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#PoetryCommunity uproar, passing of Antioch Review Editor, updates from AWP, Georgia Review hiring, new paying markets, calls for submissions, and more

Greetings Lit Magesties,

Some uproar has ensued in the poetry world. It began with a tweet from a poet and former Poetry Editor at Barren Magazine:

Danielle Rose @danirosepoet

I wish poets understood that the general population has no interest in what we do, so when we speak we are speaking only to each other. The delusion that poetry is something powerful is a straight line to all kinds of toxic positivities that are really just us lying to ourselves.

Subsequent to the tweet and its replies, the editors at Barren Magazine took action:

Barren Magazine @BarrenMagazine

Dear Readers, Please read the following statement from our Executive Team. We have closely followed the conversations in the Twitter #poetrycommunity & would like to make our stance very clear. Please direct comments/feedback to our EiC, @JasonDRamsey. (Click to open)💜to all.

The outcry was swift. Many disagreed with Rose’s tweet, yet also felt the response from Barren was an overreaction. In response, Barren’s Managing Editor tweeted:

Lannie *Two Star* Stabile @LannieStabile

Hey. As a Managing Editor at Barren, I just wanted to say there was a lot more to our decision than a controversial tweet. But also, we did not address things correctly. We were too quick. We were reactionary. Barren Magazine is supposed to be a safe space, and we messed up.

What are we to make of all this, dear readers? Will editors think twice about publicly expressing their views on any subject at all? Did the magazine overreact? Was the original tweet genuinely harmful? Is there more to the story we don’t know? Is social media little more than an inky stain destroying the best minds of our generation, driving us mad, starving, and hysterical naked?

In sadder news, Robert Fogarty, longtime Editor of The Antioch Review, has passed away. He is remembered as an editor who took over the journal in the 70’s, and “almost single-handedly built the Review’s reputation as a great literary magazine that rivaled The New Yorker” and as someone who helped transform the journal into “one of the most important voices in the world of literature and contemporary ideas.”

Antioch Review has been “in limbo” for the past year due to financial pressures. At present, the magazine’s future remains uncertain. No new Editor has been named.

Meanwhile, author Sally Rooney has released a new novel. The protagonist is none other than an editorial assistant at a literary magazine. “Eileen works at a literary magazine and thinks of herself as socially awkward.”

If this sparks your interest in Irish literature, then you might be interested in The Waxed Lemon, “Ireland’s newest literary journal.” The magazine “provides a space to showcase the work of others while addressing issues that writers often face, such as writing in isolation, feeling part of a community, and the struggle for publication and recognition…” Submissions are open to writers everywhere.

For those of you looking ahead to the AWP conference of 2022, the organization has updated their health and safety protocol. “The small but mighty conference team of four is working hard to make sure they can deliver a safe, valuable experience for attendees...”

Speaking of which, the deadline is approaching for AWP’s Small Press Publishing Award. This is “an annual prize for nonprofit presses and literary journals that recognizes the important role such organizations play in publishing creative works and introducing new authors to the reading public. The award acknowledges the hard work, creativity, and innovation of these presses and journals, and honors their contributions to the literary landscape through their publication of consistently excellent work.” Letters of nomination will be accepted until October 15th.

As for all you writers & submitters, September is a big month. Tons of magazines open their doors to submissions and eagerly await your words.

If you’d like to get published and also rake in a bit of dough, here are 102 Calls for Submissions in September 2021 - Paying markets. You might also like 5 Paying Literary Magazines to Submit to in September 2021.

For a general list of lit mags open now, scroll down on this page to see a load of great magazines currently open.

If your poetry deals with current events, check out these 15 lit mags/journals to send your current event poems.

And if it’s advice and encouragement you seek, Zoë Fay-Stindt has written about a fabulous thing called “The Rejection Jar.” She writes,

“For each rejection I get, I put a dollar in the jar. And when I find something—a new treat I’ve been craving, an application fee I couldn’t quite swing, or a much-needed cocktail at the end of a particularly long week, my rejections…refill my cup and tenderly guide me back into the work…

And you know what? What started as a kind of goofy self-help move has been astoundingly grounding through the submission process—especially as an emerging writer. I realized I now had something to do with all that stalled, stale, sometimes paralyzing energy left over from getting a ‘thanks, but no thanks’ for the work I poured so many hours into. I even found myself looking forward to those emails so I could tip myself again.”

Finally, if you would like to get more involved behind the scenes at a lit mag, Georgia Review is hiring an Associate Prose Editor. “This Associate Prose Editor, in concert with the Associate Poetry Editor, is responsible to the Editor of The Georgia Review for performing high-quality editorial work…”

As for us, I’ve got a wonderful line-up of editor interviews this month! Through September, I will be speaking with the editors of Raintown Review, Rattle, Gargoyle and Midway Journal. I will also be doing another live Submissions Q & A session on 9/28. Learn all about these interviews and register here!

And that you hard-working hunkerers down in the soil of your subconscious, you with your hard hat on and you who are never hard-hearted, you who labor with love and love your labor and whose love-labors are never lost (though they may now and again be under-appreciated), you who tinker, you who toil, you who chisel ceaselessly at this thing called craft and this crafty magic, you sharpeners of pencils and wielders of sword-like pens, you who bust your rump and you who haul arse, you who never hurry, you who never rest, you in a frantic frenzy of manic production and you in a puddle of under-achieving panic, you and you, everywhere, at every stage and deep inside every struggle, you writing, creating, and every moment starting all over again, is the news in literary magazines. Happy Labor Day.

Have a healthy and productive week, pals.

Fondly,

Becky

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