Lit Mag Shack, Baby, Lit Mag Shack!

Aliases of a serial plagiarist; lit mag alert; lit mag history; writers on competition; data on lit mags that solicit work; reflections on acceptance rates; The Buellers!; and more

Welcome to our bi-weekely news roundup!

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Greetings Lit Magtators,

How, you are probably wondering, is John Kucera these days? You all remember John Kucera, right? The lit mag world’s serial plagiarist whom we discussed here?

Well, if you’re anything like me, you are well aware that Mr. Kucera desperately needs $20. Here’s the most recent of a handful of emails I’ve gotten this month.

I’m not the only one getting these. But beware, friends. It seems Kucera is not only soliciting funds but submitting more plagiarized work under other names.

Get it? Brian Bianci is John Kucera is John Siepkes. No doubt other names are used as well. Editors, got any plagiarism detection strategies you care to share? As for everyone else, I know I (probably) don’t need to say this, but please do not reply to these emails!

Now, another warning, this time about writing contests. A reader emailed to tell me of something bizarre. Here is the page for Homiens, some kind of online art gallery. They are hosting an art prize, with an award of $24k. The contest is free to enter for one artwork; every artwork submission after that is $5.

Well, okay, that’s the art world. Who cares about them, right, writers? We’ve got our own problems.

Except…The jurors are two people named Kita Das and Ol James, PhD. They are also both Art Director and Editor, respectively, of The Letter Review. This magazine’s submissions page says, “New writing has the ability to inspire, educate, and transform our lives. Everyone has an important message to share, whether you are published or unpublished, new to writing or experienced.”

They pay $50 for published work, which is nice. They don’t charge for general submissions, though they do encourage donations up to $50 when you submit. They also run a contest, where the first entry is free but every subsequent entry is $5. Okay, this all sounds fine. They’re also a member of CLMP, which is an added stamp of legitimacy.

But, as I dug around their sites, some questions arose. There is nothing about these two online. I was able to trace Kita Das through her gallery work, and tracked down what I think is her X profile, which is under a slightly different name. As for Ol James, nothing. The publication credits all link to the journals, but not to James’s actual work. Neither of them has a website, though there is a LinkedIn link.

It appears that Das and James are the sole judges for all the work submitted to The Letter Review, which appears to be open year-round. They are also the judges for submissions to contests in the categories of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, as well as unpublished books. That is an insane amount of work! On top of that, these awards are given every two months! Plus, they publish interviews and work on their site, and also are the judges for the art prize I mentioned above.

Are there more judges who are not listed here? Is their staff larger than what is listed on the site? Is this an innocent case of two well-intentioned people taking on a ton of projects in genuinely good faith?

I do not wish to disparage. I do not know. I will happily report any updates here. I only wish to ask questions, and to help guide you in your savvy submitting. From what I see, this venue, with its cryptic masthead and astounding number of submissions opportunities, plus promises of super high contest awards, plus several grammatical errors on the magazine’s site, earns from me a…

In brighter news, I love discovering lit mag histories, as they kind of put all the work we do into a bigger societal context. Crossing my path today was this Nation article about writer and editor Jack Conroy, whom Richard Wright dubbed, “the ‘old daddy of rebel writing.’” Writes Devin Thomas O’Shea,

Six feet tall, barrel-chested, and with the booming voice of a longshoreman, Conroy was the editor of Rebel Poet magazine and eventually The Anvil, a leading left-wing literary publication of the decade. He was a writer, too, and penned dozens of short stories and workers’ sketches as well as two novels…

Here’s a bit more about Rebel Poet Magazine:

Over the course of two years, they published 17 editions of The Rebel Poet—which was a simple magazine printed on low-quality paper in bold print…Illustrations in The Rebel Poet depicted capitalists in top hats carrying money bags; there were drawings of heroic and muscular workers earning their wage…but The Rebel Poet also published didactic schlock like “Karl Marx Started It,” which begins, “All hail to Marx, the champion of mankind!”

In more current news, on her Poetry Bulletin today, Emily Stoddard has shared a list of resources for writers who wish to focus on magazines and publishers “in solidarity with Palestinians.” Stoddard writes “Chiara Di Lello and I are working on a document of upcoming deadlines with publishers in solidarity with Palestinians. This pulls from a variety of sources (noted in the doc) and focuses on active/upcoming deadlines.”

