dwayne Hayes – Absinthe: New European Writing

www.absinthenew.com

Dwayne D. Hayes is the founding editor of Absinthe: New European Writing and has been an editor for a reference publisher in the

Detroit

area for over 8 years.

Absinthe: New European Writing is a print journal devoted to featuring the best European writers who have not been widely translated into English. The journal includes poetry, prose, essays, interviews, and an author photo with a short bio.  Absinthe: New European Writing is published biannually; the first issue was published in July 2003.

Katherine Mcnamara – Archipelago

www.archipelago.org

Katherine McNamara founded Archipelago in 1996/7, in response to the conglomeration and increasing coarseness of trade book publishing. She proposed to offer writers, genres and subjects that were, increasingly, being passed over as "literary." Archipelago's readership, she expected, would be well-read adults with international experience, having lived in and been formed by more than one culture, who were looking for serious

publishing on the world wide web. In May 2005, about 19,000 'unique visitors' read the journal, spending about 11 minutes per visit on the site.  Archipelago is on hiatus now, with the next issue not to appear till late Autumn 2005, as she reorganizes the non-profit company that supports it all.

Lacy C. – Narrative Magazine

www.narrativemagazine.com

Clay Matthews –

Cimarron

Review

www.cimarronreview.com

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!

Keith - n + 1:

Sure.

Shanna - Lit:

Well, since we've just finished up and issue and work on a semester schedule, the timing is perfect. We're off for the summer.

 

Justin - Lit: 

Well, I have one final batch of prose and poetry to get through, but we should be done with those in a week or two. So all in all, you caught us at a good time.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

Thank you for the opportunity.  It's always fun to discuss literature and what we're doing with Absinthe: New European Writing.

Katherine - Archipelago:

Thank you for inviting me to the roundtable.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

Thank you for inviting Narrative to take part in the conversation.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Hey, no problem. We’re happy to be a part of it, and thanks for the invite, as well as putting all this together.

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?

Keith - n + 1:

I founded it along with Mark Greif, Ben Kunkel, and Marco Roth just over a year ago. We put out a prototype issue in March 2004, and have put out two full-sized mammoth issues since.

Shanna - Lit:

Since LIT is attached to the graduate writing program at the

New

School

, it is run by student volunteers. I was on the staff for LIT 6 and by the time 7 was rolling around the current editor (Liz Brown) was stepping down to do other things (such as teach and focus

on her own writing). I expressed my interest and was nominated by Liz and approved by the faculty advisors, so took over with issue 7.  There's not a strict timeline in place, but usually each editor is at the helm for 2-3 issues and then is replaced by another alumnus. The editor-in-chief position is a post-graduate job, and the rest of the staff is generally made up of current students in either year of their MFA program.

Justin - Lit: 

My story is similar to Shanna's. I had just started at the

New

School

when LIT 7 was coming together. I read and proofread for that issue. I think it was the following summer or fall when Shanna approached me about taking over as editor after she stepped down. Of course I was thrilled at the opportunity. And very grateful for it.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

Insanity, most probably!  I founded Absinthe three years ago when I realized there wasn't an American journal focused exclusively on publishing work by European writers in translation.  I ran the idea by a number of people and the response was universally enthusiastic so I developed an advisory board of writers and translators from the

U.S.

and

Europe

.  And within a few weeks we'll celebrate the publication of our 4th issue.

Katherine - Archipelago:

Intense dissatisfaction with, even dismay at, the conglomeration of

New York

publishing companies into huge, debt-laden, private hyper-companies ("houses" no longer), and with that, the increasingly television-like tastes of editors. Not to mention the rise of editorial decisions made by marketers. Low times.  I thought that serious publishing and careful editing were looked for on the Web, and that Archipelago would be one of the new sources of work that serious readers would gladly turn to. And I wanted to see what was

possible, and what I could make happen, by doing this without much capital, and

without having to report to an academic or editorial committee, or even a funding organization. I thought a strong, well-read editor was the center of any good publisher's endeavor, and I wanted to try to achieve that standard.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

I had been familiar with the work of Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian as writers, editors, and teachers for several years before they founded Narrative.  They did me the honor of asking me to help with the magazine, and I’m in the grateful position now of both editing myself and apprenticing with two terrifically skilled editors.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

At the Cimarron Review, two graduate students act as associate editors and run most of the major operations of the magazine. The term for any associate editor is a maximum of two years, with a different editor rotating out every year. I interviewed for the position as a chance to get some quality experience with a quality journal—not to mention a better understanding of some of the ins and outs of the publication industry.

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?

Keith - n + 1:

By working nearly full time and neglecting everyone we know, and not paying anyone, and squeezing bookstores for payment, and advertisers, and also our friends who subscribed, we've broken even thus far on the costs. So, yes, to answer your question.

