Politicizing submissions guidelines; dealing with AI submissions; literary renaissances in Dallas & Pittsburgh; rejection letter poem; dozens of paying markets, contests; & more
Wow, telling folks not to submit because of what they believe is rather shocking. Policies should be about what kind of writing the lit mag publishes. Definitely a red flag not to submit there.
I'm the editor of a lit mag based in a place where publishing certain content will be punishable by fines, jail, etc. So if someone submits a piece of (e.g. political) writing that, if we published it, would violate the National Security Law (or any other law), we need to weigh the potential consequences.
But we continue to say, "Anyone can submit." We would never tell someone not to submit based on what they *believe*.
The thing is, this isn't simply about whether or not you like thing X vs. thing Y, or if you go to church A vs. church B. Some of these "political causes" are real issues that affect the lives of real people. The genocide in Gaza is a real issue affecting real people in Palestine. The repealing of Roe v. Wade is a real issue affecting real women in the US. BLM is a real issue affecting Black and POC people in the US and Canada. Queerphobia is a real issue affecting queer and trans people around the world. Perhaps you may not think you're affected or impacted by them, but chances are there is someone in your orbit (and/or someone you care about) who is.
Sure, one may not think constantly about the military bombing of Palestinians, the overpolicing of people of colour, or discrimination against trans/queer people as they go about their daily lives (I sure don't), but I would think that it would be at least the bare minimum to recognize that the bombing of children and innocent civilians is wrong.
My point with all of this is that with certain conversations, this is more than simply just a matter of disagreeing over one's political opinion.
To circle back on topic, a lit mag is free to do whatever its editors/staff/founders want, whether it be accepting submissions from people who are against the genocide in Gaza, or accepting submissions only from people who are unequivocally in support of Israel. As a queer person of colour, if I come across a lit mag which all of sudden says they accept submissions only from people who hold white supremacist or queerphobic political views, then they probably wouldn't be a good fit for my work, submission requirement aside.
Likewise, if one takes umbrage at a lit mag only accepting, let's say, submissions from people who are opposed to the genocide in Gaza, then perhaps that lit mag wasn't a good fit for them in the first place.
Thank you for yours and yolandes and others reply. I have been concerned since I joined substack at the number of older writers lamenting that they can't simply say anything in anyway anyhow without disagreement as if its 1984 to say something like, genocide is wrong and supporting a genocidal state is wrong. It feels very "back in my day". I think there are always, every decade, legitimate concerns about censorship and discourse. Basic human rights, or the right to advocate against them as if they are trivial, is not among them.
Agreed! People's basic humanity and their rights to dignity and life are not "political issues." It is intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise, especially as an excuse to dismiss valid human rights.
And if a lit mag wants to say things like "If you are opposed to transgender rights, please don't submit here," then that is totally their right and writers have many other lit mags they can submit to, including many with the opposing view. Especially for niche mags like queer lit mags, support of these basic human rights is a part of their mandate and if editorial staff feel the need to add that statement to their submission guidelines, clearly it's because submitters have not been reading the magazine closely to know what kinds of content would or would not be a fit there. So the editorial staff have chosen to clarify on their submissions page. Totally fair.
Without the exact example (which Becky has not provided), it's hard to say much more, but in contrast to most of the comments so far, as the issue has been described in the post I don't see anything wrong with this approach.
The point is that for all of the complaints about the "politics" of lit mags, the truth is that everything is political.
It's not a matter of "can't we just agree to disagree?" or "we shouldn't let politics get in the way of publishing in lit mags!", it's a matter of the question of how much marginalized (BIPOC, disabled, queer) voices and lived experiences truly matter in the literary world.
The reason why you think this is sad is probably because your existence has not been politicized in the same way that other groups have, so you have the luxury of not having to think about politics every day because your very being isn't being called into question.
You may have the luxury of just calling it a guess. But for Black people in the US facing increasingly militarized police forces, or trans people facing policies trying to legislate them out of public life, it's not an opinion, or a guess - it's observable fact.
There are people who live outside of your orbit whose lives are politicized. All that's needed is the empathy to listen.
You say that “everything is political,” then make the leap to”…and there is only one acceptable view, of which I am the arbiter.” If diversity of viewpoints is important, as it most definitely is, how do purity tests help accomplish that objective?
Where did he say ”…and there is only one acceptable view, of which I am the arbiter"? I don't see that text (which you put in quotation marks as if it's a direct quote) anywhere in the comment you're responding to.
He implied that by supporting the lit mag in question’s policy of accepting only the work of authors who pass their litmus test. He appears to agree with them. I did not intend to mislead by using quotation marks, sorry.
And this "litmus test" is opposing the bombing of innocent civilians and children.
Something which on a basic human level, shouldn't even be a question.
If one takes umbrage with the question, "Do you oppose the bombing of innocent civilians and children?", then again, I don't know what else to say.
But to bring it back to the question of lit mags, if one supports the Israeli military campaign in Gaza and Palestine, why should they be published in a lit mag whose staff explicitly opposes it?
And you know what one acceptable view is? That bombing innocent civilians and kids is wrong.
Another acceptable view: Trans and queer people deserve to live in a society where they can authentically and safely thrive just like everyone else.
Another acceptable view: BIPOC people deserve to live in a society where they don't have to live in fear of institutional violence.
There's no "both sides" to these discussions. It's not a question of what team's going to win the Stanley Cup, or what movie is going to sweep the Oscars. If the question of what's happening in Gaza is a "both sides" or "agree to disagree" issue for you, then I don't know what to really say. Perhaps talk to a Palestinian who is willing to undertake the emotional labour to educate you on what is happening in Gaza. Or read interviews with Jewish folks like Dr. Alice Rothchild on Democracy Now (https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/6/alice_rothchild_gaza_healthcare_crisis).
