C & R Press sends a letter; Catapult closes without warning, funding sources are questioned; Bear Creek Gazette closes without warning; Ambit announces closing; jobs for writers; more...
Sometimes words, as in your words Becky, made a "real" difference.
Breathtaking! But, as someone noted, "No Remorse."
While I and so many more are singing Becky's praise, some of those presses and lit mags are crying foul with words not seen since Dante's Inferno. Umm, they're feeling the heat. Thank Heavens!
I’m so grateful to Becky for putting John, the Andrews, and Jessica on blast. It’s long overdue. As a victim of C&R Press and John specifically, I’m appalled to see writers coming out in support of them without knowing the stories of the victims among us. How dare you? It took almost a year to come out about the extreme sexual harassment I experienced because I was traumatized and ashamed. The #metoo movement empowered me to finally share in 2018, and I was terrified to do so. It’s still scary now. Here’s my original post from 2018:
I have been keeping quiet about this experience because I was embarrassed, ashamed, and intimidated, but after sharing with a group of writers, some trusted colleagues and friends, and my partner, I'm confident that silence is not the best option for me or for anyone any longer.
I recently had my first chapbook published by C&R Press, and it was released at AWP in Tampa. My experience with the press has not been ideal (a lack of communication and clarity about pre-orders and the actual release-date of my book; having none of my books for sale on the day of my reading at a festival; having to work on the formatting and layout of my own book despite there being someone on staff who is supposed to take care of the layout; etc.), but my experience with one of the co-publishers, John Gosslee, has been much worse. If you're not familiar with him, he purchased PANK from Roxane Gay and owns FJORDS as well. He also, now, co-owns Ad Breaker, which many lit mags use to advertise online. There was also quite a scandal around his book of erasure, OUT OF CONTEXT, in which he blacks out the poetry of a woman of color, Hoa Nguyen, to create his own.
During my time at the press, John has insisted on FaceTime calls with me when an email or voice call would've been sufficient and more appropriate and has even FaceTimed me without any advanced warning. The press recently ran an ad in FIELDS with my photo, and John explicitly told me that they used my picture for the ad because I "fit the press's aesthetic." At a literary festival I was invited to by John for the press, hotel accommodations were offered, so I stayed in a room with John, his intern, and a press-mate of mine, all men (which I was made aware of beforehand). The night I arrived to New Orleans for the festival, I'd been traveling all day and wanted to drop my bags off, grab a cocktail alone, and walk it back to the hotel as a nightcap, but John invited himself to join me, saying he was going to head down for a smoke anyway. After getting my drink and suggesting we head back to the hotel as had been my plan, John put on some pressure to stay out and have another drink. He acted very nice and professional with me, talking about writing and work, until we had a couple more drinks.
Later that night, after I was heavily intoxicated, he would end up asking me--completely unprovoked and out of nowhere--if I would have sex with a man in front of him if he arranged it. I remember that detail because it was jarring and uninvited, but I remember very little of the rest of the night, not even my own response, and so I'll say only what I am sure of. To my recollection, nothing sexual happened, and we both ended up back at the hotel, John and his intern in one bed and me on the fold-out couch.
My press-mate would show up later the next evening, and even though we all went out together, I was extremely careful not to get drunk or be alone with John again. My press-mate is a good man and was kind of my "buddy" for the night, though he didn't know what had happened the night before. I was so humiliated and sick over it that I didn't say a thing about it the next day or until about a week ago when I told a trusted professor-friend. John and the intern ended up staying out later than my press-mate and I did, and as he and I were walking back to the hotel to call it a night, he told me that John had arranged, without my knowledge or consent, that the intern and my press-mate would be sharing one bed and that John and I would be sharing the other. Fortunately, as we were alone, I asked my press-mate if he was okay with sharing the pull-out couch, as I wasn't comfortable sleeping with John, and he obliged, saying he understood.
I have many stories of John acting extremely unprofessionally as a publisher as well as indecently simply as a human, using words like "retarded" during work calls (FaceTiming, of course), snapping his fingers in people's faces if he doesn't think they're listening to his stories, waving a wad of hundred-dollar-bills at a bartender he thinks is being too slow, making an inappropriate sexual joke about one of my poems into the microphone after my reading, walking around the hotel room with no shirt on and his pants hanging so far down that I could see half of his ass crack and the beginnings of his pelvic area, and more.