Shanna - Lit:

In our case, we don't get paid at all. All of the staff members are volunteers, and we work on the magazine on our own time (in other words, it's not structured as a class--though we've looked at that idea) in addition to working our regular jobs and going to school. We used to pay a designer to produce each issue, but we recently decided to switch over to in-house production so the students could learn about the entire process, not just the editorial end of things. The department got us the software and computer we needed, so

now we just send the issue out to the printer and distributor.  Everything else we do ourselves. It's great training for students who want to work in publishing or start their own magazines, or whatever.  Sometimes I joke that we get paid only in "literary currency." There are less tangible benefits than money to be earned by volunteering to

work on a magazine. Insight into the submissions process is only one major thing. I'm sure Justin has more thoughts on this.

 

Justin - Lit: 

Yes. It's very much a labor of love. I think it is for everyone involved. As LIT becomes more popular, we're getting opportunities to publish better and better work from well known poets and writers, as well as some really great unknowns. Finding high quality work in the slush pile is a big reward for me. Doing our own production is great too. It's not my favorite part of working on the magazine, but it is valuable and does leave me with the sense that we actually made something, a real thing. In addition to what Shanna said regarding learning about the submission process (which has been a huge pay-off), I've learned a ton about writing in general. I've become a much better reader than I used to be. I have to articulate to myself and others why I like this piece and want to publish it, or why I feel we shouldn't publish something. I've learned a lot aesthetically, is what I'm trying to say. It's been invaluable for me.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

It's definitely a long-term "get rich quick scheme."  Shortly after we celebrated the release of Absinthe issue #2 a co-worker at my day job said, "Well, it must be nice to have this side project of yours to bring in some extra income."  We've certainly not been making any money with Absinthe but we're having fun, publishing great writers, and meeting fascinating people.

Katherine - Archipelago:

People can laugh, if they like, if their values are rooted in making money, instead of living a certain kind of life. I've heard managers in book publishing defend their companies by saying publishers have always worked to "make a buck." Well, yes, but not in those coarse terms, I think. For myself, though, I'd say stubbornness and the chance to publish an independent journal are the carrot and the stick.

I also published, for about five years, a series called "Institutional Memory," linked from our Contents page, of long conversations with respected editors, publishers and other book people who came up in the old way, learned how book publishing worked at its best, then saw how conglomeration and the revaluation of all values changed their -- our -- world. These conversations were the best possible tutorial I could have had. I hope I've

carried on, in some small way at least, from their experience and high standards.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

Narrative is in fact a registered 501 (C)(3) nonprofit organization.  We’re trying to work with the Internet to bring our writers’ work to as many readers as possible, and for that reason we are committed to making the magazine available for free.  I know we at Narrative are in good literary company when we say that work on the magazine in addition to — in fact, in spite of — having other full time jobs that allow us to pay the rent, educate the children, feed the dog…

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Safe to say, indeed. Sometimes I imagine myself on a hypothetical plane, with me as a graduate student and busy editor on one end, and those guys on television that say something like “I make three-hundred thousand a month just by filing my nails” on the other end. I’d much rather be caught up in the work, as I think most editors would. This love, as all loves, though, gets tested.

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?

Keith - n + 1:

It would be extremely helpful. Historically, if you look at the major journals of the past, a lot of these people were connected just kind of through the course of things to people who knew, at the very least, accounting. Right now Mark Greif does our accounting and Marco Roth our advertising sales and Ben Kunkel our fundraising and I do our

distribution. We're not bad at these things, actually. But it would be nice if someone who actually knew what he or she was about did them, too.

Shanna - Lit:

Well, a good sense of what you like and dislike as far as writing goes is essential, of course. In our case, we are generously sponsored by a program that designed the magazine as a supplementary education tool, so we don't worry about the business end too much. I mean, we're given a budget and the department pays our bills. The editors (and managing editors) learn about the less glamorous side of the process too--dealing with submissions, and paperwork, and permissions, and mailings, and the distributor. But the primary task of the entire staff at LIT is just to focus on the poetry, fiction, and nonfiction we publish. For independent journals that aren't supported by a program there are all kinds of business concerns to consider--grant writing for nonprofits, production costs to subscription revenues, and all of that. I've worked in publishing for several years

in various capacities so the business side of running LIT wasn't new to me. Perhaps Justin - Lit: can speak more to that. Are "truly business-astute people" liable to work so hard for free? Ha ha. But I'm joking. I imagine publishing any independent literary magazine takes an extraordinary amount of business sense--including fundraising and grant-writing skills. You have to watch every cent because there are fewer of them.

 

Justin – Lit: 

My business experience was pretty much zero when I started on LIT. Since then, I've gotten a job as a copywriter for an internet search optimization company. I think I apply a good bit of what I've learned there about managing time and work load to running LIT. I'd be lost if we weren't funded the way we are by the

New

School

. So yeah, I think business savvy is probably pretty essential for an independent print journal.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

An "astute" businessperson would probably not make the mistake of starting or running a literary journal!  But, seriously, it certainly helps to have some business sense--knowledge of marketing, fundraising, and project management is definitely a necessity.

