Lit Mag News Roundup

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I Remember You Well in the Lit Mag Hotel!
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I Remember You Well in the Lit Mag Hotel!

PANK drops the ball; interviews with editors of Threepenny Review, Poetry Magazine, and HEAT; exciting updates at ChillSubs; jobs at Adroit Journal and Southern Humanities Review; 100+ markets...

Becky Tuch
Jun 20
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I Remember You Well in the Lit Mag Hotel!
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Greetings Lit Magliophiles,

This past weekend, yours truly got a bit saucy on Twitter. It’s just, guys, nothing irks me like gatekeepers who do not respect the efforts of writers knocking at the gate. Surely editors must realize that without the sweat and toil of we nobody peasants, their entire kingdom would not exist!

Thusly I spoke:

Twitter avatar for @BeckyLTuchBecky Tuch @BeckyLTuch
When a magazine has your work in the queue for over one year & editors don't respond to queries, my opinion is that writers should be able to withdraw the work, with submission fees automatically returned to the writer.
Image

June 19th 2022

7 Retweets129 Likes

The magazine in question here is PANK. In response to my tweet, many writers came forward to say they have had the same experience.

Twitter avatar for @poetbynecessityMoira Walsh @poetbynecessity
@BeckyLTuch I submitted there once...and withdrew, after nearly a year of radio silence.
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June 20th 2022

2 Likes
Twitter avatar for @BullisJenniferJennifer Bullis @BullisJennifer
@BeckyLTuch One of the PANK editors also took over American Poetry Journal a few years back and has been doing the same thing there. No response to my Sept. 2020 submission or subsequent queries. And subs are STILL OPEN! ($5 a pop)

June 19th 2022

3 Likes
Twitter avatar for @poetbynecessityMoira Walsh @poetbynecessity
@BullisJennifer @BeckyLTuch I submitted to the @apjpoetry chapbook series in 2020 and heard nothing. My query was ignored. I ended up withdrawing. Pank and APJ are both on my "never" list now. Sad.

June 20th 2022

1 Like
Twitter avatar for @KaraVernorKara Vernor @KaraVernor
In two weeks I will have had a chapbook submission pending at PANK for a year and a half. Should I throw it a party? I missed its one year b-day & I feel sort of bad about it.

May 7th 2022

12 Retweets409 Likes

And this, regarding people who ordered from PANK Books:

Twitter avatar for @gytrashhdev murphy @gytrashh
what is happening at @pankmagazine lately? i've been waiting for shira dentz's sisyphusina for 4 months & nobody will respond to my emails

May 13th 2022

5 Likes
Twitter avatar for @sadacid_Alexandria Hall @sadacid_
@gytrashh @doctorkquinn @pankmagazine I'm still waiting on an order I placed last July :(

June 6th 2022

1 Like

There is more, but I think you get the idea. Something is going on at PANK. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt. They did respond to my tweet, citing “an unprecedented reading period.” To which I say, well, people, get it together. It is unacceptable for lit mags to charge submission fees from writers while the submissions flounder in the queue, not to mention money for book orders that don’t get delivered.

As the saying goes, if you don’t have the time, don’t take the money! Or something like that.

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In other news, a bevy of journal editors chatted with the press of late. In this interview, Editor Wendy Lesser discusses how at Threepenny Review, “she’s mostly hands-off; there is no house style, and she doesn’t insist on standardized spelling or punctuation.” What matters most to Lesser is voice. “‘It begins and ends with that…The minute I open up somebody’s manuscript, I can tell from the first sentence if the voice has authority and originality: it’s not quite like anything I’ve heard, or like the 10,000 manuscripts I just read before it. You can hear it very, very early on in any piece of writing.’”

In this interview, Poetry Magazine’s new Editor, Adrian Matejka, shares insights. “One of the things I decided we were going to do as a magazine is instead of trying to figure out how to rectify all the omissions and erasures that have happened over the long history of the 110 years of this magazine, we’re going to focus on figuring out how to highlight the people that should have been there to start with.”

Here is a profile of Alexandra Christie, the new Editor of HEAT, a leading Australian lit mag and “a trailblazer from the day it was launched.” Says Christie, “‘It takes a long time to become a good writer, to really hone your craft…I want to bring [emerging writers] into the mix and elevate them next to established voices. That’s really important to me.’”

Meanwhile, the amazing site ChillSubs continues to become ever more amazing. Last week they expanded the site to include bookmarks for individual markets writers are interested in, profile pages, spaces for writers to share their own published work and more. Founder Karina Kupp has been taking feedback from users and appears committed to transparency every step of the way. (You can see my interview with her here.)

For those of you on the job hunt:

The Adroit Journal is seeking a Senior Editor and a Staff Engagement Coordinator.

The English Department at Auburn University is seeking a Communications Editor/Managing Editor for Southern Humanities Review.

And for those of you with stories to tell and poems to sell, the markets are waiting!

CLMP has posted calls for submissions and contests coming up.

Authors Publish has listed 25 Magazines Accepting Creative Nonfiction; 24 Journals Open to Publishing Reprints; and 57 Opportunities Open to Submissions From Historically Underrepresented Voices this June.

Literary Mama has posted a roundup of opportunities.

Winning Writers has a round-up of free writing contests.

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As for us, if you missed my interview with A Void Editor Lev Parker, you can check it out here. And tomorrow, 6/21, I’ll be chatting with Submitit Founder Erik Harper Klass. Erik knows the lit mag landscape in and out, and I can’t wait to grill him for all his wisdom! Learn more and register here.

And that you protectors and providers, you molders of young minds and shapers of sharp thought, you who father art and foster the invisible world to be made manifest, you who routinely take your characters to the park for a game of catch, you who work ceaselessly to capture the indescribable creations of your own cunning, you who will never forget the day you learned how to properly swaddle a newborn chapter, you who can’t believe how the time flies!—one day they’re mere letters in an alphabet and the next day you’re sending them off to literary magazines!, you sweet nurturers, you hardworking beasts, you out there, everyday astounded by this indescribable act of formation, remarkable in all the ways it makes you humble and humane, you who care, who care so very much, always, no matter what, even when the words neglect you, forget to call, go on holiday with their friends and keep you up half the night in a state of strange panicked longing, you everywhere, parents of the sentence, progenitors of the poetic line, gods working tirelessly to make the word good, is the news in literary magazines.

Have a fabulous week, pals.

Fondly,

Becky

Got a question, comment, suggestion, illumination, heavy load, wandering eye, strange tendency, years of solitude or catcher in a rye?

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Bruce Parker
Jun 20Liked by Becky Tuch

PANK took 614 days to reject my submission. Guess I'll submit again in 2025 when their 2020 backlog is cleared out.

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Helia Rethmann
Writes Helia’s Newsletter Jun 21Liked by Becky Tuch

Becky, if you ever want to start a new religion, I'll apply for apostle.

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