"Can't Wait to Find that New Story." A Chat with Anthony Varallo, Fiction Editor of Crazyhorse
Fiction Editor of prestigious South Carolina lit mag takes us behind the scenes
Happy Thursday, dear darlings. I come with news of another editor interview, newly wrapped!
Today I had the joy of speaking with Anthony Varallo, Fiction Editor of Crazyhorse. Crazyhorse, founded by poet Thomas McGrath, began as a kind of counter-culture poetry-only zine in 1960. Since then it has found homes at Murray State University in Kentucky and The University of Arkansas at Little Rock, before finally settling at The College of Charleston in South Carolina.
This fall the magazine will undergo another major change: it will publish its first issue under a new name, swamp pink. Anthony discussed the year-and-a-half long deliberations that went into this name change and the path ahead as they work to get the news out. So far, he said, the reception has been positive. Change is always a turbulent process but, of course, he hopes people will continue to support, read, subscribe to and submit to the journal.
Starting in the fall, the magazine will also phase out print issues and publish exclusively online.
As for what kind of work this magazine seeks to publish, Anthony described the journal as not partial to one particular aesthetic. As Fiction Editor he welcomes avant-garde/experimental works as well as more traditional stories. He also welcomes submissions from experienced and emerging writers alike.
One thing that he is particularly proud of, and which makes this magazine unique in the field of university lit mags, is that the genre editors read all the submissions. You won’t find readers, interns or a large staff of editors at this lit mag. Fiction submissions go directly to Anthony. He reads everything that comes in with sincere interest in finding stories that are “alive on every page” and pull him into their “fictive world.” Of his work as Editor, Anthony says simply that he “can’t wait to find that new story.”
Anthony has been Fiction Editor since 2005. As such, he brought a great deal of insight as well as encouragement for writers to the conversation today. Writers don’t have to compete with every story in the world, he said. Writers are only competing with the other submissions for a particular issue. The challenge for writers is always that they “can’t see what the editors see.”
And what is it that editors see? How does he try to arrange pieces to fit in one particular issue? What does he think about when he goes through all those fiction submissions every month? And just what kinds of notes does he take as he’s reading?
You’ll have to watch the video to find out!
Crazyhorse—soon to be swamp pink—will be open for submissions again on September 1st. They publish fiction, poetry and nonfiction. The magazine receives about 5,000-6,000 submissions per year. Of those, they publish 13 pieces. So send your very best work. And don’t be discouraged. This is a fiction editor who is rooting for your success.
To everyone who came out today to participate, thank you for tuning in! You must know by now how seeing your faces makes me explode with joy!
And, of course, thank you to Anthony for taking the time to bring us behind the scenes of another amazing little magazine.
He said they spent a year and a half discussing the name change, but then shared nothing about those discussions and seemed very reluctant to even talk about it. I hate the cowardice and crowd mentality that is at work in these politically driven decisions.