Katherine - Archipelago:

I think experience in running a non-profit organization -- though I say this with some trepidation -- would be more useful than experience in a for-profit business. Making a profit and seeking 'market-share,' selling a product: these form a different kind of goal than organizing and publishing literature, the arts, and well-thought essays. It's like thinking government can be run like a business. Neither the arts nor government can be run like a business, because their intention is not profit, but -- in quite various ways -- the social or intellectual or aesthetic well-being of persons or the polity. "Selling" is the verb for business, not for literature, not for ideas, not for argument or persuasion.

    That said, let me add that an arts organization, such as a journal, doesn't have a great deal in common with a government agency, either.  Intention is terribly important, because it speaks of your standards and purposes, rather than of superficial similarities of organization.

    However, in any publishing venture, knowledge of literature, the arts, humanities must be the more important quality of the directors. If a business person were involved, he or she would have to bring talents in business to the service of the enterprise, rather than -- as happens too often now -- trying to make the enterprise conform to the supposed

necessities of business.

    Perhaps, rather than someone with business experience (in what – making soap?), the more useful person to have would be a lawyer who knows about non-profits and arts agencies.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

The intersection of art and industry has always been a tricky one, and I think that now is an especially challenging time for the business of literature.  On the one hand, individual books titles sell in the millions; on the other, the editorial care and publication of literary fiction is rapidly on the decline.  It is essential to have a skilled editor at the helm of a literary journal, lest it fail in its primary purpose.  It is almost essential to have someone with real business acumen.  The goal of increasing readership is always about creating more and more reader attention and opportunity for the writers.  And in order to do this, you do need to develop a skill set around growing the magazine—which for us, as a nonprofit, means fundraising rather than advertising.  There is an entrepreneurial aspect to the work, absolutely, and the better you handle this, the more life you can create for the stories.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

I’ll be a pain here and say yes and no. I grew up in the shadow of business. My father was the perpetual entrepreneur, always looking for a chance to hit the jackpot. Part of the business world, especially the small or burgeoning business world, is filled with a wild and creative energy, and sometimes even an almost disgusting optimism that I think could be useful for the running of a journal—and note I don’t mean here the corporate world that is sometimes involved in large-scale consumer reproduction. I think a sort of obsessive and manic marketing might help journals cover the cost, and perhaps even turn a profit. On the other hand, this marketing needs to be done by someone who knows a thing or two about literature (and who’s not wholly out to strike it rich, though perhaps with that motivation). Part of working for a small journal is realizing that you’re a part of a long tradition, and that you have (in my opinion) a sort of obligation to that tradition.

Dan:

Where does the funding for your journal come from?  A university?  Patrons?  Subscribers?  Fundraisers?

Keith - n + 1:

We put in a very small amount of money initially, the four of us, and since then we've paid for the printing and mailing costs through subscriptions and advertising--combined, through a great deal of effort (and keep in mind we don't pay anyone), these have covered

costs. But we'd like to pay people, so we're going to start actively fundraising this summer and see what happens.

Shanna - Lit:

Oops, I managed to answer this one in my previous answers. In addition to support from our department, we also have an advisory board who contribute to the magazine. We couldn't make such a gorgeous magazine twice a year without them. We also have a subscriber base--lots of libraries, and individuals. We've been assigned as a textbook, and we are distributed to newsstands and bookstores across the country. We don't rake it in, by any means, but all of the sales help offset the costs of producing the magazine.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

Bake sales, lemonade sales, bottle returns!  Our funds come from a combination of fundraising events, subscribers, donations from individuals and advisors to the journal, and contributions from corporations.  In the future we would like to be more closely affiliated with a university.

Katherine - Archipelago:

Mostly private sources, including small donors, but also national and international organizations like the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy and Proiseact nan Ealan, the Gaelic (Scottish) Arts Agency. Archipelago Publishers is a 501(c)3 organization. However, I've gone as far as I can on a small budget, and so, as I said, am seeking help in reorganizing. Not much to be said about that yet as my colleagues and I are in the midst of the process, except that I'm both hopeful and excited,

and think we will do something unexpected and interesting.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

Narrative is entirely supported by funds donated by readers, patrons, and friends, as well as foundation support.  We are lucky to have readers who recognize what we are trying to do — and that we are doing it for free - who are willing to contribute in order to help sustain the magazine.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

All of the above, though we haven’t really put on a fundraiser in a while. The bulk of our funding comes from a university—

Oklahoma

 

State

. We also have patrons and a decent number of subscribers, but without our university funding I doubt the

Cimarron

Review would have lasted since 1967.

Dan:

How do you decide how many issues to publish of each issue?  Does the greater percentage get sent off to subscribers?

