SPD shutters & leaves publishers in shock; Editor of Guernica resigns; Poetry Foundation issues statement on boycott; thoughts on editing a lit mag, running a poetry contest, going digital; & more
The Guernica story is truly pathetic. Even in her resignation letter, the editor felt the need to make it clear that she regards Israel as a violent state. In other words, she is on the same side of the issue as every other member of the far left. Can you imagine the firestorm that would erupt if a lit mag editor actually supported Israel? But of course none of them will do so publicly, for fear of losing their jobs. All of which again illustrates that there is no real diversity in the lit mag world. Everyone is forced to march in lockstep with the crowd, and no contrary opinions are allowed.
I agree with Chen and have been disgusted by the Stalinist right and lefts positions on the war issue. We as creative arts people, of all peoples, should be in the best position not to be swayed by propoganda and agitprop. I like edvidence based facts. These are very hard to come by in any war situation. The Middle East is a hornet's nest of waring nationalist and dictatorial ambitions shored up by extreme religious fascists and nationalists. Anyone who claims the visions of a prophet or seer is simply a con.
As a retired journalist and professor I seek balance and discussion as the way forward. Eventually this most recent bloodbath will end. What follows is what will either point a way out of this quicksand that the Gazian and Israeli peoples are caught up in as the crazy nationalists and fanatics in power on both sides of this make ordinary people pay the price.
There are peacemakers on both side more than willing to come up with working solutions but the current leaderships in Hamas (the attacker) and Israel (the revenger)only care for their agendas. Thus no hostages have been freed since the first attempts and the relentless bombing, shooting, and unacceptable starvation and displacement of the Gazan civilians continues while the fanatics in the West Bank commit atrocities against the Palestians Arabs there. The history is so complicated that one hardly knows what words to use to describe the indigenous peoples of this region throughout history and since 1949.
This is why I supporrt Chen and deplore the hatchet job that Guenica committed against her, their editor and a well written piece on the situation. Chen's is a respectful, and balanced point of view. But this kind of self censorship and blatant censorship across the cultural continuum. It is happening among creatives. It ignores as well the planted operatives, especailly in liberal and left organizations where ignorant, well meaning, ahistorical individuals who deplore war violent act out their anger. As well as among privileged people who want a feel good while never having been to war. It is a great jump on the bandwagon opportunity for attention getting and a moment to act out their hostilities.
What the divisionism does is fuels antisemitism here and abroad and it completely misunderstands how this undermines democracy as opposed to dictatorships, it loves to blame government, especially Americas when the current administration is doing all in its power to try and stop the bloodshed and negotiate a solution while still desperately trying to support a long time ally.
I follow the White House briefings-do the critics? I read foreign takes on the on-going conflict, do the demonstrators? I write "not in my name," and I don't hop on to the blame and shame bandwagon--do you?
Neither Chen nor I are for war but we are careful about what language we use, the meanings of our terms and how not to be driven by emotions and impulses. Are the critics? You decide for yourselves where you stand and try to find your own ground so you can come up with possible solutions to end the conflict. Leave the justice to come within the laws of conflict to those who are far more qualified than me or thee are in a position to make.
When I read about the SPD closure, I immediately thought of Jenn Scheck-Kahn's Journal of the Month. Fancy, if she were to expand into small presses, offering monthly bundles of books by subscription. A year's subscription—of say four titles (chapbook, novella, story collection, novel, memoire, essay collection, etc.) from four presses per quarter—could give readers (& writers looking for places to submit a book proposal or MS) a fairly comprehensive idea of the small-press market.
#Lit-Mag-News - A pleasant surprise: my recent poetry submission to a campus lit mag sparked an interview request. Naturally, I agreed. How many formalists who are not named Richard Wilbur [1921 - 2017] get a chance to discuss the joys and challenges of formal verse in a full-length interview?
It especially pleased me to have a lit mag soapbox to explain that my WIP "Past Tense: Poems & Portraits of Suicides" evolved from real-life suicide notes - - and how it found expression via derivative poetry forms such Golden Shovels, Centos, Erasures, etc.
In contrast, my WIP on real-life crimes has relied on the Mesostitch Acrostic poem format, Echo Verse, and nonce forms meant to look "jagged" on the page.
And now, dear colleagues, I look forward to reading your Lit Mag News today! :-)
Guernica - another cancellation, another forced resignation, just another day in the arts & literary world. I hope people like her will wake up and see the progressives for what they are. They want compliance and they want it now with a 100% alignment and fealty. Or you will be denounced.