Put another way, let me ask the question again: How much do marginalized (BIPOC, disabled, queer) voices and lived experiences truly matter in the literary world? How much do Palestinian voices matter? For that matter, how much does my voice matter in the literary world?
@Connie C -- I saw the comment you posted here earlier, which you deleted 15 minutes later (it disappeared right after I finished reading it). That was wise, as it was quite inflammatory and I was going to have some choice things to say in response. :)
It was two minutes later, and I deleted it because I had either overlooked or Justin had later added something to his post which invalidated a point I made. But phew! Guess I dodged a bullet, eh?
I see several troubling developments in writing and publishing. On one hand, a confusion between cultural beliefs and political beliefs. Confusion between the leader of the country and the country's citizens, who may often have views opposing the leader's. Confusion between sincere and honest writing and the editorial opinions of "authorities" or "experts." On the other hand, I also observe sagging standards of writing with errors of usage, spelling, and appalling turgid language. I see a deterioration in precise facts and using facts with logic. I usually have a lovely relationship with editors and lit mags I submit to. Becky, you say you've never seen this before. I haven't either, but it does exist in the history of US publishing, during the McCarthy era, when writers were blacklisted. That's what it's called. One of the chief instigators of hatred, according to what I've read, of that era, was Roy Cohn, one of Donald Trump's mentors. Unfortunately, we are now seeing very emotional, ugly remarks on both sides of various questions. This is not civilized, and I am concerned that kneejerk response to any opinion--including on personal matters--will accelerate devolution into Fascism, not assist any kind of social justice. Let's think carefully before we respond to anyone.
I think that you are right on point. The extent of censorship floating around our "zeitgeist" is alarming and disappointing. Also alarming is lack of any historical knowledge among present "influencers," who probably never heard of Roy Cohn (unless they saw 'Angels in America'). Thanks for your contribution, and thanks to Becky for her very thoughtful observations.
Before I say what I am going to say, a disclaimer: I am a firm believer of the political rights of cheeseburgers, as their plight has been underrepresented. My problem with Lit Mags taking sides of different political platforms is that discourse and debate will go out the window and instead of improving our ability to showcase narratives of those in need, we will dissuade them into nothing. It started with the media deregulation during the Regan years that propelled the creation of Fox News as an openly conservative format, to the now social media platforms playing to the algorithms that perpetuate the causes that you believe, and avoid the ones that don't. It is a sad state of affairs. And it also cuts into the writers side as well. I write about political issues related to the narratives and experiences of immigrants. In the process, I leaned the importance of not taking sides. If I paint this one side as bad and this other side as good, my prose, my creative effort is quickly transformed into propaganda. When you eliminate plurality, you eliminate the environment of discourse that feeds a democracy. And for a democracy to work, to thrive, even to survive, it has to accept that one group of ideas, political perceptions while it can win, it can also accept to lose. When you normalize "we only want these beliefs here," you will then censor, blacklist, ban, and at some point with marshmallows in hand, burn books. That's not the future I want. Boy, I now need that cheeseburger.
We are experiencing an updated form of McCarthyism in the 50’s, when people had to receive magazines in brown paper for fear of the censors who could have them imprisoned for what they read or wrote. Everyone was paranoid during that hyper-politicized period of our history—when even the mail carrier (who might be sneaking a peak under the brown paper to “report” you to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee) was feared.
Yes, I saw this magazine and was shocked when I saw this restriction. Regardless of my views, it immediately screamed DON'T SUBMIT HERE to me, and I didn't.
I think it’s only fair to know who they are so those who don’t support xyz can avoid them. It’s tough enough out there. Even a clue- please? I’m pretty outspoken so I possibly already alienated them but I want to know.
So have I, Robbi. It takes so long to research lit mags that are appropriate for my work, not to mention all the record-keeping required for tracking submissions, I'm starting to question the return on my time investment. Maybe the lit mag industry is heading toward a paradigm shift, as is the publishing industry. But no one knows what those paradigms are going to look like.
I'm appalled by the if-you-don't-agree-with-me-don't-submit policy, just as I am by an everything-is-political policy. (One cup of non-political coffee, please.) Seems to me, this is turning into a relentless Manicheanism. Degrees and nuances are not allowed. We saw that at points in the 60s: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Not a great way to make progress or to find common ground. That said, I don't want to publish, even accidentally in such a magazine. Can you imagine the kind of work they're going to publish with a policy like that? It will be whatever the current version of socialist realism happens to be. Really awful propagandistic stuff. Yeats has that marvelous sentence about how out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric and out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry. This kind of exclusionary policy leaves no room for quarrels with ourselves, only for slogans shouted at the top of someone's lungs.
I guess I'm in the minority, but I feel like having lit mags with political points of view is fine? Lots of important art movements with magazines associated have historically had political commitments (dada certainly did). there are a lot of lit mags; if some of them want to limit contributors to those with like minded policies, why not?
I just got published in a tiny little mag of poems opposing gun violence, for example. Obviously everyone who contributed opposes gun violence; I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it's not completely different either. There are just a lot of literary magazines, and they often have particular twists re submissions that can be formal (prose poems, haiku), regional/national, age based—or they can charge submission fees, which are a big barrier for many. I don't see why taking a political position is different or less legitimate.
And sure, many people may not have political positions, so they can just not submit to that journal, just like if you're not a resident of Canada, through no fault of your own, you can't submit to journals restricted to Canadians.