C&R stands for "Conscious & Responsible," and my chapbook is about women's bodies and what it means to be a woman in our society. My full-length collection (which the press wanted and sent me a contract for without first reading the manuscript) is about similar themes, and I declined to sign a contract with the press because I do not feel safe or comfortable being represented by John Gosslee or being around him in any capacity.
Since sharing my experience in a private group of writers, I've spoken to other women who know of, have witnessed, or have experienced similar behaviors from John, and we all want to get the word out about his unacceptable, uninvited, predatory behavior as he buys up magazines and businesses with pre-established reputations and claims their reputations as his own.
I am not looking to get into any legal disputes. I've left out from this post anything I am uncertain of or for which there were not other witnesses. I hope you'll, please, handle this information with care. I only want to warn other young women and fellow writers about my experiences to hopefully prevent things like this from happening to anyone else.
My poem submissions just got rejected from MISFIT Mag. I have got a mail for rejection that is full of spelling mistakes and lacking proper punctuation. So, the one who submitted might be very big misfit person himself/herself.
Don’t know how they paid the bills. I don’t see any ads, so maybe the classes were supposed to pay for the mag, but didn’t? High quality writing for free? Sounds too good to be true.
I purchased a hard copy Writer’s Market today (Novels and Short Stories). It’s likely out of date upon publication but I can use this “old friend” as an additional resource to research lit mags that may not be so social media present. WM was my go to years ago. Something feels strange post-pandemic, possibly even during as I now notice lit mags that acquired an incredible number of followers during the pandemic currently “on hiatus”. Idk maybe a reset is happening.
Bravo to Becky Tuch for exposing dirty dealings by Andrew Ibis / Andrew Sullivan & his pompous cohort John Gosslee, who left C & R Press and is presently at Fjords.
#ICYMI: Becky's excellent investigative journalism included screen-grabs that proved these blood-suckers could NOT be contacted via email.
― Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ― Anyway here's something that needs to be discussed openly.
― Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ― How to vet an indie press BEFORE submitting a ms?
Years ago, when I would have been far less fussy, I would have sailed my poetry ms into any harbor that seemed friendly and did not require a large submission fee.
However, now that I have awards behind me, I want more hands-on marketing, etc. from my book publisher, so I'd love to know about other poets' experiences with an editorial team - - ahead of time.
It's sad to see you double down on wild twitter-fueled accusations against C&R Press instead of doing your homework and making some real contact and reaching out to C&R Press authors after publication of your original post. You chose selectively and mockingly from C&R Press's recent letter to its authors, and even now you're suggesting that signing the letter "Andrew+John" is some sort of secret conspiracy you've breached. This is descending to the level of gutter journalism, and it's sad to see that after being aligned against not giving credence to uninformed Internet conspiracies you've given in to the same tendencies, only your target is different. And it's sad to see that many of the same folk who used to act as self-righteous gatekeepers when I used to critique the problems in the literary world a dozen years ago have shown up en masse, as though out of the woodwork, in response to this attack of yours, as self-appointed morally righteous guardians. You're aligning yourself with people who live off of toxic accusations of all sorts, the very things you used to be against, in order to feed their ego. Very sad to see.
It’s a shame about more lit mag closings. It’s a shame about Catapult, I took a class there before I applied to MFAs and worked on my submission which helped me get accepted. Had no idea about the Koch connection. Seems like if she had Koch money, she wouldn’t have any problem keeping it afloat herself if she wanted to.
Ah yes, the presumed co-founder money. But it’s not clear what role that played in day-to-day operations, if any. And maybe it was just seed money, with an actual business model supposed to take it from there, but didn’t.
Historically, little magazines from Emerson’s The Dial onward operate in one of two modes: precarious existence due to unstable funding, or on a firmer footing for as long as a wealthy rainmaker smiles on their fortune (Poetry, for example, now bobs high in the water on the sea of Ruth Lilly’s $200 mil bequest).
True, I have no idea what their financial situation was. Maybe her dad doesn't believe in trust funds or inheritances, and she never received a dime from him. Who knows? But I liked Catapult and sorry to see it go.
Felix and Selma Stefanile published Sparrow poetry journal from 1954-2000, pretty much on their own dime. But by the 80s Felix noted that most subscriptions came from libraries and schools, not individuals, meaning that model was already wobbly when the online stuff took over. So what’s the new model now? Reading fees, I suppose. Yet the consensus here seems to be that fees are b-a-a-a-d. So what’s the new new model going to be? Maybe we’ll need a shakeout first since necessity normally precedes invention.
