"Send the Strangest Thing You Have." Lit Mag Reading Club Chat with the Editors of Black Warrior Review

Katie DeLay and P.D. Edgar take us into this experimental magazine

Season’s greetings! I come with a new editor interview (the last of 2023!) freshly wrapped.

Today I had the great fun of speaking with Katie DeLay and P.D. Edgar, Editor and Art & Design Editor, respectively, of Black Warrior Review.

Established in 1974 by graduate students in the MFA Program in Creative Writing, Black Warrior Review is named for the river that borders the campus of The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa…

BWR publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and art twice a year. Contributors include Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners alongside emerging writers.

This journal is currently in its 50th year of operations. It is entirely run by graduate students and is the oldest grad-student-run lit mag in the country.

In today’s conversation, Katie and Peter took us through their editorial process and what happens when a piece arrives in the queue. As the magazine’s former Poetry Editor, Katie explained that each piece is read first by the genre editor. Once the genre editors make their selections, the magazine staff meets to discuss the work. This often leads to lively conversation and debate around a work’s ambition, an author’s intention and how various pieces represent the spirit and ethos of the journal.

And just what is that spirit and ethos? Katie and Peter described Black Warrior Review as a magazine with an eye toward experimental work. They “value risk over perfection.” Katie said, “We want to publish pieces that would not have a home anywhere else,” and Peter described their aesthetic as “a tenderness for the bizarre.”

Writers ought to be careful, though, to not submit experimentation that lacks substance. While they like “cutting-edge” work, they also want the “human aspect and connection.” A question often discussed in their editorial meetings is, “What is the piece saying?” They gravitate toward writers who have taken time to hone the singularity of their voices and whose work sounds authentic.

The magazine is also particularly open to writers outside the MFA system. One of the poets in issue 49.2 (which we read for our Lit Mag Reading Club) is a high school student. Others live outside the U.S. The editors do not solicit work, and all work that is published comes through regular submissions. Katie said, “We’re truly looking for the best work we can find.”

This journal receives thousands of submissions per reading period. What advice do they have for writers who want to give their work that extra shot at standing out? Is there any additional information that ought to go in a cover letter? What types of submissions tend to be rejected from this magazine? And what’s the deal with poetry about pigs?

For answers to these questions and so much more, dear friends, you will have to watch the video!

Black Warrior Review is open for fiction, poetry, nonfiction and art/comics submissions now until March 2024.

This video is available exclusively for members of the Lit Mag Reading Club. You can join the Club any time by becoming a paying subscriber to Lit Mag News.

To all who came out today for the discussion, thanks for tuning in! Your faces are the beautiful glittery ornaments on all the branches of my tree!

And, of course, thank you to Katie and Peter for taking the time to peel back the curtain of another exciting little magazine.

Happy viewing!