I see what you're saying, but at the onus of those publications is their feelings about gun violence. There are pubs that are advocates to the environment, global warming. Or, anti immigration, abortion, hunting. There are also flat earth platforms. When you submit to them, yeah, congrats you got published. Is one better than the other? Of course not. But they represent a particular side of the spectrum. The problem is when you get the bigger publications, the ones that are supposed to represent a broad spectrum of the populace and they postulate these dictums. Should that be the case?
I mean, we don't know which pub we're talking about...but none of the pubs that publish poetry are all that big? and the ones that make some pretense of being representative or big tent (like Rattle) tend to print poetry that is mainstream in particular ways that can be pretty exclusionary too. (they're not going to print my weird poem which is just a list of guns.)
Pubs often limit what they print in lots of ways that aren't necessarily about quality. I don't see why insisting on contributors with particular politics is any different than insisting on contributors from particular communities or countries or who have the money to spend on high entrance fees.
Agreed! I don't see how this is any different than focusing a journal's content on, say, dogs. There are plenty of literary journals in the sea with other focuses that you can submit to if you don't give a whiff about dogs.
I think you're underestimating poetry. There are small pubs that focus on poetry, but poetry as far as lit mags is concerned is mainstream. Look at most lit pubs and they will publish maybe 4 fiction stories, 3 non-fiction pieces, and then 12 poets.
Take your poem that is a list of guns.
When you mix the politics of the issue some pub may say no, because they are against gun glorification and abuse. Another pub may say, no, because they are all about the second amendment and your use of guns in this way perpetuates the misunderstanding of guns as a bad thing, and all those anti gun people just want to take all your guns. Then you get magazine X who thinks your gun poem is cool because it brings two sides of an equation. A dialogue of sorts between those against guns and those pro guns, where neither one understands each other. They publish it.
Hell breaks loose. Second amendment activist think that the anti gun people want to take ALL your guns, hunters are pissed, don't touch my guns. Cities do not want guns because it brings more crime. Then someone says, Guns don't kill people, people do. Someone now wants the managing editor of the publication to remove your poem, retract or they would lose their funding from the right, the left, the middle and even then national association for the protection of the rights of cheeseburgers (my own sense of bad humor). They retract your poem. The managing editor quits. And rather than have a dialogue, all we have are people suspicious about how polarized shit is getting. And all you wanted to do was write a cool poem about the names or guns, because you loved your dad's collection.
Most sites now have a lengthy virtue signaling list of things they won't publish but adding the author's stance on political causes is, for starters, impossible to police. I generally will not submit to sites that clearly signal the bubbles they don't want pricked. I'm thinking of adding to my own site: 'In sure and certain punishment by death unto the third and fourth generation of your family and friends, do not submit anything that is at odds with anything the Editor may (or may not) have thought at any point in time.' That'll show 'em!
Purity tests are one of the least creative things I can imagine. Feels antithetical to having a literary magazine. But hey, we can’t all fit in Flat Earther Quarterly.
I've been ok with "if you don't support..." I'd rather it be "this is our platforms position..." but both of those statements let me know if that is a mag I can support. If the mag says, if you don't support JK Rowling don't submit here, its not the mag for me. If it says, if you don't support trans rights don't submit here, it just may be. I absolutely do not want to submit anywhere that is supporting zionism or what Israel is doing to Palestine. But I do want to submit to places that are anti-genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. If I see these statements clearly I can know. I am more more concerned about mags that have hard lines on barriers to marginalized voices, like demanding photos, or addresses if its not necessary or other information that can compromise an authors safety, or have other policies that can discourage the people they claim to support.
Regarding weird, I've been seeing that lately, "we want weird," from a lot of places, but not seeing a lot of weird. I've been seeing some good stuff I enjoy reading. But very little weird. It makes me truly wonder, what is it that they want out of weird, what calls them, what is the magic sauce.
Do tell me if there are any magazines that believe in Israel’s right to exist and don’t believe HAMAS propaganda because those are magazines I want to submit to. Of course not being political is fine too.
Hi Susan. No name-calling here. Please delete this comment or I will. Appreciate everyone's efforts to keep these discussions free of personal insults.
Susan blocked me before I could block her, which was my intent, but let me be clear to anyone reading this. It is antisemitism to claim that people speaking out against genocide are antisemitic. Also, anyone may google the original source for the convention on genocide and see the exact list of what conveys genocide; you can cross reference news stories, official documents, statements from Israeli officials for decades going back, up until this point and international reports against the list. Simply saying a genocide is not occurring does not make it so.
Further a good source for information is Jewish Voices for Peace, which have chapters all over the world.
I have no wish to engage anyone further on this topic on this post and will block anyone on this post who tries. But if you really feel the need to bring pro-genocide discourse, which includes deflection and denial, to me, I have several notes on my own page which already have rebuttals to these. Note, if you are an author who engages there that I might accidentally follow not remembering who you are, I might still block you.
On the AI issue I'm always keeping an eye out on the discourse to try to refine my thoughts, except for when I saw a mag with a policy that if they catch (read, believe because its hard to actually catch) then you owe them $500 for every instance and you agree to this fee by submitting.
Though I don't use AI as they are known today, don't intend to, and currently (until convinced otherwise) don't support it for most use cases, this made me feel a certain way and I backed up out of there. I don't think that clause will scare off anyone who uses AI, its generally unenforceable, so it made me wonder what they thought they would be accomplishing and how it would affect other relations.
That said, I imagine if I were the editor of a mag I would fall into far far worse pitfalls, so I have empathy as to why.
“No publication wants to publish a piece that feels like the same stuff everyone else has published.”