Facts matter. When poorly researched articles like these appear, they libel authors at small presses as well as small press endeavors trying to survive in a market dominated by Big 4 publishers, while competing for attention with over 500 other publishers. Becky did not reach out to me or, it seems, other recognized authors published by C&R Press. As a creative writer with an extensive 30-year publication history, and as a former art journalist and small press publisher, I would have appreciated the chance to speak on topics raised in this article. Had she done so, I would have responded thusly:
(1) Fees: A quick search on Poets & Writers shows how many reputable publications like Academy of American Poets, North American Review, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, University of Georgia Press, Yale Review and many, many more, charge reading fees for contests, some over $35. It also is common for a journals, e.g., Agni, American Poetry Review, Michigan Quarterly, New Letters, Seneca Review, to charge a reading fee and/or ask that you buy an extant issue. I've paid reading fees for years, long before Submittable and Paypal existed.
(2) Sales: If everyone who submitted to a journal or entered a contest purchased a book or journal from that publisher, fees might not be necessary. A writer who submits to 50 journals a year probably does not purchase 50 journals a year. If you do, you’re a hero.
(3) Publishing is expensive. A short-run traditionally published book or journal costs anywhere from $500 to $5000, depending on whether the publisher did all of the layout, design and spec work. If the book or journal is published through on-demand (e.g., Kindle) then profit margin is greatly reduced, as the on-demand company either charges and upfront free or takes a significant percentage of royalty off the top. Physical books and journals must be mailed, costing postage and supplies. If the publisher has a distributor, then they must pay sometimes hefty distribution charges. There is also the concern of warehousing backlists. If a publisher wants a presence at major writing conference (e.g., AWP or MLA), they will have to pay for a table, transportation, hotel, meals, etc., often running upwards of $3,000.
(4) Small publishing doesn’t pay. The idea that small, independent publishers earn big (or any) income is, sadly, ludicrous. Publishing houses situated in universities may receive funds from their respective university and/or grants, though grant sources are also shrinking. If you look at the mastheads, an editorial staff typically consists of students supervised by a faculty member. Small presses who have not (yet) filed for nonprofit status cannot receive grant monies; even then, the competition for funding is fierce, and publishing endeavors without a decades long history rarely if ever get funded enough to stay viable. I invested $5000- $10,000 a year for 8 years of my own money to run my small press and never took a salary. I did not charge reading fees, but completely understand presses and journals who do. In hindsight, perhaps I should have done so, because:
(5) Publishing takes time. Unless a publisher has a large staff, each person will spend many hours a day keeping the company afloat. Before, during and after conferences, I worked 12- to 16-hour days, seven days a week. Consider what goes into creating one book or journal: Design, layout, production; editing, proofreading; marketing; bookkeeping; shipping; correspondence; royalty reports... I recall a few instances when my response time to writers lagged or, in one case, failed entirely. A review of my own Submittable submissions show that I’ve experienced major journals and book publishers not responding within 6 months or, in some cases, at all. Publishers, regardless of rank, are human.
(6) Business diversity is not uncommon. Publishing companies that have the fortitude to diversify may have a better chance of surviving. These range from absorbing other presses, offering editorial services, holding conferences, operating magazines. A few examples: Catapult absorbed Soft Skull and Counterpoint books, offers classes and consultations and operates a magazine. Dzanc Books runs the Disquiet Literary Conference in Portugal and Unsaid Magazine. Deep Vellum has 3 imprints, runs a bookstore, and merged with Dalkey Archive. There are many rabbit holes to go down, but my experience is that nothing nefarious resides at the bottom.
(7) My C&R experience. I have always published with small presses, from New Directions/WW Norton to Coffee House Press to FC2/University of Alabama to Black Scat Books to C&R Press to Kernpunkt Press. Most small presses are labors of love—emphasis on labors. They tend to be risk-takers run by people (often but not always writers) whose own writing and interests explore literature as art rather than merely commerce. My editor was John Gosslee, and my experience with him was terrific. We worked together well on my hybrid memoir, Selling the Farm, which is structurally complex and thus required complex formatting and multiple proofreads. C&R awarded me $1000 for their Nonfiction Award, and I also received significant banner advertising of the book in notable publications like The Paris Review, through LitBreaker. As I recall, the reading fee was the standard $25. I submitted the manuscript to about 20 small presses, and paid just under $400 total.
(8) I agree that transparency is important in any field or business, and thhink that C&R should do better, or at lease mirror other well-established publishers who have their fingers in multiple pots. Linking their ventures might actually help solidify their reputation.