Keith - n + 1:

We printed 2,000 copies of the first issue and sold out—partly because distribution is wasteful, partly because we got some nice press. We printed 3,000 copies of the second issue, but managed to pick up an even more wasteful distributor, I mean more wasteful by an order of magnitude, and so we're just about out of issue two. So we're going to print a few more copies of issue three--but the short answer is we guessed, both times, and were a little off, both times.

Shanna & Justin - Lit:

We print the same number of copies of each issue. Our percentage of subscribers changes from issue to issue, and I'm actually not sure of the numbers. The thicker the issue, the larger the percentage that goes to the contributors! About 15% percent, I'd guess go to our distributor, and the rest are directly distributor to subscribers, libraries, single-issue customers, and we donate lots, and send cartons to professors for classes or all of the contributors to The Best American Poetry, or where have you. We keep some for

back-issue orders and archival purposes (and they are free for students in our program) but a good 90 percent of every print run gets into the hands of readers of one stripe or another.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

For the first issue of Absinthe we printed 1000 copies and I still have a box or two in my closet.  The print runs for subsequent issues are based on the number of copies requested by our distributor, our subscribers, and the number of copies we send out as part of our promotional activities.  Our current print run is 750 copies.

Katherine - Archipelago:

This isn't a question for a Web publisher. The nicest part is that our readership -- noticeably during the last 18 months -- has been growing remarkably by the month.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

This question isn’t particularly relevant to Narrative.  We’re online.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Our production depends partly on how much money we have, although for the most part we’ve constantly put out a run of six-hundred. It’s a small number, but it keeps us in existence while keeping us under budget. Our university funding is adequate, but in no way extravagant. About half of that number goes out to subscribers, and the other half is either sold here or there, or boxed up and stacked in the corners of this tiny office (we’re bursting at the seams). We’d like to see our production number increase in the future, as I’m sure most journals would. In the meantime, though, our biggest obligation—especially as a magazine with a long tradition—is simply to continue to put out the best issues we can, even if it’s a small number of them.

Dan:

How do you get bookstores to carry your journal?  Do you target independent stores, or big chains, or just regional stores?

Keith - n + 1:

Well, in case no one has done this before in this forum, here is how it works. Most bookstores hate to go on consignment (i.e., we send them copies, they pay us directly for the ones they sell)--it's more paperwork and hassle for them, they'd rather just get all their

magazines through a distributor. There are maybe half a dozen distributors for a magazine like ours, each with their own special fuck-ups. One has a very poor list of stores, so they mostly send us to cigar shops--but they are honest and pay on time; another has a good list of stores but is notorious for not paying--and owes us about 600 dollars for the first issue. Neither of these can get us into Barnes and Noble. Only Ingram can do this. The problem with Ingram is that it's an enormous machine that can't tell n+1 from Policy Quarterly, much less from the Paris Review. One would ideally be able to avoid Barnes and Noble--but there are a great many people whose only bookstore, unfortunately, is Barnes and Noble, and it also so happens that the smaller distributors, the ones who don't use B&N, have serious problems, as per above.

We were not able to get Ingram to distribute the first issue so before it came out we asked an intern, Mollie, to call the sixty or seventy best independent stores in the country and tell them about n+1. She would call stores and praise the magazine and disparage our

competition. A good portion of these stores were using our small distributors--Ubiquity and Deboer--and ordered from them. Those that didn't agreed to go on consignment for the first issue. It was actually very educational: the better a store, the more committed

their magazine buyer, and the more willing they were to take the small risk of shelving us. These were: St. Mark's; Brookline Booksmith; Politics and Prose; Looking Glass Books; Elliott Bay Books; Clean Well-Lighted Place.

I still can't get the guy from City Lights to shelve us.

Shanna - Lit:

We don't target any stores directly. That's handled by our distributor. But LIT seems to be picked up mostly by independent bookstores and newsstands near universities in larger cities.  Naturally, we're available more widely in

New York

, since we're based here. But I've run into copies as far away as

San Francisco

and

Portland

,

OR

.

Justin – Lit: 

Some of the other editors and I have been talking about essentially cold calling some stores here in the city that don't carry LIT, and sending it to friends in other cities and ask them to try and get it into bookstores there. But so far, that's just talk.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

We have a distributor who ensures placement in some of the best independent bookstores around the country and we also target additional bookstores and cafés locally

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

This question too isn’t entirely relevant to an online journal such as Narrative.  That said, we are constantly puzzling over ways to support booksellers and the bookselling tradition, recognizing it as a fundamental element of literary culture.  And we’re keen to help navigate the gap between books in print and books online.  Nobody has quite figured out how those two worlds will interact going forward—event the behemoths are placing their bets on e-books (Barnes and Noble and iUniverse, for example), and we’re eager to help inspire traditional standards of literary excellence in the new form.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

For the most part, our distributors (Ingram and Kent) take care of this, though I envision in the future our associated editors will take a much more active role.

Dan:

Do you consider your journal to be a regional journal or not?