Most editors insist they want you to read past issues so you are familiar with the kinds of things they publish. How does this not mean that they want to publish work just like what they have already published? If your writing is “weird” in the context of what the magazine has already published, aren’t editors warning writers that that is the kind of weird they don’t want? I actually saw in a lit mag’s guidelines an editor emphasize that reading past issues would not tell you what you should send because they are looking for things unlike what they have previously published. But that sort of editorial statement is a real outlier.
Before riffing a bit on Becky's concerns about the unnamed journal, I feel the need to write a bit of a rejoinder to many of the other comments I've seen in this thread.
When we submit work to journals for review and possible acceptance, one criterion that the editors will likely consider is the theme/subject matter. With that, for those of you decrying a political line that a publisher draws in the proverbial sand as "censorship" or being "too political" or whatever, it's not your freedom of expression that's being violated when they signal either publicly or privately that they're not interested in platforming your views on a given hot button topic. Instead, it's their freedom to publish what they choose to publish (and not publish) that's being upheld!!! And, like it or not, it's their freedom to associate or not with you in the future should you send them something not to their liking.
That's to say, you as the writer are not the only stakeholder here, and because of that, your freedom of expression may be at odds with a publisher's freedom of the press and of association. With that, this "conflict of rights" that I'm pointing to above is *built in* to the whole publishing dynamic, and not merely me morally posturing about the matter. So, for those of you always whining about how your freedom of expression is *supposedly* being violated by journals that have a narrow political bent, perhaps consider the freedoms those publishers have, as well, and understand that the balance is simply not always going to tip in your favor. Herein, you might avoid wrongly defining their freedom of the press as a violation of your freedom of expression, and using terms like "McCarthyism" to describe it.
To Becky's points, I do see a potential problem. Though, I need to move past the hypothetical writer who does not have an opinion on xyz topic, to one who develops one *only after* they've published at a given journal. An opinion, mind you, that is not in line with the publisher of said journal. I know many of us who utilize this forum have griped about journals that deplatform otherwise inoffensive work for comments made by a writer on social media, or in an interview, or . . . what have you. In contrast to the pre-emptive warning of the publisher above, such deplatforming is an ex-post facto form of publishers exercising their freedom to disassociate from writers that I've developed a strong disposition against, mainly because they're attempting to punish writers for not towing a particular line of thought on a forum separate from the one they're actually charged with gatekeeping. Herein, the writer's work becomes a proxy for the expression of opinions the publisher has no actual control over publishing. Add to that, given the public nature of many of these deplatformings, wherein ad-hoc courts of writers and publishers all too often form against a given writer and/or publisher and pressure the latter to disassociate from the former, what we all end up witnessing are community-based forms of blacklisting. And, in cases where responses by publishers are demanded by such ad-hoc courts, we see further examples of (attempts at) compelled speech, which is little talked about, though rampant . . . especially of late.
I dare say, all this is not due to a lack of democracy but rather the overabundance of it made available to us via social media, wherein the expression of collectively held opinions end up via pile-ons trampling all over individuals and their reputations, often quite unduly. What I find especially pernicious about these situations is the lack of any means of redress as compared to corporate and government forms of blacklisting and/or censorship. In sum, once a writer is marked, they've no way of removing it. Meanwhile, publishers who refuse to play to ad-hoc juries of their peers face a plethora of questionable reactions, as I attempted to document in Contextualizing Hobart Pulp ( https://litmagnews.substack.com/p/contextualizing-hobart-pulp).
I did note some of you stating you wouldn't send to a journal that puts limits on the expression of, as Becky called it, xyz opinion. And, chances are, I wouldn't either, even if I agree with the particular opinion the publisher has voiced. But, that's because I don't know what limiting factor, if any, is held by that publisher. In sum, maybe I agree with them on xyz political issue, but don't know where they stand on abc political issue. And given they control the delete button, I'll pass on testing such waters, knowing how too many politically oriented journals conduct themselves in the scene of late. But of course, herein my concern for preserving my own freedom of expression in the face of such ambiguity is necessarily coupled with my choosing not to signal a wish to associate with them via a submission. Simple enough.
I'll close by saying I wish publishers would also more thoughtfully consider how they exercise their freedom of the press and--even more so--to (dis)associate with writers should they realize, post-publication, that their often-unspoken boundaries have been violated. For, deplatforming is neither sufficient nor necessary to disassociate from a writer when simply resolving not to publish them again will suffice in terms of exercising that freedom. In other words, it's not just people making comments on here who worry me when it comes to thinking about these matters in a careful, nuanced manner, but even more so publishers whose fingers in the current zeitgeist are often a bit too itchy when it comes to pressing the old delete button, and making a public show of doing so, often to appease their disgruntled peers. But none of that means we should confuse a publisher's freedoms to publicly state who and what they wish to publish as some kind of infringement on our own freedom of expression. I'd frankly prefer that journals with morality clauses be far clearer with prospective submitters what their non-negotiables are up front than on the back-end, after work has already been accepted and published.
I’m to the point that I avoid lit mags that make these politicized statements. Reject me preemptively? I’ll reject you first.
That's been exactly my response as well, Connie.
Good idea
Wow, telling folks not to submit because of what they believe is rather shocking. Policies should be about what kind of writing the lit mag publishes. Definitely a red flag not to submit there.
I'm the editor of a lit mag based in a place where publishing certain content will be punishable by fines, jail, etc. So if someone submits a piece of (e.g. political) writing that, if we published it, would violate the National Security Law (or any other law), we need to weigh the potential consequences.
But we continue to say, "Anyone can submit." We would never tell someone not to submit based on what they *believe*.