(9) Facts do matter. I can’t speak for other C&R authors, nor do I wish to. Rather, it’s important that Becky’s readers understand that she has done a disservice to small publishing and, consequently, small press authors whose reputations are damaged by what amounts to casting aspersions on their publishing resume. She has also, it seems, by way of the previous comments, misled many aspiring writers who do not understand, or understand superficially, the publishing industry. Journalism 101 demands that the reporter investigate all facets of the topic. Becky did not, which is to everyone's detriment.
Debra, thank you for sharing your experience. I'm glad to know that you had such a positive time with C & R Press.
As I said to Anis in my previous post, the concerns raised in my piece are not limited to submission fees. Among the many concerns raised about C & R Press and the outlets mentioned include claims of payments for books that never arrived, claims of book deals offered yet that never went through, authors chosen for publication then being ghosted, claims of contests where winners were never announced, false email addresses, claims of work accepted that was never published, no contact info, no mastheads, seeming bait and switch submission guidelines, claims of books that were printed and never sent to authors, response time of 2+ years or no response at all for work submitted, statements of horrible working conditions, and more.
Of course running a press is an immense amount of work. With at least one of the entities mentioned in my article, complaints have been made publicly and repeatedly. These are authors whose books were never sent out, readers who paid for books and never received them, and so on.
It is these practices that tarnish the good name of a press and a magazine.
Sharing this comment from fellow C&R Press author Joan Frank. There are scores of us on their website. Make up your own minds about whether we and the press are real or not.
Joan Frank
Dear everyone:
This is a passionate defense of C&R Press, with whom I've worked for the past couple of years and who, based on my DIRECT experience with them, deserve nothing of this recent, bizarre, long, inchoate attack. My short novel JUNIPER STREET won C&R's literary fiction prize a couple years ago--and from that moment they worked assiduously and ULTRA-CONSCIENTIOUSLY with me to produce and publish a very beautiful little book of which I will always be exceedingly proud. They managed this while working with umpteen other entities on umpteen other projects. I felt NO impingement in any way by their parallel projects, let alone duplicity (zero), nor did I EVER have reason to feel they were acting other than in service of getting good literature out into the world—albeit on a shoestring, which is of course the case with almost all small, literary presses. I have worked the entire time directly with Andrew and John, who've consistently and solidly been full-tilt, stand-up guys: responsive, thoughtful, reasonable, and upfront about all activities. They're generally overwhelmed with work, but what small press is not? I paid a reasonable fee (to me) to enter that literary competition: in my experience fees have had to become a fact of submitting, and authors who object to them should go elsewhere. When JUNIPER STREET won I contacted other, excellent authors who've been published by C&R, to gather anything about their experience with the Press. Their responses were unilaterally positive and satisfied. I would recommend C&R to any author considering offering work to a small press, and I would never question their fees, nor their methods. They're important contributors to the world of brave small publishers bringing out literary work that bigger houses routinely ignore--and they give themselves completely to the task. There is NOTHING nefarious or scammy about them or their methods or their products. I'll gladly speak to anyone who wants to consider them. Please remember that viciousness and horrific attacks and accusations have a way of viraling themselves into getting ethersphere attention, drawing toxic energy, and sounding reflexively true and irrefutable once uttered, in the manner of "Have you stopped beating your wife yet." I'm here to refute those ugly attacks. Please be ultra-wary and ultra-skeptical of such viral poison. Please join me in supporting and defending the good work and people of C&R. Best, Joan Frank
omg. NY Times announced this morning that Elizabeth Koch, daughter of Kochs and former Catapult financer, was starting some kind of wellness venture. Irony of all ironies, this afternoon, Catapult won an American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) award in the category of "Best Illustrated Story." But...Catapult doesn't exist anymore.
This is NUTS!! Becky coming in like a wrecking ball. I find all these lit mag closings worrisome, does anyone else?
Did you hear about Clarkesworld needing to close submissions (um, they just about NEVER close!) because they got hit by a swarm of AI subs? Ugh.
Did not see this scenario coming. Good grief, what’s next?
Sometimes words, as in your words Becky, made a "real" difference.
Breathtaking! But, as someone noted, "No Remorse."
While I and so many more are singing Becky's praise, some of those presses and lit mags are crying foul with words not seen since Dante's Inferno. Umm, they're feeling the heat. Thank Heavens!
You rock, girl!