Keith - n + 1:

No. We're based in

New York

but most of the people who read us seriously are, I suspect, not in

New York

. In

New York

there's a lot of drinking. There's a lot of drinking in other places, too, but it's more solitary there, in those other places. In

New York

you have to

drink and hold conversations, which is distracting, in terms of reading n+1.

Shanna - Lit:

No. We publish a wide range of emerging and established writers from the

United States

and

Canada

, and have published foreign authors in English translation. We are mostly American, sure, but are open to anything from anywhere.

Justin - Lit: 

No, we are absolutely not regional. In the issue we're currently putting together, we have poems in translation from a Chinese poet. And in our past couple issues at least, we've had a good bit of work in translation.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

No.  We are regional in the sense that we only publish European writers but the work is in English and intended for English-speaking readers throughout the world.  We currently have subscribers in the

U.S.

,

Canada

,

Australia

, and

Europe

.

Katherine - Archipelago:

From the beginning, Archipelago was meant to be an international journal. I would like to expand our international readership, and am encouraging international collaborators.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

Absolutely not.  Our staff is all over the place—

San Francisco

,

London

,

Florida

,

New York City

,

New Orleans

… And our readers are all over the world.  Truly.  We’ve just received a manuscript submission from a young Nigerian writer in an online café in

Lagos

.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Regional only in the sense that most of our editors live in

Oklahoma

, and are in one way or another constantly affected by the surroundings (it’s about 98 degrees right now, and it hasn’t rained in a week). For the most part, though, our claim is to be “literary”—a term as broad as it is exclusive. We receive several

Oklahoma

and/or plains-y pieces, and accept some and reject many. Our first focus is always quality.

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?

Keith - n + 1:

One of our editors is on

Cape Cod

--but he descends on

New York

pretty often and stays with his bubbie. During production, especially, which lasts about three weeks, we need all hands, and though we do most of our discussion over email, it's important to see each other once in a while. It's very easy to, how to say, misunderstand someone over email. Although in person, too, that happens.

Shanna - Lit:

In our case that would still be tough, because we don't accept email submissions. (But in theory, and I know there are webzines that do this, magazines that work all electronically could have far-flung staffers with no problem.) We read and discuss all the submissions in regular meetings, and work with hardcopy proofs, and pack the mailings up ourselves--so bodies in the conference room are required. But we work with our authors electronically, communicating mostly via email and sending PDF proofs rather than hardcopy. The staff is so busy with their individual schedules, though, that sometimes it seems impossible to get together. So recently we've started using an online database and email group that allows everybody to check from any computer. It's helped a lot.

Justin - Lit: 

Yeah, that database is a life saver. I realize the day will likely come when we go more electronic, but personally, I like getting together with people to discuss submissions. I do know some editors who run an electronic magazine who don't live in the same area, but

when it comes to make final decisions, I know they at least try to get together in the same place. I think the face to face interaction is a really important part of the process (though I realize it's not necessary for everyone).

Dwayne - Absinthe:

I prefer face-to-face contact with the people I'm working with but it's certainly possible to have staff members work remotely.  It's not something we've had to deal with yet.

Katherine - Archipelago:

This isn't a concern for me, as Debra Weiss, our web designer, and I live in the same town; but we do use and need a fast internet connection for transferring files. I do think personal contact with staff is desirable, even necessary, particularly if you use volunteers. Working with writers and artists via the internet, on the other hand, may generally preferable, unless you are editing a book. On the other hand, sitting down with an

author and working through editorial queries and knotted sentences, and having it all come out right, is one of the finer pleasures of editing.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

As I said above, with an online journal it is certainly possible, and in some ways even preferable, to have staff spread out geographically.  Of course you spend a lot of time on the phone, and it is crucial to spend time in person when possible lest you begin to feel too remote.  If a journal were based in a specific region, cultural or geographical or both, it would seem imperative for editors too to be grounded in that place.  But one of the elements we’re exploring with Narrative is the ability to build a community online, to combine the distant reach of the Internet with the immediacy, and feeling of connection, provided by really good storytelling.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

For us, it’s imperative that someone be in the area, simply because nearly everyone on our staff is in the area, we use the university’s printer, and share some equipment with the English office. However, for the most part, and especially for online journals, I don’t really see a need—especially for journals with no regional ties, although one may easily leave a region and carry those ties along.

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?

Keith - n + 1:

Yes. Most of the material we've published so far has been solicited.  Everything we publish goes through editing, including the fiction, so it's helpful for us to start working with the author at an early stage. And, yes, we've rejected a number of short stories from people we've asked for them---this was not that hard, I think people understand that it's a matter of programming, and taste, and so on--but we've also had to turn down a few essays that we'd solicited and worked on and that didn't turn out. That was very difficult

because our editing process is extremely arduous and to make someone go through it and then say it hasn't worked out--that's very hard.

