April Fools! Plus Bear Creek Gazette Editor acting out; former staff of Creative Nonfiction launch new mag; new Granta Editor; petition for "curation;" submissions guidelines advice; jobs & more...
As you know, Becky, I have always supported you in calling out bad actors in the litmag space and it appears on the surface that there's not a lot to like about Stuart Buck. What gives me pause for thought is that many of the behaviours you describe are those of a person who is severely depressed, as he has disclosed. Perhaps you might want to do the same in this instance.
I agree. This is always something that really breaks my heart, having worked as a counselor for mentally ill adults and a mother with bipolar disorder. Those who haven't experienced this directly just don't understand—people are literally not themselves while fully decompensated in major manic or depressive episode. We act like mental illness is different than a medical condition, but it's really not. And this is always the problem with cancel culture—it has no interest in finding the real context.
Didn't mean it as a call-out of you, Becky, just to be clear! It's a tricky thing to navigate, trying to prevent harm to the community of writers against having compassion for the individual who seems to be struggling.
p.s. The April Fools prank was hilarious and fooled me until you got to the quotes lol.
Amen to this --- For those of you who were excited by Rattle Editor Tim Green’s proposal about “curation” as a new term of art, you can now find a petition to get the word into wider usage. “By considering ‘previously uncurated’ rather than ‘previously unpublished’ work, authors will be able to share their poems and stories on social media, streaming video, and other online forums without fear of spoiling first publication.
earlier today I read the Merger issue. At first I googled Chill Subs and got excited about the merger. And then I googled christopher mcmathews and litfeed and got nothing. So I was like hmm what is LitFeed? Are they like a holding company with no internet presence? It dawned on me it could be a joke, but I got so excited about the prospect of this new literary metaverse, that I couldn't let the possibility of a joke bring me down. Luckily I didn't have to spend much time in this excited state, because the truth was revealed today. I laughed and it's always good when the lit mag world can laugh at its own corporate irrelevance! Love this substack!
Such a great issue! About the "curated" idea, which I love and have duly noted such in this space: We really ought to define "curated". The first story I ever published ended up in a print magazine. There was zero editorial input. It was printed in 8 point font. I am none too sure anyone beyond the friends of the publisher read it. Is that "curated"? Let's define what curated actually means.
Curated means it appeared in a book, magazine, gallery, or similar selected collection. It doesn't matter how much you liked the job the curator did. To work, it has to have that definition.
I totally see your point and I like the new term of art! I only offer that given the crowded publishing landscape and the amateurishness of many publications, it's less a matter of "liking" the curation than it is estimating how many eyeballs have seen the work. If only his 50 best friends have a copy of the magazine, if the magazine is no longer visible online or for sale it seems a misnomer to label a story or essay "curated". However. If we had such a term, writers might think more carefully before desperately sending their work to fly-by-night publications!
The problem is that the moment you introduce a subjective element to the definition, it's utility is lost, as people will be motivated to skirt around the rule. How many eyeballs before it becomes meaningful? 100? 1000? It would just create a mess to use that as a standard.
We're finding a way to upgrade the concept of "first publication" for the 21st century, and all the same principles apply. Anyone's free to curate a poem again, and I think we should be more open to a variety of models to meet our goals as publishers -- but you can only be curated for the first time once. Books go out of print, journals go defunct. Place them carefully. What we're mostly interested in as journals is the creation of new art. We want people to be able to share their writing themselves and for literature to be vibrant, but we don't want to encourage anyone to live in the past, regurgitating old work. Write new work.
I understand that problem. I also understand that pushing back and testing new ideas — especially potentially important ones — is important, a way of collaborating.
Love these newsletters. Not only jam packed with juicy info but a wonderful overview of the US literary scene, so vast and different from the scene here in the UK.
Amen on improving guidelines. Everyone knows what a pain these can be. I'm the owner of a submissions company, so imagine multiplying your pain times, like, hundreds. It's amazing how many literary journals seem to be started by peeps who have clearly never submitted to literary journals (and thus make up ridiculous guidelines). We need to create a guidelines police.