The thing is, this isn't simply about whether or not you like thing X vs. thing Y, or if you go to church A vs. church B. Some of these "political causes" are real issues that affect the lives of real people. The genocide in Gaza is a real issue affecting real people in Palestine. The repealing of Roe v. Wade is a real issue affecting real women in the US. BLM is a real issue affecting Black and POC people in the US and Canada. Queerphobia is a real issue affecting queer and trans people around the world. Perhaps you may not think you're affected or impacted by them, but chances are there is someone in your orbit (and/or someone you care about) who is.
Sure, one may not think constantly about the military bombing of Palestinians, the overpolicing of people of colour, or discrimination against trans/queer people as they go about their daily lives (I sure don't), but I would think that it would be at least the bare minimum to recognize that the bombing of children and innocent civilians is wrong.
My point with all of this is that with certain conversations, this is more than simply just a matter of disagreeing over one's political opinion.
To circle back on topic, a lit mag is free to do whatever its editors/staff/founders want, whether it be accepting submissions from people who are against the genocide in Gaza, or accepting submissions only from people who are unequivocally in support of Israel. As a queer person of colour, if I come across a lit mag which all of sudden says they accept submissions only from people who hold white supremacist or queerphobic political views, then they probably wouldn't be a good fit for my work, submission requirement aside.
Likewise, if one takes umbrage at a lit mag only accepting, let's say, submissions from people who are opposed to the genocide in Gaza, then perhaps that lit mag wasn't a good fit for them in the first place.
Thank you for yours and yolandes and others reply. I have been concerned since I joined substack at the number of older writers lamenting that they can't simply say anything in anyway anyhow without disagreement as if its 1984 to say something like, genocide is wrong and supporting a genocidal state is wrong. It feels very "back in my day". I think there are always, every decade, legitimate concerns about censorship and discourse. Basic human rights, or the right to advocate against them as if they are trivial, is not among them.
Agreed! People's basic humanity and their rights to dignity and life are not "political issues." It is intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise, especially as an excuse to dismiss valid human rights.
And if a lit mag wants to say things like "If you are opposed to transgender rights, please don't submit here," then that is totally their right and writers have many other lit mags they can submit to, including many with the opposing view. Especially for niche mags like queer lit mags, support of these basic human rights is a part of their mandate and if editorial staff feel the need to add that statement to their submission guidelines, clearly it's because submitters have not been reading the magazine closely to know what kinds of content would or would not be a fit there. So the editorial staff have chosen to clarify on their submissions page. Totally fair.
Without the exact example (which Becky has not provided), it's hard to say much more, but in contrast to most of the comments so far, as the issue has been described in the post I don't see anything wrong with this approach.
You miss the point, but okay.
No, I see the point very well.
The point is that for all of the complaints about the "politics" of lit mags, the truth is that everything is political.
It's not a matter of "can't we just agree to disagree?" or "we shouldn't let politics get in the way of publishing in lit mags!", it's a matter of the question of how much marginalized (BIPOC, disabled, queer) voices and lived experiences truly matter in the literary world.
Thinking everything is political seems kind of sad to me. I don't think it's a "truth." I think it's an opinion.
The reason why you think this is sad is probably because your existence has not been politicized in the same way that other groups have, so you have the luxury of not having to think about politics every day because your very being isn't being called into question.
Or perhaps it is because everything isn't political. But your comment is as legitimate a guess as any other, I suppose.
You may have the luxury of just calling it a guess. But for Black people in the US facing increasingly militarized police forces, or trans people facing policies trying to legislate them out of public life, it's not an opinion, or a guess - it's observable fact.
There are people who live outside of your orbit whose lives are politicized. All that's needed is the empathy to listen.
You say that “everything is political,” then make the leap to”…and there is only one acceptable view, of which I am the arbiter.” If diversity of viewpoints is important, as it most definitely is, how do purity tests help accomplish that objective?
Where did he say ”…and there is only one acceptable view, of which I am the arbiter"? I don't see that text (which you put in quotation marks as if it's a direct quote) anywhere in the comment you're responding to.
He implied that by supporting the lit mag in question’s policy of accepting only the work of authors who pass their litmus test. He appears to agree with them. I did not intend to mislead by using quotation marks, sorry.
And this "litmus test" is opposing the bombing of innocent civilians and children.
Something which on a basic human level, shouldn't even be a question.
If one takes umbrage with the question, "Do you oppose the bombing of innocent civilians and children?", then again, I don't know what else to say.
But to bring it back to the question of lit mags, if one supports the Israeli military campaign in Gaza and Palestine, why should they be published in a lit mag whose staff explicitly opposes it?
Yes. Everything is political.
And you know what one acceptable view is? That bombing innocent civilians and kids is wrong.
Another acceptable view: Trans and queer people deserve to live in a society where they can authentically and safely thrive just like everyone else.
Another acceptable view: BIPOC people deserve to live in a society where they don't have to live in fear of institutional violence.
There's no "both sides" to these discussions. It's not a question of what team's going to win the Stanley Cup, or what movie is going to sweep the Oscars. If the question of what's happening in Gaza is a "both sides" or "agree to disagree" issue for you, then I don't know what to really say. Perhaps talk to a Palestinian who is willing to undertake the emotional labour to educate you on what is happening in Gaza. Or read interviews with Jewish folks like Dr. Alice Rothchild on Democracy Now (https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/6/alice_rothchild_gaza_healthcare_crisis).
Put another way, let me ask the question again: How much do marginalized (BIPOC, disabled, queer) voices and lived experiences truly matter in the literary world? How much do Palestinian voices matter? For that matter, how much does my voice matter in the literary world?