Shanna - Lit:

Yes, we solicit contributions for every issue, though the majority of what we publish comes in via regular submissions. I can't recall specifically a case of turning down something from somebody we'd solicited--maybe it happened before I was on the staff, I can't speak to that, but I would think rarely if so. In the case of poems we might just accept 1-2 from a larger batch, or something like that.  Generally we'd try to work with the author on edits if we thought they were necessary, but we're always very sensitive about that. The prose editors work with authors on edits more closely. We tend to be pretty hands-off about the poems. I think most of our section editors are particular about who they solicit--and there's a difference between soliciting a contribution and inviting a submission. "Give us a try" is different from "we'd like to publish you in the next issue."

Justin - Lit: 

Yeah, that distinction Shanna makes between soliciting a contribution and inviting a submission is key. We've certainly had to turn down people we've invited to submit. It's always a little awkward, but I find that people generally understand that being invited to submit does not guarantee publication. And they're usually at least grateful for the invitation.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

We do occasionally solicit stories/poems from European writers we've heard about or who have been recommended to us from an advisor or elsewhere.

Katherine - Archipelago:

I do solicit; no, I haven't turned a solicited piece back. I would do it, if I thought it necessary.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

We have on very rare occasion asked authors to give us the honor of considering their work.  On even more rare occasion we have turned down a piece resulting from the request.  But writers at that level of skill and publishing experience tend to recognize when a piece is not a good fit for a given journal, and good will is preserved.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

We haven’t—to my knowledge—solicited work in quite a while, although I do believe our senior editors will occasionally ask someone to send us something. In most cases when this happens, though, the manuscript must still go through all the rounds of selection, and so it’s not perhaps solicitation in the traditional sense.

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?

Keith - n + 1:

We read everything in the slush pile--a lot of it is quite good, even though we haven't yet put anything into the print issue from the slush. It's very important to us to publish writers whose voice we can help develop--and this is also the case out of necessity, since the

older one gets the less likely one is going to want to write for free or next-to-free. Of the twenty or so writers we've published thus far in the first two issues, I think only two have been over forty (and did excellent work!). Both issues had some established warhorses—Sam Lipsyte, Josh Glenn (of Hermenaut), and my sister Masha Gessen (of the New Republic) in the first issue, George Scialabba and Pankaj Mishra in the second--but other than that the names would not have been terribly familiar to most people. And two of the best pieces we've done so far--Dushko Petrovich's Art Chronicle in the first issue, Elif

Batuman's "

Babel

in

California

" in the second--were by writers who had not previously published anywhere since college.

Shanna - Lit:

Absolutely. We read everything that comes in--the whole staff: readers, section editors, editor. We are proud that we've been able to maintain a great, fairly even mix of new and established writers.  There's nothing better than publishing something by someone who's

never been published before. Since we have a student staff, lots of us are in that same position, in fact, so it's extra exciting to see somebody break in.

Justin - Lit: 

Agreed. I mean, it's very exciting to get work from established people, and to have them in our magazine, but "discovering" someone is really exciting. To me, the slush pile is

essential. Without it, we'd wind up publishing a lot of the same people repeatedly. That's something we try to avoid. We like to have as many fresh voices as possible.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

No, we're not looking for new writers.  We publish European writers who already have a history of publication in their own country or language and we seek to bring them to (primarily) American readers.

Katherine - Archipelago:

I read everything we're sent, except for unsolicited e-mail submissions. For those, I ask for a query first. I read for the coming issue and – usually -- don't accept work beyond that, but turn it back. Once in a while, I'll invite an author to submit again in the future. I wish I were faster, though, in replying. I publish almost no new writers, though very

occasionally I'll ask for photos or an essay from a person who is not a writer or artist but whose mind and style will, I think, seriously interest readers.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

Oh, by all means, yes – we search the slush pile for good stories, and if one happens to be by a new writer, our happiness is all the greater.  The experience of reading three or four sentences into a story and realizing that you are in the hands of a talented storyteller is unparalleled.  Every manuscript is read with this hope in mind.  But beyond personal pleasure, we recognize that literary magazines in the

U.S.

have played an essential role in the careers of young writers for over a century, and we consider it our responsibility to seek out young writers and to nurture talent when we find it.  This is why we offer the Narrative Prize, $4,000 given annually to the best piece published in the magazine by a new or emerging writer.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Well, quite a few of our readers are graduate students—who are needless to say conflicted when it comes to new writers, as we find ourselves open to new and emerging voices (being in the same shoes) while often competitive as well (wanting to keep the best shoes on the block). For the most part, though, despite our competitive natures, we consider quite a bit of work from newcomers, and probably 3-5 percent of the work in many of our issues is from a previously unpublished or emerging writer. I think that’s a pretty healthy dose—I’m sure less than some journal and more than others. I find it to be one of the most rewarding things about the job.

Dan:

Does it help an author at all to have an agent when it comes to publishing in your journal?