I’m so grateful to Becky for putting John, the Andrews, and Jessica on blast. It’s long overdue. As a victim of C&R Press and John specifically, I’m appalled to see writers coming out in support of them without knowing the stories of the victims among us. How dare you? It took almost a year to come out about the extreme sexual harassment I experienced because I was traumatized and ashamed. The #metoo movement empowered me to finally share in 2018, and I was terrified to do so. It’s still scary now. Here’s my original post from 2018:
I have been keeping quiet about this experience because I was embarrassed, ashamed, and intimidated, but after sharing with a group of writers, some trusted colleagues and friends, and my partner, I'm confident that silence is not the best option for me or for anyone any longer.
I recently had my first chapbook published by C&R Press, and it was released at AWP in Tampa. My experience with the press has not been ideal (a lack of communication and clarity about pre-orders and the actual release-date of my book; having none of my books for sale on the day of my reading at a festival; having to work on the formatting and layout of my own book despite there being someone on staff who is supposed to take care of the layout; etc.), but my experience with one of the co-publishers, John Gosslee, has been much worse. If you're not familiar with him, he purchased PANK from Roxane Gay and owns FJORDS as well. He also, now, co-owns Ad Breaker, which many lit mags use to advertise online. There was also quite a scandal around his book of erasure, OUT OF CONTEXT, in which he blacks out the poetry of a woman of color, Hoa Nguyen, to create his own.
During my time at the press, John has insisted on FaceTime calls with me when an email or voice call would've been sufficient and more appropriate and has even FaceTimed me without any advanced warning. The press recently ran an ad in FIELDS with my photo, and John explicitly told me that they used my picture for the ad because I "fit the press's aesthetic." At a literary festival I was invited to by John for the press, hotel accommodations were offered, so I stayed in a room with John, his intern, and a press-mate of mine, all men (which I was made aware of beforehand). The night I arrived to New Orleans for the festival, I'd been traveling all day and wanted to drop my bags off, grab a cocktail alone, and walk it back to the hotel as a nightcap, but John invited himself to join me, saying he was going to head down for a smoke anyway. After getting my drink and suggesting we head back to the hotel as had been my plan, John put on some pressure to stay out and have another drink. He acted very nice and professional with me, talking about writing and work, until we had a couple more drinks.
Later that night, after I was heavily intoxicated, he would end up asking me--completely unprovoked and out of nowhere--if I would have sex with a man in front of him if he arranged it. I remember that detail because it was jarring and uninvited, but I remember very little of the rest of the night, not even my own response, and so I'll say only what I am sure of. To my recollection, nothing sexual happened, and we both ended up back at the hotel, John and his intern in one bed and me on the fold-out couch.
My press-mate would show up later the next evening, and even though we all went out together, I was extremely careful not to get drunk or be alone with John again. My press-mate is a good man and was kind of my "buddy" for the night, though he didn't know what had happened the night before. I was so humiliated and sick over it that I didn't say a thing about it the next day or until about a week ago when I told a trusted professor-friend. John and the intern ended up staying out later than my press-mate and I did, and as he and I were walking back to the hotel to call it a night, he told me that John had arranged, without my knowledge or consent, that the intern and my press-mate would be sharing one bed and that John and I would be sharing the other. Fortunately, as we were alone, I asked my press-mate if he was okay with sharing the pull-out couch, as I wasn't comfortable sleeping with John, and he obliged, saying he understood.
I have many stories of John acting extremely unprofessionally as a publisher as well as indecently simply as a human, using words like "retarded" during work calls (FaceTiming, of course), snapping his fingers in people's faces if he doesn't think they're listening to his stories, waving a wad of hundred-dollar-bills at a bartender he thinks is being too slow, making an inappropriate sexual joke about one of my poems into the microphone after my reading, walking around the hotel room with no shirt on and his pants hanging so far down that I could see half of his ass crack and the beginnings of his pelvic area, and more.
C&R stands for "Conscious & Responsible," and my chapbook is about women's bodies and what it means to be a woman in our society. My full-length collection (which the press wanted and sent me a contract for without first reading the manuscript) is about similar themes, and I declined to sign a contract with the press because I do not feel safe or comfortable being represented by John Gosslee or being around him in any capacity.
Since sharing my experience in a private group of writers, I've spoken to other women who know of, have witnessed, or have experienced similar behaviors from John, and we all want to get the word out about his unacceptable, uninvited, predatory behavior as he buys up magazines and businesses with pre-established reputations and claims their reputations as his own.
I am not looking to get into any legal disputes. I've left out from this post anything I am uncertain of or for which there were not other witnesses. I hope you'll, please, handle this information with care. I only want to warn other young women and fellow writers about my experiences to hopefully prevent things like this from happening to anyone else.
Thank you for sharing all this with us, Brenna.