@Connie C -- I saw the comment you posted here earlier, which you deleted 15 minutes later (it disappeared right after I finished reading it). That was wise, as it was quite inflammatory and I was going to have some choice things to say in response. :)
It was two minutes later, and I deleted it because I had either overlooked or Justin had later added something to his post which invalidated a point I made. But phew! Guess I dodged a bullet, eh?
“Innocent people”
Replace with “terrorists”
Exactly!
I see several troubling developments in writing and publishing. On one hand, a confusion between cultural beliefs and political beliefs. Confusion between the leader of the country and the country's citizens, who may often have views opposing the leader's. Confusion between sincere and honest writing and the editorial opinions of "authorities" or "experts." On the other hand, I also observe sagging standards of writing with errors of usage, spelling, and appalling turgid language. I see a deterioration in precise facts and using facts with logic. I usually have a lovely relationship with editors and lit mags I submit to. Becky, you say you've never seen this before. I haven't either, but it does exist in the history of US publishing, during the McCarthy era, when writers were blacklisted. That's what it's called. One of the chief instigators of hatred, according to what I've read, of that era, was Roy Cohn, one of Donald Trump's mentors. Unfortunately, we are now seeing very emotional, ugly remarks on both sides of various questions. This is not civilized, and I am concerned that kneejerk response to any opinion--including on personal matters--will accelerate devolution into Fascism, not assist any kind of social justice. Let's think carefully before we respond to anyone.
Mary,
I think that you are right on point. The extent of censorship floating around our "zeitgeist" is alarming and disappointing. Also alarming is lack of any historical knowledge among present "influencers," who probably never heard of Roy Cohn (unless they saw 'Angels in America'). Thanks for your contribution, and thanks to Becky for her very thoughtful observations.
Before I say what I am going to say, a disclaimer: I am a firm believer of the political rights of cheeseburgers, as their plight has been underrepresented. My problem with Lit Mags taking sides of different political platforms is that discourse and debate will go out the window and instead of improving our ability to showcase narratives of those in need, we will dissuade them into nothing. It started with the media deregulation during the Regan years that propelled the creation of Fox News as an openly conservative format, to the now social media platforms playing to the algorithms that perpetuate the causes that you believe, and avoid the ones that don't. It is a sad state of affairs. And it also cuts into the writers side as well. I write about political issues related to the narratives and experiences of immigrants. In the process, I leaned the importance of not taking sides. If I paint this one side as bad and this other side as good, my prose, my creative effort is quickly transformed into propaganda. When you eliminate plurality, you eliminate the environment of discourse that feeds a democracy. And for a democracy to work, to thrive, even to survive, it has to accept that one group of ideas, political perceptions while it can win, it can also accept to lose. When you normalize "we only want these beliefs here," you will then censor, blacklist, ban, and at some point with marshmallows in hand, burn books. That's not the future I want. Boy, I now need that cheeseburger.
I know this is going to upset a lot of people, but I feel the need to say it and damn the consequences. But I really like potatoes.
Well said. Very true and powerful points you make
Well said!!!
We are experiencing an updated form of McCarthyism in the 50’s, when people had to receive magazines in brown paper for fear of the censors who could have them imprisoned for what they read or wrote. Everyone was paranoid during that hyper-politicized period of our history—when even the mail carrier (who might be sneaking a peak under the brown paper to “report” you to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee) was feared.
Yep.
Yes, I saw this magazine and was shocked when I saw this restriction. Regardless of my views, it immediately screamed DON'T SUBMIT HERE to me, and I didn't.
What's the name of the mag so I can avoid it.
I’d like to know, too.
I think it’s only fair to know who they are so those who don’t support xyz can avoid them. It’s tough enough out there. Even a clue- please? I’m pretty outspoken so I possibly already alienated them but I want to know.
I can’t look up the recent tweets of every literary magazine out there, though…I’m trying.
Forget the tweets, it’s in the submission guidelines.
Thanks, but still doesn’t say who. There are a lot of literary magazines.
That's what I'm thinking; I don't know which would be more upsetting, someone I DON'T agree with or someone I DO saying this.
Thank you for remarking on this. The literary world is extremely divided right now, like the rest of this country.
I have felt very upset and discouraged about this.
So have I, Robbi. It takes so long to research lit mags that are appropriate for my work, not to mention all the record-keeping required for tracking submissions, I'm starting to question the return on my time investment. Maybe the lit mag industry is heading toward a paradigm shift, as is the publishing industry. But no one knows what those paradigms are going to look like.
I'm appalled by the if-you-don't-agree-with-me-don't-submit policy, just as I am by an everything-is-political policy. (One cup of non-political coffee, please.) Seems to me, this is turning into a relentless Manicheanism. Degrees and nuances are not allowed. We saw that at points in the 60s: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Not a great way to make progress or to find common ground. That said, I don't want to publish, even accidentally in such a magazine. Can you imagine the kind of work they're going to publish with a policy like that? It will be whatever the current version of socialist realism happens to be. Really awful propagandistic stuff. Yeats has that marvelous sentence about how out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric and out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry. This kind of exclusionary policy leaves no room for quarrels with ourselves, only for slogans shouted at the top of someone's lungs.
Well said, George.
I guess I'm in the minority, but I feel like having lit mags with political points of view is fine? Lots of important art movements with magazines associated have historically had political commitments (dada certainly did). there are a lot of lit mags; if some of them want to limit contributors to those with like minded policies, why not?
I just got published in a tiny little mag of poems opposing gun violence, for example. Obviously everyone who contributed opposes gun violence; I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it's not completely different either. There are just a lot of literary magazines, and they often have particular twists re submissions that can be formal (prose poems, haiku), regional/national, age based—or they can charge submission fees, which are a big barrier for many. I don't see why taking a political position is different or less legitimate.