Keith - n + 1:

No. Seriously, no. Because we are in New York, we happen to know some agents, and when they submit stories to us, because we know them, we feel compelled to respond more quickly than we do to people we don't know (unfortunately)--but I think just about any editor would rather feel that he is the first one reading a story, the first one to

recognize its remarkable and hitherto unrecognized genius, unrecognized by a world that is blind and corrupt, and in that sense an agent would be harmful to a writer, in terms of submitting. Though, again, you might get a quicker response.

Shanna - Lit:

No. I don't think we've ever worked with an agent. Of course, we don't pay, so why would they bother?

Justin - Lit: 

I know we've published people who have subsequently gotten agents, but no, to my knowledge we've never worked with an agent.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

Not at all.

Katherine - Archipelago:

Not at all.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

The truth is that once you get to the first line of a story, you don’t care whose name or letterhead is at the top of the page: the story speaks for itself, for better or for worse.  So no, it doesn’t help at all.  Every manuscript submitted to Narrative is read by a senior staff member, whether it comes from a top-name agent in

New York

or from a post office box in the rural South or rural

South America

.  We aren’t looking only for finished stories, but also for worthwhile writers; and whenever we see something promising in a manuscript, we respond – with a note of encouragement, or a request for more work, or, in some cases, by working with an author through draft after draft of revision until the piece is ready for publication.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Not at all. In fact, it’s probably better not to. I, personally, would rather read a cover letter from the writer than his/her agent.

Dan:

How does your journal pay those who are published?  In copies?  In cash?  By page?  Or simply with the privilege of being published?

Keith - n + 1:

We pay a very small amount--as much as we can--for essays. We don't pay for stories and reviews. We hope to change this soon.

Shanna - Lit:

Contributors are paid in copies: 2 complimentary with the option to purchase more at a discount. In fact, we often send more if we have extras after all the mailings.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

Absinthe pays each contributor 2 copies and a one-year subscription.  We hope in the near future to pay a small amount per page.

Katherine - Archipelago:

I'm afraid the latter, though it is a pleasure and even honor for us to publish a good writer or visual artist, not the writer's or artist's privilege at all; rather, I hope that appearing in Archipelago is a pleasure and advantage for the contributor.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

We are committed to paying our writers competitively for their work, on par with the top literary magazines in the country.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Two contributor’s copies and all the exposure we can offer through our website. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do a bit more for our writers in the future.

Dan:

Does your journal accept electronic submissions?

Keith - n + 1:

Yes.

Shanna - Lit:

Nope. Maybe we will at some point, but we've resisted it so far. We get so many as it is, and engaging with writers to send them emailed rejection (which can provoke angry replies) just doesn't seem worth it. I can't imagine anybody doing this, but I hear about it all the time. We do take electronic submissions from people we have solicited--just for convenience.

Justin - Lit: 

The electronic submission thing is tough. Shanna's outlined why we don't, but I see the advantages in terms of managing things and getting rid of all that paper. Maybe someday we will, but as Shanna says, we have plenty of submissions as it is.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

Yes.

Katherine - Archipelago:

Yes, but I ask to be queried first, and won't read an unsolicited electronic submission -- particularly not one pasted on to the e-mail page. I'll send the work back with a note and, sometimes, an invitation to query me first.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

Actually, for most of the year we only accept electronic submissions.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Only from writers living outside

North America

, and only if they query first.

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?

Keith - n + 1:

Yes, simultaneous submissions are fine. In fact, given how slow and disorganized we are, one would be crazy not to simultaneously submit.

Shanna - Lit:

Yes, we accept simultaneous submissions, because our turnaround period can be a few months. We've accepted submissions only to find out there were taken elsewhere though, which is always a bummer. But most of the time it works out fine.

Justin – Lit:

Accepting simultaneous submissions seems to me to be the only fair way to go for us. While we do try to get back to people as quickly as possible, it still can take a while. It's good Karma, or something.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

Our official submission guidelines state that we do not accept simultaneous submissions.  That's something we should change because we have (and will) accept simultaneous submissions.  We just need to be informed if the work is accepted (or being considered) elsewhere.

Katherine - Archipelago:

I don't mind them, given the difficulties authors and artists have to go through, but I don't like not being told it is a simultaneous submission.  Indeed, I discourage writers from withholding this information. 

    Far worse is the occasional author who has already published a piece elsewhere on-line or in print, submitted it to me and not told me, not even when I've accepted the piece. This is, literally and figuratively, duplicity. When I learn the truth, I will almost always pull the piece, and I won't publish that author again. Writers and artists ought to know

that they shouldn't try to fool editors this way. The rules on-line are the same as those in print: once a piece has been published on-line or in print, the original journal must be acknowledged if the piece is reprinted elsewhere.  Some journals ask their contributors not to republish within a certain period of time; rightly.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

We accept simultaneous submissions.  We feel that it’s unreasonable to expect writers to give a magazine an exclusive look at a work unless the magazine can respond in a few weeks’ time.  We want writers to succeed, so we’re willing to risk losing a story we want when someone at another magazine may have done their reading before us.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

We’re happy to accept simultaneous submissions, the issue of fairness aside. There’s fairness for the writer and then fairness for the magazine, and those two concepts usually conflict. Personally, I’m a fan of simultaneous submissions, but realize the process only works if writers are responsible, which unfortunately is not always the case.