I say this as someone appalled by both the Israeli government and the leaders of Hamas, who seem to be made for each other right now, in terms of how they're propping each other up (now that my disclaimer is over with...): If Guernica can't stand by a human-angle story about a child-welfare advocate who clearly felt pained by the loss of life on both sides, then what can it stand by? And let's remind ourselves that this debate isn't about the conflict, writ large. It's about a magazine's response to an article, just so we don't act like a bunch of dumb MFAs (as usual) with no sense of history, spouting off about global politics before we've done nothing more than read a few headlines or tweets from the professor of our Advanced Topics in Poetry class. Let's stick to what we know. Guernica. A lit mag desperately scrambling to placate everyone and placating no one. And now we have silence around the experience of someone involved in both Palestinian and Israeli children's welfare--someone who might have shed some light on how conflicts get perpetuated. Shame on Guernica for retracting that article. If they had any guts, they would have stood by it and let it be a means to a real conversation. BTW, I just read the article. Has anyone else so enraged by it? And if so, what about it "normalizes" violence? Seriously. Give me some specifics. Because the author talks about violence? Don't so many groups try to shed light on violence to call attention to injustice? Isn't that what Guernica purports to do? If some had quibbles, why not give the author a forum to explain any comments people felt normalized violence instead of throwing her under the bus for crimes that seem, honestly, to have been committed by others.
Love the Booth segment! How cool to feature a lit mag on local TV. I was just back in my home ground of Indiana (was born there and later went to grad school at IU MFA) for the eclipse, and it just warms the heart.
I am so appreciative of your Substack column. The updates and insights into the earthquakes in the publishing world are so helpful - I rethink who to support, why I read this but not that.
I love that there are so many presses, so many journals. But it’s a treacherous landscape for them, and for any editor or publication that does not satisfy the “correct” political stance of the moment.
It does make me appreciate so much more that ancient world of cranking out a poetry journal on a mimeograph machine, beholden to nobody, and the number of “published” poets so small that everybody read everybody, and even if you called a poet a pig or an idiot you still would read their work. I’m just sayin’…
I'm looking forward to the Florida Review dates. I read the editor's note yesterday and it made want to subscribe to another 28 lit mags while I still can.
The Guernica story is truly pathetic. Even in her resignation letter, the editor felt the need to make it clear that she regards Israel as a violent state. In other words, she is on the same side of the issue as every other member of the far left. Can you imagine the firestorm that would erupt if a lit mag editor actually supported Israel? But of course none of them will do so publicly, for fear of losing their jobs. All of which again illustrates that there is no real diversity in the lit mag world. Everyone is forced to march in lockstep with the crowd, and no contrary opinions are allowed.
I agree with Chen and have been disgusted by the Stalinist right and lefts positions on the war issue. We as creative arts people, of all peoples, should be in the best position not to be swayed by propoganda and agitprop. I like edvidence based facts. These are very hard to come by in any war situation. The Middle East is a hornet's nest of waring nationalist and dictatorial ambitions shored up by extreme religious fascists and nationalists. Anyone who claims the visions of a prophet or seer is simply a con.
As a retired journalist and professor I seek balance and discussion as the way forward. Eventually this most recent bloodbath will end. What follows is what will either point a way out of this quicksand that the Gazian and Israeli peoples are caught up in as the crazy nationalists and fanatics in power on both sides of this make ordinary people pay the price.
There are peacemakers on both side more than willing to come up with working solutions but the current leaderships in Hamas (the attacker) and Israel (the revenger)only care for their agendas. Thus no hostages have been freed since the first attempts and the relentless bombing, shooting, and unacceptable starvation and displacement of the Gazan civilians continues while the fanatics in the West Bank commit atrocities against the Palestians Arabs there. The history is so complicated that one hardly knows what words to use to describe the indigenous peoples of this region throughout history and since 1949.
This is why I supporrt Chen and deplore the hatchet job that Guenica committed against her, their editor and a well written piece on the situation. Chen's is a respectful, and balanced point of view. But this kind of self censorship and blatant censorship across the cultural continuum. It is happening among creatives. It ignores as well the planted operatives, especailly in liberal and left organizations where ignorant, well meaning, ahistorical individuals who deplore war violent act out their anger. As well as among privileged people who want a feel good while never having been to war. It is a great jump on the bandwagon opportunity for attention getting and a moment to act out their hostilities.
What the divisionism does is fuels antisemitism here and abroad and it completely misunderstands how this undermines democracy as opposed to dictatorships, it loves to blame government, especially Americas when the current administration is doing all in its power to try and stop the bloodshed and negotiate a solution while still desperately trying to support a long time ally.
