"It's All About the Voice." A Chat With Ann Beman and Jim Gearhart, Editors of Tahoma Literary Review
Q & A With the Editors of Tahoma Literary Review
Another editor interview has just wrapped!
Today I spoke with Ann Beman and Jim Gearhart, Nonfiction and Managing Editor of Tahoma Literary Review.
I was particularly excited to speak with these two because I published a story in this magazine many years ago, and the experience was excellent. The editor I worked with at the time (Yi Shun Lai) was incredibly generous and helpful with edits on the story, and the issue’s final presentation was gorgeous.
It is clear that Ann and Jim have a genuine commitment to bringing powerful writing into the world. Here we talked about why writers should keep trying the magazine even after rejections, what makes a “must-have” piece of nonfiction, what they would like to see more of and less of in submissions, and why transparency with writers is valuable.
(Spoiler alert: Ann LOVES flash nonfiction, so if you’ve got one such piece, this might be a great market for you.)
Tahoma Literary Review is committed to paying its writers. They offer different submission tracks where you can pay for an expedited response or for feedback on your work. Their latest issue will be available for download later this summer. They will open again for submissions on September 1st, 2021.
You can follow them on Twitter @TahomaReview.
To all who came out to participate, thank you!
To Ann and Jim, thanks so much for taking the time to give us all a glimpse behind the scenes of your magazine.
And if you are a journal editor who would like to arrange an interview, please be in touch. I hope to get to speak with every one of you! (Or at least, most of you.)
Happy viewing.
NB: There were some questions in the interview that Ann and Jim couldn’t answer. They’ve gotten back to me with responses from individual genre editors. Here are specifics on what these editors are looking for:
Mare Heron Hake, Poetry Editor:
A poem needs to be more than a one-dimensional reflection. It must offer a way inside, to be the window of experience where others can enter and know it to be true, as real, as more than the page. It can be in any form, any language, any length. Send me the cut-edged gem of our humanity needing to be known.
Jessica Cuello, Poetry Editor:
I look for poems that have a strong inevitability to them--the author needed to write them. Those jump out. We aren't afraid of weird. But we love poems in traditional forms too; you will see both experimental and traditional poems in our issues.
Leanne Dunic, Fiction Editor:
I like a writing voice that's singular, and a narrative that's unexpected. I like to be surprised, and not in a way that's based on shock value. I enjoy humour, surrealism, and deeply felt distillations.