My poem submissions just got rejected from MISFIT Mag. I have got a mail for rejection that is full of spelling mistakes and lacking proper punctuation. So, the one who submitted might be very big misfit person himself/herself.
Pls do a screen grab of the poorly written rejection from MISFIT & post it all over social media so we can mock them en masse.
Catapult closing its online classes is such a loss. All of us either taught or took online writing classes there... 🥲
Really stunned by this news because just yesterday (Feb. 19, 2023) Catapult sent me an email with winners' work and an invite to take classes there.
What the heck??
Catapult’s Don’t Write Alone series had some interesting articles on subjects that I didn’t see elsewhere, like this one from last year:
https://catapult.co/dont-write-alone/stories/can-i-be-a-writer-if-i-cant-speak-english-idiomatically-alisha-mughal-writing-in-a-second-language
Don’t know how they paid the bills. I don’t see any ads, so maybe the classes were supposed to pay for the mag, but didn’t? High quality writing for free? Sounds too good to be true.
#ICYMI . . . BECKY TUCH wrote: "Elizabeth Koch is the co-founder and CEO of Catapult.
She is also the daughter of Charles Koch, billionaire, 14th richest person in the world, and co-owner/CEO of Koch Industries."
I purchased a hard copy Writer’s Market today (Novels and Short Stories). It’s likely out of date upon publication but I can use this “old friend” as an additional resource to research lit mags that may not be so social media present. WM was my go to years ago. Something feels strange post-pandemic, possibly even during as I now notice lit mags that acquired an incredible number of followers during the pandemic currently “on hiatus”. Idk maybe a reset is happening.
Bravo to Becky Tuch for exposing dirty dealings by Andrew Ibis / Andrew Sullivan & his pompous cohort John Gosslee, who left C & R Press and is presently at Fjords.
#ICYMI: Becky's excellent investigative journalism included screen-grabs that proved these blood-suckers could NOT be contacted via email.
― Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ― Anyway here's something that needs to be discussed openly.
― Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ― How to vet an indie press BEFORE submitting a ms?
Years ago, when I would have been far less fussy, I would have sailed my poetry ms into any harbor that seemed friendly and did not require a large submission fee.
However, now that I have awards behind me, I want more hands-on marketing, etc. from my book publisher, so I'd love to know about other poets' experiences with an editorial team - - ahead of time.
Thread begins here - when a novelist asked:
Has anyone had dealings with Unsolicited Press?
https://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php?threads/unsolicited-press.353782/
It's sad to see you double down on wild twitter-fueled accusations against C&R Press instead of doing your homework and making some real contact and reaching out to C&R Press authors after publication of your original post. You chose selectively and mockingly from C&R Press's recent letter to its authors, and even now you're suggesting that signing the letter "Andrew+John" is some sort of secret conspiracy you've breached. This is descending to the level of gutter journalism, and it's sad to see that after being aligned against not giving credence to uninformed Internet conspiracies you've given in to the same tendencies, only your target is different. And it's sad to see that many of the same folk who used to act as self-righteous gatekeepers when I used to critique the problems in the literary world a dozen years ago have shown up en masse, as though out of the woodwork, in response to this attack of yours, as self-appointed morally righteous guardians. You're aligning yourself with people who live off of toxic accusations of all sorts, the very things you used to be against, in order to feed their ego. Very sad to see.
Please see my comment, Anis. I am a victim of C&R Press’s and John’s.
It’s a shame about more lit mag closings. It’s a shame about Catapult, I took a class there before I applied to MFAs and worked on my submission which helped me get accepted. Had no idea about the Koch connection. Seems like if she had Koch money, she wouldn’t have any problem keeping it afloat herself if she wanted to.
Ah yes, the presumed co-founder money. But it’s not clear what role that played in day-to-day operations, if any. And maybe it was just seed money, with an actual business model supposed to take it from there, but didn’t.
Historically, little magazines from Emerson’s The Dial onward operate in one of two modes: precarious existence due to unstable funding, or on a firmer footing for as long as a wealthy rainmaker smiles on their fortune (Poetry, for example, now bobs high in the water on the sea of Ruth Lilly’s $200 mil bequest).
True, I have no idea what their financial situation was. Maybe her dad doesn't believe in trust funds or inheritances, and she never received a dime from him. Who knows? But I liked Catapult and sorry to see it go.
