I Fought the Lit Mags and the Lit Mags Won!
Standing with the New Yorker union, editor profiles, submitting advice, job openings, and more.
Greetings Lit Magermelons,
Things are shaking up over at The New Yorker, as last week the union voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike.
The union is asking all people sympathetic to their fight for fair pay and better treatment to sign this pledge “to stand with The New Yorker’s editorial workers while they negotiate a first contract…[and] to honor their picket line.”
In other news, The Paris Review has named its new Editor. “The board of The Paris Review Foundation…is pleased to announce the appointment of Emily Stokes as the next editor of The Paris Review…Ms. Stokes joins from The New Yorker, where she has been a senior editor since 2018.”
Speaking of Editors, Prairie Schooner Editor Kwame Dawes has been awarded the biennial PEN/Nora Magid Award for his work at the magazine. Reports Leslie Reed, “He and the Prairie Schooner editorial staff have been working quietly over the past 10 years to revolutionize the 90-year-old journal — integrating technology into its processes, giving voice to a more diverse array of poets and authors, and establishing the journal as an international presence.”
If you’d like to get to know more lit mag editors, Trish Hopkinson always has you covered. Here she speaks with Melissa Ashley Hernandez, Editor of The Minison Project, “a new online literary magazine publishing their own invented form called a minison (14 lines, 14 letters per line), sonnets, photographs of found/staged minimal sonnets, and minison-themed artwork.” And here she speaks with Rita Mookerjee, Editor of Honey Literary, “a new BIPOC-focused literary journal built by women of color…currently open to submissions of Poetry, Sex/Kink/Erotic, Hybrid, Essays, Comics, Reviews, Valentines, Animals, Interviews, and artwork for their next issue.”
Hopkinson’s site is also chock full of submitting advice, including that of Sherre Vernon who writes in “Managing the Emotional Load of the Submission Process,” “If I wouldn’t be delighted to have my work in a publication, I don’t submit there. I rarely pay submission fees or use unfamiliar submissions managers. I can’t stand pedantic guidelines that require me to reformat my work (I use a common font and standard margins) and I think refusing to consider simultaneous submissions is elitist.”
Katie Manning also offers “5 Steps to Poetry Publication,” noting, “If you’re not one of those rare, lucky poets who have poems accepted on the first try, don’t worry. Most of us took a long time to get a first poem published, and sometimes even well published poets have dry spells. Submitting poetry can be discouraging, but keep doing it.”
If you’re looking for more places to submit, Emily Harstone has posted 34 Manuscript Publishers with Geographic Restrictions. Lumiere Review has posted a list of journals accepting submissions through April. NewPages has posted a round-up of calls for submissions and writing contests. And in case you missed it, I’ve posted a list of 73 Brand New Literary Magazines, many of which are eager for submissions.
Meanwhile, if you’re on the hunt for gainful employ, “The Department of English at Washington and Lee University invites applications for a one-year visiting assistant professor in Creative Writing…The candidate may also have the opportunity to teach the Shenandoah internship as part of the teaching load.”
Lucky Jefferson is looking for “applications from undergraduate or graduate students for a new part-time editorial assistant role! This role is perfect for students with an interest in traditional and digital publishing and art; this role provides a comprehensive introduction to the world of publishing while collaborating with a diverse community of writers and artists.”
Lastly but not leastly, if you are a poet, a poetry reader, a reviewer of poetry books, or just a curious person, I hope you will join me for another fun Ask the Editor session. Tomorrow, 4/6, I will be speaking with Neil Aitken, Editor of Boxcar Poetry Review. Come on out!
And that you London callers, you rockers of the Casbah, you out there fighting the law (in spite of the fact that the law has won), you whose daddy was a bankrobber (but he never hurt anyone, he just basically liked the lifestyle), you whose baby drove up in a brand new Cadillac (yes, she did!), you who, once again, find yourself completely and utterly lost in the supermarket and who (much to your disappointment) can no longer shop happily, you out there with career opportunities that are, maddeningly, never knocking, and you, everywhere, completely indecisive over whether you should stay or go, since if you go there will be trouble, but if you stay there will be literally two times that, you and you, roots rock rebels, Rudies who cannot fail, is the news in literary magazines.
Have a revolution rock week, pals.
Fondly,
Becky
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Oh how I luv, lurv, luff (thank you, Woody Allen for those spellings) your last paragraph. Really needed that! Happy Monday!