As you know, Becky, I have always supported you in calling out bad actors in the litmag space and it appears on the surface that there's not a lot to like about Stuart Buck. What gives me pause for thought is that many of the behaviours you describe are those of a person who is severely depressed, as he has disclosed. Perhaps you might want to do the same in this instance.
I agree. This is always something that really breaks my heart, having worked as a counselor for mentally ill adults and a mother with bipolar disorder. Those who haven't experienced this directly just don't understand—people are literally not themselves while fully decompensated in major manic or depressive episode. We act like mental illness is different than a medical condition, but it's really not. And this is always the problem with cancel culture—it has no interest in finding the real context.
These are important points, Doug and Tim. Thanks for raising them.
Didn't mean it as a call-out of you, Becky, just to be clear! It's a tricky thing to navigate, trying to prevent harm to the community of writers against having compassion for the individual who seems to be struggling.
p.s. The April Fools prank was hilarious and fooled me until you got to the quotes lol.
Amen to this --- For those of you who were excited by Rattle Editor Tim Green’s proposal about “curation” as a new term of art, you can now find a petition to get the word into wider usage. “By considering ‘previously uncurated’ rather than ‘previously unpublished’ work, authors will be able to share their poems and stories on social media, streaming video, and other online forums without fear of spoiling first publication.
earlier today I read the Merger issue. At first I googled Chill Subs and got excited about the merger. And then I googled christopher mcmathews and litfeed and got nothing. So I was like hmm what is LitFeed? Are they like a holding company with no internet presence? It dawned on me it could be a joke, but I got so excited about the prospect of this new literary metaverse, that I couldn't let the possibility of a joke bring me down. Luckily I didn't have to spend much time in this excited state, because the truth was revealed today. I laughed and it's always good when the lit mag world can laugh at its own corporate irrelevance! Love this substack!
Such a great issue! About the "curated" idea, which I love and have duly noted such in this space: We really ought to define "curated". The first story I ever published ended up in a print magazine. There was zero editorial input. It was printed in 8 point font. I am none too sure anyone beyond the friends of the publisher read it. Is that "curated"? Let's define what curated actually means.
Curated means it appeared in a book, magazine, gallery, or similar selected collection. It doesn't matter how much you liked the job the curator did. To work, it has to have that definition.
I totally see your point and I like the new term of art! I only offer that given the crowded publishing landscape and the amateurishness of many publications, it's less a matter of "liking" the curation than it is estimating how many eyeballs have seen the work. If only his 50 best friends have a copy of the magazine, if the magazine is no longer visible online or for sale it seems a misnomer to label a story or essay "curated". However. If we had such a term, writers might think more carefully before desperately sending their work to fly-by-night publications!
The problem is that the moment you introduce a subjective element to the definition, it's utility is lost, as people will be motivated to skirt around the rule. How many eyeballs before it becomes meaningful? 100? 1000? It would just create a mess to use that as a standard.
We're finding a way to upgrade the concept of "first publication" for the 21st century, and all the same principles apply. Anyone's free to curate a poem again, and I think we should be more open to a variety of models to meet our goals as publishers -- but you can only be curated for the first time once. Books go out of print, journals go defunct. Place them carefully. What we're mostly interested in as journals is the creation of new art. We want people to be able to share their writing themselves and for literature to be vibrant, but we don't want to encourage anyone to live in the past, regurgitating old work. Write new work.
I understand that problem. I also understand that pushing back and testing new ideas — especially potentially important ones — is important, a way of collaborating.
Love these newsletters. Not only jam packed with juicy info but a wonderful overview of the US literary scene, so vast and different from the scene here in the UK.
Amen on improving guidelines. Everyone knows what a pain these can be. I'm the owner of a submissions company, so imagine multiplying your pain times, like, hundreds. It's amazing how many literary journals seem to be started by peeps who have clearly never submitted to literary journals (and thus make up ridiculous guidelines). We need to create a guidelines police.