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?

Keith - n + 1:

The site is important in terms of publishing things we wouldn't otherwise be able to publish, either because they're too weird or too timely--our index of the 9/11 report

(www.nplusonemag.com/index_1-4.html) is a good example of this, as is our obituary for Derrida (www.nplusonemag.com/derrida.html).

We post new content on the site twice a week, and we now have a full-time web editor, Chad Harbach, in charge of the thing. We've posted a small portion of the content from each print issue, as a teaser, plus annotated tables of contents.

Shanna - Lit:

This is one area we'd like to expand for LIT. Our official website is fairly new, but it's hard to find, and our magazine name is pretty much impossible to Google. So we're starting a blog--we'll get going with that with the new issue. Justin has some great ideas, so I'm sure he can answer this one better.

Justin - Lit: 

Thanks, Shanna, especially for setting the blog up. That was a great idea. And I do have some fun things planned for it. For one, we're going to use it to expand into book reviewing. Because we only publish twice a year, it's really hard to have current book reviews.  It's been our policy up until now not to publish them. But now that we have the blog, we can be timely in our publishing of reviews. We'll also use the blog to post extended versions of interviews and forums and such. In our last issue we had a really great interview that had to be edited down because of page length. We lost some interesting stuff. The blog is a place where we can publish stuff like that in full, as well as samples from the current issue and past issues. There are some other ideas we're working on in terms of using our blog as a promotional tool for LIT as well. So in the future I think our internet presence will become much more important than it is now.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

Unfortunately, we do not have selections from Absinthe available on our web site.  It is something we plan to add to the site by the end of the year.

Katherine - Archipelago:

We are an internet publication. All is on the current page, in HTML and PDF, or in the archive, in both editions.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

Narrative is a dedicated online journal: we have no print forecast, nor do we intend to.  Every story, essay, novel excerpt, and interview published in Narrative remains available in our archives indefinitely.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Our internet presence is continually growing in presence and importance. I think it’s becoming a necessary step, and has continued to give us increased exposure and more submissions—which almost always leads to a better quality of submissions (though not always). Unfortunately, our online presence has not as yet produced an equivalent increase in subscriptions, but we’re still working on that.

Dan:

What is the purpose of Literary Journals having annual editor’s awards?  Simply for recognition for the authors, or is there something else?

Keith - n + 1:

We don’t do that.

Shanna - Lit:

We don't do them. I suppose there's a publicity angle behind them, and editors like to praise work they especially admire. We do nominate for the Pushcarts and propose readers for the CLMP series and stuff like that, but we consider every submission we publish of especially high quality, so awards for certain of them seem beside the

point to me.

Justin – Lit:

Ditto. Pushcart and CLMP nominations are enough for us.

Dwayne - Absinthe:

We do not sponsor awards or contests at this time.

Katherine - Archipelago:

I don't do this. Someone suggested it, early on, as a way of raising funds via reading fees. I was faintly shocked by that.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

Our award, the Narrative Prize, is given to help promote the work of a new or emerging writer – the writers generally most in need of financial support and editorial encouragement.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Though we don’t have awards, I think there are several reasons we might. It seems to me awards offer exposure through advertising, they heighten the recognition of the journal, and they help, in many cases, pay the bills that may in no other way get paid.

Dan:

If you could get one simple message out to potential readers of your journal, what would it be?

Keith - n + 1:

This thing is really good.  Subscribe.

Shanna - Lit:

"We hope you like these pieces too."

Justin - Lit:  "Love us."

Dwayne - Absinthe:

I believe that to become a better human being it helps to develop an understanding of the totality of the human experience.  Many great writers around the world facilitate this process through their writing and we are fortunate enough to present some of their exciting and interesting work in every issue of Absinthe.

Katherine - Archipelago:

Read well.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Subscribe! Buy a sample issue! And besides that, check us out, give us a spin, and if you like what you find, don’t be shy—spread the word, send us something.

Dan:

Thanks again for your participation in this.  I hope it brings some more readers your way!

Keith - n + 1:

Yup.  Thank you.

Shanna - Lit:

Our pleasure! Keep up the fantastic work, Dan. I don't know how you manage it all!

Justin - Lit: 

Thanks! This has been really fun!

Dwayne - Absinthe:

Thank you again for the opportunity!

Katherine - Archipelago:

Thank you, Dan, and all good wishes.

Lacy - Narrative Magazine:

Thank you.

Clay -

Cimarron

Review:

Thank you. It was our pleasure.

Comments

[Michelle]

Hi Dan. I love having this nice new format to view your e-panels. Excellent and enlightening, as always.