Come On, Baby, Light My Lit Mags!
Men in publishing; defending gatekeepers; reflections on the African literary ecosystem; "starfuckers;" imposter syndrome; editor interviews; publishing advice; poetry reviews; and more
Welcome to our bi-weekly news roundup!
Greetings Lit Magerati,
From looking at publishing parity to questioning the role of gatekeepers and challenging entrenched institutions, Substack writers have been asking big questions about the lit world’s business as usual.
This week’s roundup is a long one, my dears, so pour yourself a glass of your favorite matcha/macchiato/martini mixer and let’s dive in.
“Much has been made recently,”
writes at , “about the ‘vanishing’ male writer, or, more juicily and perhaps pointedly, the vanishing white male writer.”In Vanishing Male Writers: What The Data Shows, Mohr provides background:
The New York Times had a piece out December 7th, 2024 entitled, “The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone.” Jan 3, 2025 Vox had a hit piece called “Are Men’s Reading Habits Truly a National Crisis?…March 21, 2025 Compact Magazine titled its essay, “The Vanishing White Male Writer.”…
…I also can’t help thinking of Alex Perez’s September 29, 2022 interview in Hobart Magazine, where he pulled no punches, shocking readers by saying the unsayable: That book publishing had gone too far to the progressive left and there was no more place for serious male authors (especially white ones) attempting to pen genuine stories.
But what does the data actually show? Writes Mohr, “[F]emale authors have been steadily overtaking men. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, women authored 30% of published work in 1970 and produced the majority by 2020.”
Mohr goes on,
…This opens up a bigger, deeper can of sociological worms. Men are behind in college attendance, MFA degrees, and with real wages falling relative to women’s. Shouldn’t we discuss how to rectify this problem? Instead what we generally seem to most often get is an eyeroll, which amounts to, Fuck you. Men had it all forever. It’s our turn. Men control everything and have all the power. Time for the Patriarchy to suffer.
But is this fair?
He elaborates upon the essay at
’s Substack. In Are Women Preventing Men From Publishing Novels? Mohr says,Another way of putting the question might be this: Are men…seeing themselves “reflected” in contemporary literature? Further: Should they? I would say, overall, 100% no; most men are not seeing themselves reflected in contemporary literature but that yes, they absolutely should be.
Taking a different view over at
, writes in Kill the Editor,The surest way not to find something is not to bother looking. If you’re Jacob Savage [author of “The Vanishing Male Writer”] you can really dive into the archives and ask a few of your more literary friends what they think, and from there you can produce a sweeping report on contemporary literature…Savage recently wrote the latest version of what I’d like to characterize in mock interrogative form as “why isn’t there more of something I’m not trying to find”…
Caudell goes on to argue,
Questions of who or what is in The New Yorker or The Paris Review or who has a deal with Knopf and why are irrelevant and uninteresting. No publishing deal or sweet featured article by anyone of any identity will change the fact that all these publications and major presses and awards and lists are extremely unlikely to support an independent writing career, and even if they do, those writers will mostly write for small, specialized audiences with niche tastes, consisting largely of other writers.
Also at
, has written a post in defense of gatekeepers during a time of sweeping cultural shifts. In You Morons, Of Course Gatekeeping Serves A Vital Role, Michel writes,[T]he metaphor of gatekeepers implies guards unfairly keeping artists out of public spaces. But curators are often integral to creating new spaces. When editors produce a literary magazine with a specific aesthetic or form a small press devoted to an overlooked genre, they aren’t walling off the commons. They aren’t gatekeeping anything. They are creating a unique space where new work can grow, and a new set of artists can thrive.
At
, shares another view, while reflecting upon “the roaring silence that has engulfed the African Literary Ecosystem.” In The Silence We Made, Daniel writes,What the digital age has done is not dissolve hierarchies but atomize them, multiplying the number of small kings while thinning the air for dissent. A timeline might appear polyphonic but still be governed by invisible algorithms, by economies of virality and the slow creep of self-censorship. A public square, when everyone is watching, is not a freer space — it is a stage. The paradox of openness is that it produces new forms of enclosure.
Daniel also says,
Prize culture — Caine, Etisalat, NLNG, Booker — reshaped African literary discourse into a cautious choreography. The unspoken rule: do not bite the hand that might one day shortlist you. Yet alternatives exist. Senegal’s Éditions Mémoire d’Encrier, founded in Haiti by Rodney Saint-Éloir and later rooted in Dakar, exemplifies a pan-African model, publishing Wolof translations of Maryse Condé alongside Francophone Senegalese writers, deliberately sidestepping the Parisian literary circuit. The Abantu Book Festival funds critics, not just laureates. These models won’t dismantle our dependence on the Booker, but they expand the imagination of what counts as success.
On more personal notes,
, Brittany Ackerman has written about competition, envy and the search for real connection. In The Starfucker’s Dilemma, Ackerman writes,So what distinguishes a Starfucker from a writer simply seeking community? After all, writing is isolating, and finding one’s people is essential. The distinction lies in intention: is the relationship built on mutual respect, or is it a stepping stone? The Starfucker’s friendships often have an expiration date, lasting only as long as the other person’s relevance. And when that power wanes—when the agent leaves publishing, when the editor is ousted, when the writer’s star dims—the Starfucker moves on, always chasing the next gravitational pull.
