An Editor's Thoughts on Reaching Outsider Writers

Editor of new journal The Pierian takes us through his process

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.

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During the COVID shutdown, I volunteered by offering online poetry workshops that engaged with military veterans across northern Vermont. At first, I was reluctant to offer serious criticism to poets writing directly about their trauma. But as time wore on, these poets appeared frustrated, and when one caught me alone on Zoom, he expressed his desire for more direct feedback. Gradually, I started running the workshop with a greater focus on craft, and was surprised by the response. The veterans were thrilled. What they wanted was the dignity of being taken seriously as poets.

As I review the kinds of outreach I want to perform with my co-editor at The Pierian, I’m constantly trying to identify communities outside of the MFA bubble. As we focus on our editorial mission to connect contemporary poetry to its traditions, we want to be sure to include and specifically seek out writers working outside conventional literary institutions.

Pushing out a great product isn’t enough, and every part of The Pierian’s off-page communications must advance our engagement. Like many little magazines, we need these “outsiders.” They are our lifeblood. We need their excitement, their attention, and of course, their submissions. Still, many of our potential submitters are wary. It often takes several tries to win a poet over. From their vantage, we hold a position of power. We have privilege. It may not always feel that way to us, but it’s true–our education, background, financials, skills, and support group are a privilege, and we know we wouldn’t be here now without them. Accepting that is the first step in being able to communicate honestly with our target audience and submissions pool.

Many of the writers we hope to publish work outside the literary establishment. Oftentimes they aren’t familiar with the submission process or else have tried it and found it disempowering. Like younger writers, another critical demographic, they are increasingly selecting other lower-friction pathways. They post their poems to Instagram or Reddit in a single click, or upload their stories to fanfic sites. They self-publish. They perform their poems or narratives for audio and video streaming apps. They receive a lot of encouragement and affirmation when they employ these alternatives. So increasingly, they see us not as curators of good writing, but self-appointed gatekeepers.

While no two outsider writers have exactly the same submission psychology, ironically it’s the elite journals with withering rejection rates that so often attract them. It takes time, effort, and highly contextualized knowledge to research the ‘zines that are going to give a writer the best shot at success, and tools like Poets & Writers, Duotrope, and Chillsubs may be the sort of insider tools many writers either don’t know about or, in the case of Duotrope, can’t afford. Even if they learn of The Pierian, they may not want to submit to it because it doesn’t seem worth the risk. Counterintuitively, getting rejected by us may sting even more than being rejected by New Yorker, as our rejection will likely hit them closer to home. Winning the trust of the writers you wish to reach as an editor is hard work!

This is why it’s key to think about the ways we are powerful, not because we should soften it or deliberately undercut ourselves, but because our prospective submitters want to share our strengths and want it to impact their community. It’s not enough to publish writers. We need to engage in a way that’s understood as authentic and meaningful, and our magazine and its communications need to focus on that.

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When I worked with veterans, I discovered something pretty straightforward. If I take a writer seriously, they’ll likely trust me with their work. When I review my current outreach strategy, I try to apply this principle to three broad areas: Marketing, submissions, and editorial. Let’s look at each.

In marketing, we want to make sure we’re connecting in the channels our writers are operating in. Twitter is great for reaching those already in the know, but investing in a secondary channel is likely a sound move. Many folks find video content enjoyable, and while it takes some time to get your staging down, making a quick video can drive deep engagement, and needn’t even need to be directly tied to the magazine. My YouTube channel doesn’t share any branding with The Pierian, but it makes me more accessible to a wider range of poets. I make sure I’m expressing values that align with The Pierian’s mission, and also ones they can relate to. I try to teach them and meet them halfway. I want them to feel I’m championing their causes.

In submissions, it’s critical that writers find the submission process empowering. For The Pierian, I built a custom submissions portal, because I didn’t want to have to charge Submittable fees or shut down submissions if I received too many in a certain period. I also wanted a blind reading process that allows us to read poems in no particular order, and one that strips funky formatting out of poems to help us read as fairly as possible.

These days, some magazines are moving in the opposite direction, and unblinding their process so they can identify marginalized writers from the get-go. I respect that approach. But I also feel like The Pierian wins more trust by highlighting its efforts to level the playing field.

It’s key to keep a careful eye on our turnaround time. It’s true that some writers feel slighted if we turn around too quickly, but I would rather err on haste than lethargy. I also want to make it easy for folks to resubmit. I felt poets might feel it punitive to say you can only submit once per six months, so I let people submit as often as they care to, as long as it’s only one sub at a time. I want to make sure failure feels soft, as if they always have nine more lives.

On the editorial side, we try to work with our poets and offer suggestions if we feel a piece is close. While poets may bristle at our changes, that’s their prerogative. Offering a pathway to publication whenever possible feels like the right thing to do.

And if we reject a submission, we want to offer personal note whenever possible. So we mark up poems as we go during the reading process, to make it easier to say something useful when we let them down. Since we’re busy, we can’t always do it, so it’s not something we can advertise. But it’s a good idea to touch as many rejections as we can, as it is the best way to demonstrate we’re carefully reading every word.

Finally, we keep our poetry website free and clear of author bios and brags, saving for the “News” section. Even our masthead page doesn’t flex. When folks read The Pierian, they are encountering every poem on completely equal terms. This may be a turnoff for some potential submitters who prefer a more status-conscious environment–and there’s nothing wrong with that–but for us, we want to make a bold statement about equity.

There is no one best way to reach all voices, and every magazine will need to develop its our rapport with its readership and writer base. What’s absolutely critical, though, is the message: We take you seriously!

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