"We're Holding a Space in the Community." A Chat with Alyson Sinclair and Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn, Publisher & Editor of The Rumpus

Behind the scenes of The Rumpus

Another interview is in the books!

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Alyson Sinclair, Publisher, and Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn, Editor-in-Chief of The Rumpus.

Founded in 2009, The Rumpus is one of the longest running independent online literary and culture magazines. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love.

Today Alyson talked about the magazine’s origins and its evolution from a magazine closely linked to pop culture to its present-day literary orientation. Perhaps one of the most well-known aspects of this magazine is author Cheryl Strayed’s “Dear Sugar” column, which she took over from author Steve Almond in 2010 and wrote anonymously for two years. Several of Strayed’s books have been adapted to films, including Tiny Beautiful Things, which is a collection of essays that originated at The Rumpus.

In our conversation we didn’t talk much about this column in particular. But we did talk about the unique position that The Rumpus occupies in the literary world as a venue for creative works and also a site with enormous reach. (Alyson said they get about 50k unique visitors per month, about 1 million visitors per year.)

The journal is not affiliated with any university or arts institution. They are completely independent. These days they publish book reviews, interviews, comics, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, a “Funny Women” column, a “Voices on Addiction” column, and more.

What type of creative work is The Rumpus looking for? Alysia, who also serves as the Nonfiction Editor, shared a preference for work that is voice-driven, formally innovative, perhaps a bit weird or “askew.” I characterized the tone of The Rumpus as “playful.” Alysia added that she considered it to be “feisty.”

The submission periods for this magazine are short, typically about a month or sometimes less. The editors prefer to keep it this way so that they can keep on top of all the submissions in the queue. Nearly all the work published in this magazine comes through the “slush pile.” New writers are welcome. For practical and philosophical reasons, these editors are committed to never charging submission fees.

No doubt because of this journal’s popularity and high profile in the literary world, they receive about 7,000 submissions per year, even with short reading periods. They publish about 450 writers per year.

What, then, is a good way for a writer to stand out among the pack? What excites these editors most when they’re looking for submissions? What kind of reading experience are they seeking to have? And how much do cover letters actually matter?

For all that and more, dear friends, you will have to watch the video!

The Rumpus is currently doing a fundraising campaign, which will end next week. They hope to preserve their archives, redo the website, and more. In today’s chat, we talked about the many fine lit mags that have folded recently, and the current endangered-species status of so many lit mags today. If you’d like to support this journal, you can make a donation or become a member, which will alert you to specific themed calls for submissions, get you personal letters from authors, give you year-round access to submit your work, and more.

To everyone who came out to join the conversation today, thank you for tuning in! Your faces are the cool calm clarity in my hazy smoky skies!

And, of course, huge thank you to Alyson and Alysia for taking the time to take us behind the scenes of another stellar little magazine.

Happy viewing!

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