I follow the White House briefings-do the critics? I read foreign takes on the on-going conflict, do the demonstrators? I write "not in my name," and I don't hop on to the blame and shame bandwagon--do you?
Neither Chen nor I are for war but we are careful about what language we use, the meanings of our terms and how not to be driven by emotions and impulses. Are the critics? You decide for yourselves where you stand and try to find your own ground so you can come up with possible solutions to end the conflict. Leave the justice to come within the laws of conflict to those who are far more qualified than me or thee are in a position to make.
I don't want to sound gloomy, but this makes me wonder whether there's any future at all in writing, by, you know, actual human beings:
https://lithub.com/meta-considered-buying-simon-schuster-to-build-its-ai/
When I read about the SPD closure, I immediately thought of Jenn Scheck-Kahn's Journal of the Month. Fancy, if she were to expand into small presses, offering monthly bundles of books by subscription. A year's subscription—of say four titles (chapbook, novella, story collection, novel, memoire, essay collection, etc.) from four presses per quarter—could give readers (& writers looking for places to submit a book proposal or MS) a fairly comprehensive idea of the small-press market.
#Lit-Mag-News - A pleasant surprise: my recent poetry submission to a campus lit mag sparked an interview request. Naturally, I agreed. How many formalists who are not named Richard Wilbur [1921 - 2017] get a chance to discuss the joys and challenges of formal verse in a full-length interview?
It especially pleased me to have a lit mag soapbox to explain that my WIP "Past Tense: Poems & Portraits of Suicides" evolved from real-life suicide notes - - and how it found expression via derivative poetry forms such Golden Shovels, Centos, Erasures, etc.
In contrast, my WIP on real-life crimes has relied on the Mesostitch Acrostic poem format, Echo Verse, and nonce forms meant to look "jagged" on the page.
And now, dear colleagues, I look forward to reading your Lit Mag News today! :-)
This is so useful. Thanks for curating and sharing. I need to get back to submitting and now I have ideas on places to send work.
Goddard? that is bad, sad news on top of all the rest.
Guernica - another cancellation, another forced resignation, just another day in the arts & literary world. I hope people like her will wake up and see the progressives for what they are. They want compliance and they want it now with a 100% alignment and fealty. Or you will be denounced.
The Guernica misunderstanding is sad.
Is there anything we can do to help these publishers?
I say this as someone appalled by both the Israeli government and the leaders of Hamas, who seem to be made for each other right now, in terms of how they're propping each other up (now that my disclaimer is over with...): If Guernica can't stand by a human-angle story about a child-welfare advocate who clearly felt pained by the loss of life on both sides, then what can it stand by? And let's remind ourselves that this debate isn't about the conflict, writ large. It's about a magazine's response to an article, just so we don't act like a bunch of dumb MFAs (as usual) with no sense of history, spouting off about global politics before we've done nothing more than read a few headlines or tweets from the professor of our Advanced Topics in Poetry class. Let's stick to what we know. Guernica. A lit mag desperately scrambling to placate everyone and placating no one. And now we have silence around the experience of someone involved in both Palestinian and Israeli children's welfare--someone who might have shed some light on how conflicts get perpetuated. Shame on Guernica for retracting that article. If they had any guts, they would have stood by it and let it be a means to a real conversation. BTW, I just read the article. Has anyone else so enraged by it? And if so, what about it "normalizes" violence? Seriously. Give me some specifics. Because the author talks about violence? Don't so many groups try to shed light on violence to call attention to injustice? Isn't that what Guernica purports to do? If some had quibbles, why not give the author a forum to explain any comments people felt normalized violence instead of throwing her under the bus for crimes that seem, honestly, to have been committed by others.
Love the Booth segment! How cool to feature a lit mag on local TV. I was just back in my home ground of Indiana (was born there and later went to grad school at IU MFA) for the eclipse, and it just warms the heart.
Jina Moore, you are a hero. I wish I had your courage and self-respect.
Thank you for sharing my little pub :)
I am so appreciative of your Substack column. The updates and insights into the earthquakes in the publishing world are so helpful - I rethink who to support, why I read this but not that.
I love that there are so many presses, so many journals. But it’s a treacherous landscape for them, and for any editor or publication that does not satisfy the “correct” political stance of the moment.
It does make me appreciate so much more that ancient world of cranking out a poetry journal on a mimeograph machine, beholden to nobody, and the number of “published” poets so small that everybody read everybody, and even if you called a poet a pig or an idiot you still would read their work. I’m just sayin’…
I'm looking forward to the Florida Review dates. I read the editor's note yesterday and it made want to subscribe to another 28 lit mags while I still can.