I’ve had to set boundaries for myself and take a step back from certain literary community. I can no longer be the writer who proclaims loyalty with tote bags and tweets. I need something real.
At
has written (and drawn!) What if I'm a fraud? Says Kwoh,The panel audience, which included both seasoned writers and those earlier in their writing journeys, were able to see that there’s no single path to getting published. I hope that someone listening thought, “If she can do it without any formal training or a plan, maybe I can too. I don’t have to wait until I have X, Y, or Z.”
Several interviews, advice columns and roundups also caught my eye this week.
At
, , who reads for The Masters Review, has posted 5 Things I’m Looking for in Lit Mag Submissions. “Tip: When you’re sharing your work with others for feedback, ask them to point out the specific sentence where your piece first hooked their interest. If it’s on page 2 or later, you may want to rethink your beginning.”At
, interviews Jake Hargrove and Matt Gillick, editors of Cult Magazine. Says Gillick,Jake and I would frequently complain about how the literary scene was getting too cute, too navel-gazing. People were publishing for clout, and the work would feel hollow, almost like the publication was a transaction between two social media accounts, and everyone would hop on the bandwagon in their respective orbits…I want to be part of a platform, giving space to writing and art that deserves a fair shake.
At
posted Eleven Great Personal Essays to Dig Into…Selections include a mix of commercial and literary publications, both well-known and fledgling.Steven Watson has posted Nine Independent Magazines to Help You Cope With the World Right Now. “Maybe you need something to make the news a bit more palatable again? They’ve got you covered. Or maybe you want something to completely change the way you see the world? They can do that too.”
And at
, Victoria has posted a review of three poetry magazines.[T]oday I thought I’d take a look at three very good magazines, all of which I value and read loyally, and all of which print a good deal of prose as well as poetry, with an eye for their differences — what might attract you to one of these over the others if you are a potential new subscriber. These are the spring (i.e. most recent) issues of the long-running PN Review; Poetry London (also well established, but with a recent change of poetry editor); and the quite new, and still evolving, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal. All three print poetry, literary essays and reviews (of poetry) in broadly similar proportions.
Lastly, in the realm of advice,
has written about how she finally broke into Joyland Magazine (whose editor I recently interviewed.) In Moms don't have time to network, Rollins writes,If you have a goal publication, scroll through their archives and ask yourself some questions:
What do their titles sound like? Look for patterns related to length and structure…
How do their pieces open? Do they start in-scene? Do they place the trouble up front?…
How long are they? I literally copy and pasted their published essays into Word to get a sense of the average length….
I spent the next month revising my essay to align with some of Joyland’s conventions based upon my analysis of the archives. And when I sent the piece off to the editor… she loved it and said she wanted to publish it.
As for us, there’s lots of fun stuff happening this month. On Tuesday, June 3rd I will be speaking with Dennis James Sweeney, author of How to Submit, all about the ins and outs of lit mag submissions and small press publishing.
And later this month I’ll be chatting with the editors of Off Assignment and Sewanee Review.
You can learn all about these events and register here:
Save the Dates! June interviews & info sessions!
June is on the horizon, dear ones! Here is what’s happening next month…
And that you glorious Geminis and courageous Cancers, you on the road to celebration or something close to it, you so breathy as air, so drippy and mutable as wet willowy water, you with your yellow spirit color, you who care and care and care, you with your twinned self and dual double dealings, you crab-walking in a sweet protective huddle, you wondrous water lily wonders and you lavender lovers of lilies of the valley, you for whom this month will be a stepping into something new, or maybe tumbling into the shock of the old, you and you, with birthdays at other times, but no matter, births are endless yet, you out there in the sun, you spinning ceaselessly in your celestial swing, you everywhere, born and glistening in perfect light, is the news in literary magazines.
Have a most wonderful week, pals!
Fondly,
Becky
I have actually seen female editors say male writers just have to accept being ignored because it's time for female writers to dominate.
I had to give the editor credit for at least being honest even though her sentiment was deplorable.
I have two responses, besides my usual "You've posted another banger, Becky!" First, The printing press debuted in 1440 and women only started shining in the literary world in the 21st century. Thus men, particularly white men from first world countries, wailing about their work not being treated equitably does not move me in the least. Ours is not a desire for vengeance, it is rather recognizing that *women are still under actual physical, political, and economic threat* all around the world and telling our stories is not just a matter of satisfaction for us but rather of SURVIVAL. Second, it is worth noticing that those who are able to dedicate themselves to literary work are often the people who have the social and economic privilege to do so, and for them to be the main gatekeepers at prestige presses and publications is problematic because they possess a point of view and aesthetic that is inevitably tinted by that privilege and dismissive of alternative aesthetics and points of view. As long as we do not have major governmental INVESTMENT OF MONEY in culture --- now, we have aggressive DISINVESTMENT in it thanks to the current wave of populism and global tehcno-fascism, which is also male-driven BTW, the gatekeepers of literature will continue to be white, wealthy, largely male, and from hegemonic cultures.