Over at Electric Literature, Editor of Fairy Tale Review Benjamin Schaeffer has posted an encouraging piece about writerly competition. Writes Schaeffer,

It is tempting to believe that when I submit a short story to a literary contest or an application to a prestigious fellowship, whether or not my work is selected will be determined by its value compared to the rest of the applicant pool. That is, by whose work is the best. But that’s just a story. What an award or fellowship really affirms is how well my work aligns with the tastes and interests of the selection committee. It is not a determination of value, but of values.

And two new lit mags got some press recently. Dan Sheehan at Lit Hub reports that Hillary Brenhouse, who was formerly Editor-in-Chief at Guernica, is launching Elastic, “a biannual print magazine of psychedelic art and literature that will debut in spring 2025.” It “aims to publish art and writing that’s ‘immersive, dreamlike, daring, genre- and time-bending, and that acts to expand the mind and the vast possibilities of narrative.’”

At the Boston Globe Nina MacLaughlin reports on Rustica Journal, “[a] new literary magazine of art and writing based in Western Maine.” “The journal was founded…with the intent of ‘celebrating and elevating the captivating tapestry of rural living in the beautiful state of Maine,’ and considering ‘the age-old question of living differently together.’”

If statistics are your love language, then you might like a few newly released data sets. In a new post, Chill Subs co-founder Ben Davis asks, How Accurate Are Acceptance Rates for Literary Magazines, Really? He writes, “The good news is that a lit mag is almost always more competitive than the statistics would indicate. The bad news is that acceptance rates matter…almost not at all in the grand scheme.”

The Editors of Raleigh Review have begun keeping diligent track of lit mags that solicit work from writers for general submissions (meaning, they don’t rely solely on the “slush pile.”) Here is a spreadsheet, which features the data on 175 magazines.

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Finally, a new feature of this newsletter: introducing The Buellers! This section will be for lit mags that appear to be operational, but which also do not appear to be operating. (The Bueller reference is, oh gosh, do some of you really not know Ferris Bueller? Please see me after class.)

This week we’ve got two Buellers. One is Quarterly West. They appear active on social media but I am hearing reports from writers of contest announcements getting pushed back and queries going ignored. Their submissions page says they’re open until March 15th, indicating it’s not been updated. Are you there, Quarterly West? Anyone? Anyone?

The other is for Best of the Net nominations. Several writers have asked me what’s going on. Are these coming out soon? Any updates?

I hope everyone takes these inquiries in the spirit they’re meant, not to call anyone out, just to get some answers. A whole lot of writers are waiting and sometimes that silence feels deafening. Updates on either of these entities would be appreciated.

If you’ve got a Bueller of your own, not just a mag that’s taking a long time to reply to submissions but which you think may have gone quietly defunct, please let me know.

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For those of you seeking work in the life-affirming land of lit mags:

The Rumpus is seeking volunteer book review editors.

For those of you seeking homes for your latest & greatest, be sure to check the first newsletter of each month, where I list those.

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As for us, it’s going to be a busy week!

We’ve got our Study Hall tomorrow, our Zoetrope chat on Wednesday, and our Q & A with Zoetrope Editor Michael Ray on Thursday.

Registration links and more info about all of these events can be found here:

For next month’s Lit Mag Reading Club, we will be reading the current issue of Shenandoah. Good news! This one is free and all online. So you can start reading today. I’ll be sharing all the June interviews & events soon, so keep your eyes out.

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And that you searing soul-searchers sliding into the slippery slop of your ever-widening subconscious spatula, you cookers of emotions with something salty but satisfying always simmering on the stove of your heart’s sleeve, you making stews or else stewing in machinations, you slicing through the onion rings of your always-expanding inner lives, you whose endless interior is a series of recipe instructions that never make sense, or else take much longer than advertised, you who needs better utensils after all, such as cleaner spoons, sharper knives, you whose selfless sections are all laid cutting-board-bare and you whose sweet satisfaction is a dish best served sunny-side up, you who can be so sloppy, joe, you and you, everywhere shining the flaming light of your heart underneath the meal you most long to share, you full of sage, you always so saucy, you, you, seeing into the eternal sea of your glorious and boiling heart’s supper, is the news in literary magazines.

Have a most delectable week, pals.

Fondly,

Becky

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