Felix and Selma Stefanile published Sparrow poetry journal from 1954-2000, pretty much on their own dime. But by the 80s Felix noted that most subscriptions came from libraries and schools, not individuals, meaning that model was already wobbly when the online stuff took over. So what’s the new model now? Reading fees, I suppose. Yet the consensus here seems to be that fees are b-a-a-a-d. So what’s the new new model going to be? Maybe we’ll need a shakeout first since necessity normally precedes invention.
True and classes should have been a moneymaker so not sure why they’re stopping the classes
On the subject of Catapult and Elizabeth Koch, this just appeared on the NYT website: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/business/elizabeth-koch-perception-box.html
Facts matter. When poorly researched articles like these appear, they libel authors at small presses as well as small press endeavors trying to survive in a market dominated by Big 4 publishers, while competing for attention with over 500 other publishers. Becky did not reach out to me or, it seems, other recognized authors published by C&R Press. As a creative writer with an extensive 30-year publication history, and as a former art journalist and small press publisher, I would have appreciated the chance to speak on topics raised in this article. Had she done so, I would have responded thusly:
(1) Fees: A quick search on Poets & Writers shows how many reputable publications like Academy of American Poets, North American Review, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, University of Georgia Press, Yale Review and many, many more, charge reading fees for contests, some over $35. It also is common for a journals, e.g., Agni, American Poetry Review, Michigan Quarterly, New Letters, Seneca Review, to charge a reading fee and/or ask that you buy an extant issue. I've paid reading fees for years, long before Submittable and Paypal existed.
(2) Sales: If everyone who submitted to a journal or entered a contest purchased a book or journal from that publisher, fees might not be necessary. A writer who submits to 50 journals a year probably does not purchase 50 journals a year. If you do, you’re a hero.
(3) Publishing is expensive. A short-run traditionally published book or journal costs anywhere from $500 to $5000, depending on whether the publisher did all of the layout, design and spec work. If the book or journal is published through on-demand (e.g., Kindle) then profit margin is greatly reduced, as the on-demand company either charges and upfront free or takes a significant percentage of royalty off the top. Physical books and journals must be mailed, costing postage and supplies. If the publisher has a distributor, then they must pay sometimes hefty distribution charges. There is also the concern of warehousing backlists. If a publisher wants a presence at major writing conference (e.g., AWP or MLA), they will have to pay for a table, transportation, hotel, meals, etc., often running upwards of $3,000.
(4) Small publishing doesn’t pay. The idea that small, independent publishers earn big (or any) income is, sadly, ludicrous. Publishing houses situated in universities may receive funds from their respective university and/or grants, though grant sources are also shrinking. If you look at the mastheads, an editorial staff typically consists of students supervised by a faculty member. Small presses who have not (yet) filed for nonprofit status cannot receive grant monies; even then, the competition for funding is fierce, and publishing endeavors without a decades long history rarely if ever get funded enough to stay viable. I invested $5000- $10,000 a year for 8 years of my own money to run my small press and never took a salary. I did not charge reading fees, but completely understand presses and journals who do. In hindsight, perhaps I should have done so, because:
(5) Publishing takes time. Unless a publisher has a large staff, each person will spend many hours a day keeping the company afloat. Before, during and after conferences, I worked 12- to 16-hour days, seven days a week. Consider what goes into creating one book or journal: Design, layout, production; editing, proofreading; marketing; bookkeeping; shipping; correspondence; royalty reports... I recall a few instances when my response time to writers lagged or, in one case, failed entirely. A review of my own Submittable submissions show that I’ve experienced major journals and book publishers not responding within 6 months or, in some cases, at all. Publishers, regardless of rank, are human.
(6) Business diversity is not uncommon. Publishing companies that have the fortitude to diversify may have a better chance of surviving. These range from absorbing other presses, offering editorial services, holding conferences, operating magazines. A few examples: Catapult absorbed Soft Skull and Counterpoint books, offers classes and consultations and operates a magazine. Dzanc Books runs the Disquiet Literary Conference in Portugal and Unsaid Magazine. Deep Vellum has 3 imprints, runs a bookstore, and merged with Dalkey Archive. There are many rabbit holes to go down, but my experience is that nothing nefarious resides at the bottom.
(7) My C&R experience. I have always published with small presses, from New Directions/WW Norton to Coffee House Press to FC2/University of Alabama to Black Scat Books to C&R Press to Kernpunkt Press. Most small presses are labors of love—emphasis on labors. They tend to be risk-takers run by people (often but not always writers) whose own writing and interests explore literature as art rather than merely commerce. My editor was John Gosslee, and my experience with him was terrific. We worked together well on my hybrid memoir, Selling the Farm, which is structurally complex and thus required complex formatting and multiple proofreads. C&R awarded me $1000 for their Nonfiction Award, and I also received significant banner advertising of the book in notable publications like The Paris Review, through LitBreaker. As I recall, the reading fee was the standard $25. I submitted the manuscript to about 20 small presses, and paid just under $400 total.