And sure, many people may not have political positions, so they can just not submit to that journal, just like if you're not a resident of Canada, through no fault of your own, you can't submit to journals restricted to Canadians.
I see what you're saying, but at the onus of those publications is their feelings about gun violence. There are pubs that are advocates to the environment, global warming. Or, anti immigration, abortion, hunting. There are also flat earth platforms. When you submit to them, yeah, congrats you got published. Is one better than the other? Of course not. But they represent a particular side of the spectrum. The problem is when you get the bigger publications, the ones that are supposed to represent a broad spectrum of the populace and they postulate these dictums. Should that be the case?
I mean, we don't know which pub we're talking about...but none of the pubs that publish poetry are all that big? and the ones that make some pretense of being representative or big tent (like Rattle) tend to print poetry that is mainstream in particular ways that can be pretty exclusionary too. (they're not going to print my weird poem which is just a list of guns.)
Pubs often limit what they print in lots of ways that aren't necessarily about quality. I don't see why insisting on contributors with particular politics is any different than insisting on contributors from particular communities or countries or who have the money to spend on high entrance fees.
Agreed! I don't see how this is any different than focusing a journal's content on, say, dogs. There are plenty of literary journals in the sea with other focuses that you can submit to if you don't give a whiff about dogs.
I think you're underestimating poetry. There are small pubs that focus on poetry, but poetry as far as lit mags is concerned is mainstream. Look at most lit pubs and they will publish maybe 4 fiction stories, 3 non-fiction pieces, and then 12 poets.
Take your poem that is a list of guns.
When you mix the politics of the issue some pub may say no, because they are against gun glorification and abuse. Another pub may say, no, because they are all about the second amendment and your use of guns in this way perpetuates the misunderstanding of guns as a bad thing, and all those anti gun people just want to take all your guns. Then you get magazine X who thinks your gun poem is cool because it brings two sides of an equation. A dialogue of sorts between those against guns and those pro guns, where neither one understands each other. They publish it.
Hell breaks loose. Second amendment activist think that the anti gun people want to take ALL your guns, hunters are pissed, don't touch my guns. Cities do not want guns because it brings more crime. Then someone says, Guns don't kill people, people do. Someone now wants the managing editor of the publication to remove your poem, retract or they would lose their funding from the right, the left, the middle and even then national association for the protection of the rights of cheeseburgers (my own sense of bad humor). They retract your poem. The managing editor quits. And rather than have a dialogue, all we have are people suspicious about how polarized shit is getting. And all you wanted to do was write a cool poem about the names or guns, because you loved your dad's collection.
you're literally referencing a scenario that is about actual genocide but putting guns over it and this is disingenuous.
This is another sad example of how politics is taking over every aspect of our culture like an invasive species.
Most sites now have a lengthy virtue signaling list of things they won't publish but adding the author's stance on political causes is, for starters, impossible to police. I generally will not submit to sites that clearly signal the bubbles they don't want pricked. I'm thinking of adding to my own site: 'In sure and certain punishment by death unto the third and fourth generation of your family and friends, do not submit anything that is at odds with anything the Editor may (or may not) have thought at any point in time.' That'll show 'em!
Purity tests are one of the least creative things I can imagine. Feels antithetical to having a literary magazine. But hey, we can’t all fit in Flat Earther Quarterly.
I've been ok with "if you don't support..." I'd rather it be "this is our platforms position..." but both of those statements let me know if that is a mag I can support. If the mag says, if you don't support JK Rowling don't submit here, its not the mag for me. If it says, if you don't support trans rights don't submit here, it just may be. I absolutely do not want to submit anywhere that is supporting zionism or what Israel is doing to Palestine. But I do want to submit to places that are anti-genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. If I see these statements clearly I can know. I am more more concerned about mags that have hard lines on barriers to marginalized voices, like demanding photos, or addresses if its not necessary or other information that can compromise an authors safety, or have other policies that can discourage the people they claim to support.
Regarding weird, I've been seeing that lately, "we want weird," from a lot of places, but not seeing a lot of weird. I've been seeing some good stuff I enjoy reading. But very little weird. It makes me truly wonder, what is it that they want out of weird, what calls them, what is the magic sauce.
Do tell me if there are any magazines that believe in Israel’s right to exist and don’t believe HAMAS propaganda because those are magazines I want to submit to. Of course not being political is fine too.
I don't support genocide nor do I wish to fight with genocide supporters on becky's post. Please do not comment on my comment any longer.
There is no genocide by the way
Hi Susan. No name-calling here. Please delete this comment or I will. Appreciate everyone's efforts to keep these discussions free of personal insults.
I have relatives in Israel so I take it personally.
I deleted the commenter. No problem.
Susan blocked me before I could block her, which was my intent, but let me be clear to anyone reading this. It is antisemitism to claim that people speaking out against genocide are antisemitic. Also, anyone may google the original source for the convention on genocide and see the exact list of what conveys genocide; you can cross reference news stories, official documents, statements from Israeli officials for decades going back, up until this point and international reports against the list. Simply saying a genocide is not occurring does not make it so.
Further a good source for information is Jewish Voices for Peace, which have chapters all over the world.
I have no wish to engage anyone further on this topic on this post and will block anyone on this post who tries. But if you really feel the need to bring pro-genocide discourse, which includes deflection and denial, to me, I have several notes on my own page which already have rebuttals to these. Note, if you are an author who engages there that I might accidentally follow not remembering who you are, I might still block you.
