We Built This City on Rock and Lit Mags!
Believer bought & sold by The Sex Toy Collective; McSweeneys kickstarter campaign; job openings at The Paris Review; 65+ markets for your work, and more
Greetings Lit Magpies,
Today, I begin with an apology. You see, a lit-mag related story broke this month. I missed it. And not only was this a lit-mag related story. But it may be the weirdest piece of lit mag news that I’ve come across in a very long time.
Forgive me, friends, in my gross dereliction of duty. I shall henceforth attempt to lay out the facts as I understand them. It begins like this:
Yes, indeed. Earlier this month, a group called The Sex Toy Collective purchased renowned magazine The Believer.
But it’s not quite as unsavory as it sounds. Or, well, maybe it is.
This all started when McSweeney’s, the magazine’s original publisher, sold The Believer to the Black Mountain Institute in 2017. This past year, citing financial strains due to the pandemic and in spite of public outcry, Black Mountain Institute shuttered the magazine and sold it. The buyers were an entity called Paradise Media.
Now, here’s where things get interesting. Paradise Media is a marketing company. They specialize in posting content that maximizes visits and clicks to various sites, also what’s known as a “content farm.” Their CEO is the founder of Sex Toy Collective.
Former Editor Kristen Radtke has confirmed the sale.
Sex Toy Collective is responsible for various projects including, as reported by Gawker, “‘Dildo University,’ an online course on making your own dildos; ‘The Dildo Sculptor Tool,’ a digital tool to design a dildo mold; ‘World Sexploration,’ a map of body positive sex shops; and ‘The Sex Toy Discovery Tool,’ an archive of the ‘most interesting and innovative’ sex toys on the market.”
All well and good (no judgement!), though certainly this is a far cry from the mission of The Believer, which has long been considered one of the most prestigious lit mags in the country.
Paradise Media was also responsible for click-bait articles that began appearing on The Believer’s website. Articles like, “25 Best Hookup Sites for Flings, New Trysts, and Casual Dating,” as discovered by a former Believer staffer.
When the magazine’s previous owners at The Black Mountain Institute were contacted, Gawker reports, “several representatives dodged the question: ‘I don’t…I don’t have any information about that,’ executive director John Tuman told them; UNLV liberal arts college spokesperson Karyn Hollingsworth added, vaguely: ‘We stated earlier that we would evaluate the best path forward for The Believer and Black Mountain Institute.’
Now, that’s not all.
Many of you might remember when The Believer was in the news last year after its Editor, Joshua Wolf Shenk, exposed himself during a zoom call.
Staffers later stepped up to do some exposing of their own, as “a Times investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and a toxic work environment discovered complaints about Shenk's leadership…[and the fact] that Shenk was the subject of at least one Title IX complaint at UNLV.” (The Times investigation was never published.)
All this brings us to today, in which there is merciful good news for The Believer at last.
The New York Times reports, “Now, after a week of frantic headlines…Paradise Media has become an unlikely hero to the literary institution. On Monday, it announced the sale of The Believer back to its original owner, the nonprofit publisher McSweeney’s…”
The LA Times confirms, “After a series of events worthy of a madcap satirical short story, the Believer magazine is back with its original publisher…[McSweeney’s] reacquired the magazine, including all assets and intellectual property…at a drastically reduced price…”
So, The Believer will return to print. McSweeney’s will own the magazine. At present, the publisher is fundraising for its first issue, which will appear in November. Their kickstarter campaign is aimed at ensuring The Believer’s ongoing survival, as well as “payments to writers, artists, and translators; staffing for customer service, design, editorial, sales and marketing; printing; shipping and distribution.”
Whew! And people thought lit mags aren’t exciting.
In other news, if you’re looking to find work in the lit mag biz, Paris Review is hiring. They seek a Digital Manager, an Engagement Editor and an Associate Editor. Applications are also open for fall internships.
If it’s places to publish your work you seek, here are some resources:
Erika Dreifus’s newsletter offers a list of journals open now or soon to open, as well as grants and contests.
(Erika’s newsletter also offers a nifty feature for success stories, which I might also have to implement, as more and more of you are writing to tell me of work you sent out after watching this interview or reading that article, and the acceptance letters are pouring in. Good on ya, friends! Keep it up!)
((And if the acceptances are not—yet!—rolling your way, be sure to join this lively conversation about rejection rituals. It’s been great fun to learn how you all navigate the process.))
Poets and Writers has posted Uncommon Contests: Nineteen Literary Awards With Prizes Beyond the Ordinary. Say they,
For most writers a contest win offers the rare opportunity to step back from the writing grind and revel in a moment of recognition, validation, and the feeling of hard work paid off. The possibility of earning a cash prize or securing a home for a piece you’ve labored over in devotion (and possibly agony) doesn’t hurt either. But there are other excellent reasons to pursue a writing contest, including the chance to connect to new audiences or interested agents, find rejuvenation in a retreat you’ve received as part of your prize, or simply put your work in the hands of a publisher who will do something extraordinary, and perhaps unexpected, with the manuscript.
Authors Publish has posted 29 Magazines that Publish Writing for Children and Teens, and 35 Magazines Accepting Literary Fiction.
And that you backseat drivers to the front-of-the mind creators, you accelerators into the great nighttime highway, you takers of coffee breaks and refillers of so much mental gas, you who finds that there’s nothing to all this writing work, really, just a series of endless three-point turns (in the midst of a snowstorm) (with an angry spouse in the passenger seat) (and balloons—why is someone always blowing up balloons inside your writer-car?), you who are no stranger to detours, you cruising but certainly not with control, you who missed that Do Not Enter sign and you who find yourself, yet again, in a cul de sac of bad dream sequences, you at the intersection, you at the crossroads, you who’ve been round and round this rotary at least nine times and still you don’t know where to get off, you and you, everywhere, out there, speeding up or slowing down or heck, pulling over and asking for directions if you must, and yet, always, or mostly, or a little bit, inch by inch, finding your own perfect and singular way, is the news in literary magazines.
Have a turbo-charged week, pals.
Fondly,
Becky
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Re The Believer: That’s some story.🤪
This story about The Believer should be published exactly as is in The Believer. Delightfully meta. Great stuff, Becky.