(8) I agree that transparency is important in any field or business, and thhink that C&R should do better, or at lease mirror other well-established publishers who have their fingers in multiple pots. Linking their ventures might actually help solidify their reputation.
(9) Facts do matter. I can’t speak for other C&R authors, nor do I wish to. Rather, it’s important that Becky’s readers understand that she has done a disservice to small publishing and, consequently, small press authors whose reputations are damaged by what amounts to casting aspersions on their publishing resume. She has also, it seems, by way of the previous comments, misled many aspiring writers who do not understand, or understand superficially, the publishing industry. Journalism 101 demands that the reporter investigate all facets of the topic. Becky did not, which is to everyone's detriment.
Debra, thank you for sharing your experience. I'm glad to know that you had such a positive time with C & R Press.
As I said to Anis in my previous post, the concerns raised in my piece are not limited to submission fees. Among the many concerns raised about C & R Press and the outlets mentioned include claims of payments for books that never arrived, claims of book deals offered yet that never went through, authors chosen for publication then being ghosted, claims of contests where winners were never announced, false email addresses, claims of work accepted that was never published, no contact info, no mastheads, seeming bait and switch submission guidelines, claims of books that were printed and never sent to authors, response time of 2+ years or no response at all for work submitted, statements of horrible working conditions, and more.
Of course running a press is an immense amount of work. With at least one of the entities mentioned in my article, complaints have been made publicly and repeatedly. These are authors whose books were never sent out, readers who paid for books and never received them, and so on.
It is these practices that tarnish the good name of a press and a magazine.
You tell 'em. Becky. :-)
How exposing shonks and sharks constitutes an attack on small publishing generally eludes me.
Sharing this comment from fellow C&R Press author Joan Frank. There are scores of us on their website. Make up your own minds about whether we and the press are real or not.
Joan Frank
Dear everyone:
This is a passionate defense of C&R Press, with whom I've worked for the past couple of years and who, based on my DIRECT experience with them, deserve nothing of this recent, bizarre, long, inchoate attack. My short novel JUNIPER STREET won C&R's literary fiction prize a couple years ago--and from that moment they worked assiduously and ULTRA-CONSCIENTIOUSLY with me to produce and publish a very beautiful little book of which I will always be exceedingly proud. They managed this while working with umpteen other entities on umpteen other projects. I felt NO impingement in any way by their parallel projects, let alone duplicity (zero), nor did I EVER have reason to feel they were acting other than in service of getting good literature out into the world—albeit on a shoestring, which is of course the case with almost all small, literary presses. I have worked the entire time directly with Andrew and John, who've consistently and solidly been full-tilt, stand-up guys: responsive, thoughtful, reasonable, and upfront about all activities. They're generally overwhelmed with work, but what small press is not? I paid a reasonable fee (to me) to enter that literary competition: in my experience fees have had to become a fact of submitting, and authors who object to them should go elsewhere. When JUNIPER STREET won I contacted other, excellent authors who've been published by C&R, to gather anything about their experience with the Press. Their responses were unilaterally positive and satisfied. I would recommend C&R to any author considering offering work to a small press, and I would never question their fees, nor their methods. They're important contributors to the world of brave small publishers bringing out literary work that bigger houses routinely ignore--and they give themselves completely to the task. There is NOTHING nefarious or scammy about them or their methods or their products. I'll gladly speak to anyone who wants to consider them. Please remember that viciousness and horrific attacks and accusations have a way of viraling themselves into getting ethersphere attention, drawing toxic energy, and sounding reflexively true and irrefutable once uttered, in the manner of "Have you stopped beating your wife yet." I'm here to refute those ugly attacks. Please be ultra-wary and ultra-skeptical of such viral poison. Please join me in supporting and defending the good work and people of C&R. Best, Joan Frank
Bear Creek Gazette is not Bear Creek Haiku which is, as far as I know, still flourishing: https://bearcreekhaiku.blogspot.com
omg. NY Times announced this morning that Elizabeth Koch, daughter of Kochs and former Catapult financer, was starting some kind of wellness venture. Irony of all ironies, this afternoon, Catapult won an American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) award in the category of "Best Illustrated Story." But...Catapult doesn't exist anymore.