On the AI issue I'm always keeping an eye out on the discourse to try to refine my thoughts, except for when I saw a mag with a policy that if they catch (read, believe because its hard to actually catch) then you owe them $500 for every instance and you agree to this fee by submitting.
Though I don't use AI as they are known today, don't intend to, and currently (until convinced otherwise) don't support it for most use cases, this made me feel a certain way and I backed up out of there. I don't think that clause will scare off anyone who uses AI, its generally unenforceable, so it made me wonder what they thought they would be accomplishing and how it would affect other relations.
That said, I imagine if I were the editor of a mag I would fall into far far worse pitfalls, so I have empathy as to why.
“No publication wants to publish a piece that feels like the same stuff everyone else has published.”
Most editors insist they want you to read past issues so you are familiar with the kinds of things they publish. How does this not mean that they want to publish work just like what they have already published? If your writing is “weird” in the context of what the magazine has already published, aren’t editors warning writers that that is the kind of weird they don’t want? I actually saw in a lit mag’s guidelines an editor emphasize that reading past issues would not tell you what you should send because they are looking for things unlike what they have previously published. But that sort of editorial statement is a real outlier.
Before riffing a bit on Becky's concerns about the unnamed journal, I feel the need to write a bit of a rejoinder to many of the other comments I've seen in this thread.
When we submit work to journals for review and possible acceptance, one criterion that the editors will likely consider is the theme/subject matter. With that, for those of you decrying a political line that a publisher draws in the proverbial sand as "censorship" or being "too political" or whatever, it's not your freedom of expression that's being violated when they signal either publicly or privately that they're not interested in platforming your views on a given hot button topic. Instead, it's their freedom to publish what they choose to publish (and not publish) that's being upheld!!! And, like it or not, it's their freedom to associate or not with you in the future should you send them something not to their liking.
That's to say, you as the writer are not the only stakeholder here, and because of that, your freedom of expression may be at odds with a publisher's freedom of the press and of association. With that, this "conflict of rights" that I'm pointing to above is *built in* to the whole publishing dynamic, and not merely me morally posturing about the matter. So, for those of you always whining about how your freedom of expression is *supposedly* being violated by journals that have a narrow political bent, perhaps consider the freedoms those publishers have, as well, and understand that the balance is simply not always going to tip in your favor. Herein, you might avoid wrongly defining their freedom of the press as a violation of your freedom of expression, and using terms like "McCarthyism" to describe it.
To Becky's points, I do see a potential problem. Though, I need to move past the hypothetical writer who does not have an opinion on xyz topic, to one who develops one *only after* they've published at a given journal. An opinion, mind you, that is not in line with the publisher of said journal. I know many of us who utilize this forum have griped about journals that deplatform otherwise inoffensive work for comments made by a writer on social media, or in an interview, or . . . what have you. In contrast to the pre-emptive warning of the publisher above, such deplatforming is an ex-post facto form of publishers exercising their freedom to disassociate from writers that I've developed a strong disposition against, mainly because they're attempting to punish writers for not towing a particular line of thought on a forum separate from the one they're actually charged with gatekeeping. Herein, the writer's work becomes a proxy for the expression of opinions the publisher has no actual control over publishing. Add to that, given the public nature of many of these deplatformings, wherein ad-hoc courts of writers and publishers all too often form against a given writer and/or publisher and pressure the latter to disassociate from the former, what we all end up witnessing are community-based forms of blacklisting. And, in cases where responses by publishers are demanded by such ad-hoc courts, we see further examples of (attempts at) compelled speech, which is little talked about, though rampant . . . especially of late.
I dare say, all this is not due to a lack of democracy but rather the overabundance of it made available to us via social media, wherein the expression of collectively held opinions end up via pile-ons trampling all over individuals and their reputations, often quite unduly. What I find especially pernicious about these situations is the lack of any means of redress as compared to corporate and government forms of blacklisting and/or censorship. In sum, once a writer is marked, they've no way of removing it. Meanwhile, publishers who refuse to play to ad-hoc juries of their peers face a plethora of questionable reactions, as I attempted to document in Contextualizing Hobart Pulp ( https://litmagnews.substack.com/p/contextualizing-hobart-pulp).
I did note some of you stating you wouldn't send to a journal that puts limits on the expression of, as Becky called it, xyz opinion. And, chances are, I wouldn't either, even if I agree with the particular opinion the publisher has voiced. But, that's because I don't know what limiting factor, if any, is held by that publisher. In sum, maybe I agree with them on xyz political issue, but don't know where they stand on abc political issue. And given they control the delete button, I'll pass on testing such waters, knowing how too many politically oriented journals conduct themselves in the scene of late. But of course, herein my concern for preserving my own freedom of expression in the face of such ambiguity is necessarily coupled with my choosing not to signal a wish to associate with them via a submission. Simple enough.
I'll close by saying I wish publishers would also more thoughtfully consider how they exercise their freedom of the press and--even more so--to (dis)associate with writers should they realize, post-publication, that their often-unspoken boundaries have been violated. For, deplatforming is neither sufficient nor necessary to disassociate from a writer when simply resolving not to publish them again will suffice in terms of exercising that freedom. In other words, it's not just people making comments on here who worry me when it comes to thinking about these matters in a careful, nuanced manner, but even more so publishers whose fingers in the current zeitgeist are often a bit too itchy when it comes to pressing the old delete button, and making a public show of doing so, often to appease their disgruntled peers. But none of that means we should confuse a publisher's freedoms to publicly state who and what they wish to publish as some kind of infringement on our own freedom of expression. I'd frankly prefer that journals with morality clauses be far clearer with prospective submitters what their non-negotiables are up front than on the back-end, after work has already been accepted and published.
The literary community seems increasingly uneducated.