"Place, Climate & Justice." A Chat With Simmons Buntin, Editor-in-Chief of Terrain.org
Lit Mag Reading Club editor interview
Ahoy, friends, it’s me again! I come with yet one more interview, freshly wrapped.
Today I chatted with Simmons Buntin, Founding Editor-in-Chief of Terrain.org. From the magazine’s site: “Terrain.org is the world’s first place-based online journal. We were founded on a vision of marrying literary work—poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction—with articles and community case studies.”
Simmons co-founded the magazine in 1997. Since then Terrain.org has grown to include sections for fiction, poetry, nonfiction, interviews, reviews, art, a podcast, the Unsprawl case studies, as well as special themes like “A Life of Science” and “Dear America.” The journal has a large editorial staff and publishes work on a continuous basis, with 3-5 new pieces uploaded every week.
Originally, Simmons said, the magazine was focused on place broadly—“the natural and built environment.” This changed after the 2016 election, upon which the focus of the magazine shifted more fully to climate change and justice. With this in mind, I was curious whether the journal sought pieces that had elements of hope in them. Simmons said that yes, hope, which connects to activism, is important to the editors—“an active hope.”
Setting and a sense of place are crucial features of the work the editors accept. But these factors can mean many things. Simmons discussed a piece they accepted which took place solely in a Manhattan apartment. They’ve also published work set in outer space. “Identity and place” are important considerations. Ultimately, they want work that “surprises, delights and excites,” and which is “unexpected.”
For nonfiction, they accept the gamut of forms. This includes personal essay, memoir and also articles. (Simmons cited Terrain.org as the first general magazine, to his knowledge, to publish an in-depth article about ocean acidification.) The nonfiction genre is the “least defined” of their genres, in terms of what they publish.
All work submitted here goes directly to one of the assistant editors. From there the work gets passed along to genre editors. Then, it gets passed to Simmons. About 95% of the material published on this site comes from general submissions. The magazine responds typically under four months (except for the “Dear America” series, which has a much quicker response time). They accept about 1-2.5% of submissions.
What are common reasons work is rejected here? How much do these editors work with writers to edit? What elements in a story most excite these editors? Do they like humor writing? Do they get a lot of submissions with themes of despair? Do they love work with a strong voice?
For all that and more, dear ones, you will have to tune in!
This one is for paying subscribers only. You can become a paying subscriber (and join the Lit Mag Reading Club) anytime! Your support is truly appreciated.
To all who came out today to attend the conversation, thanks for tuning in! Your faces are the sweet glimpses of sunshine on my hazy cloud of a day!
And, of course, thank you to Simmons for taking the time to take us into another lovely little magazine.
Happy viewing!
P.S. Simmons referenced a few works in today’s chat. Those are Lily’s Bird Bingo; A bear died today; and Oh, possum.