From “The Politics of Gatekeeping: On Reconsidering the Ethics of Blind Submissions”:
[I]n many corners of the literary world, quality has long been judged through a largely white, male, cis, heteronormative lens, and the practice of reading submissions blind perpetuates that standard of excellence and allows it to go unchecked. Reading blind makes it all too easy for editors to discount or dismiss work that departs from this standard without scrutinizing who it serves.
From “The Politics of ‘Blind Submissions’ Policies”:
There exists a myth, prominent in the literary world, of an objective standard for literary excellence; one whose criteria has nothing to do with a writer’s or reader’s identity or background. A glance at the submissions policy of a range of literary journals and magazines reveals many who take pride in “reading blind.” The assumption of this practice: by disregarding a writer’s name and bio when considering her work for submission, we create a fair basis from which to judge work–we eliminate bias in the reading process, we judge only by literary excellence.
However, artistic and literary aesthetics are not an algorithm, and “literary excellence” is not an infallible mathematics. In fact, this standard is based on a preponderance of white, cis-male, heteronormative writing that has been and still is central to the literary mainstream.
From “How Can Literary Magazines Counter Their Biases?”:
The unspoken assumption behind blind submissions is that “quality is quality” — that we know “good writing” when we see it. I don’t believe in this idea. We do not have universally agreed upon standards of “good.” There is no ultimate measure of goodness in a piece of writing in a vacuum; its quality is determined within the frameworks of a culture, generally by whatever groups are in power. The standards of quality according to our current cultural frameworks are still racist and sexist; make the work anonymous and we’ll still be judging the writing by how well it conforms to racist and sexist frameworks.
As writers, readers, thinkers and human beings, such statements might appeal to you. Or they might not.
The great thing about lit mags is that there are a lot of them. Editors are free to run their contests however they wish; we writers are free to choose to submit or not, as we wish.
In this particular instance, what I am interested in is not so much the philosophy driving these guidelines, but rather the lack of transparency regarding how this philosophy will be implemented. What does it mean when editors use a writer’s bio in a contest submission as a means of judging the work? What does it mean when contest judges decide for themselves the manner in which a writer’s bio may or may not be relevant?
The practice of “un-blinded” submissions is not unusual. In fact, it is par for the course in grant applications. How does your identity as [blank] inform your work? applicants are sometimes asked. It is also common for writers to be asked to make a personal statement. In this space, applicants are invited to provide a context for their work, however they envision it.
A key difference between a grant application and a writing contest, however, is that in the former case the writers supplythis information themselves. It is up to the writers to say how their own identity or cultural heritage, place of residence or place of origin, life story, passions, interests, etc. are part of the work under consideration.
By contrast, in a writing contest where the editors state only that they wish to know writers’ names and bios, submitters are on shakier ground. How much can be known from a name, after all? What if a writer’s name reveals absolutely nothing about a writer’s identity? Alternatively, what if a writer’s name leads an editor to make false assumptions about who that writer is?
Writers may wonder if the editors will therefore do more than seek out names. Will they search for photos? Will the editors look up a writer’s social media presence? Past publications, interviews? They might or might not. We don’t know. Writers are left guessing as to what features of their lives will be relevant in judging a piece of writing, and most worrisome, what features of their lives might be misinterpreted.
Using the writer’s bio as a metric, without specifically telling the writer what to include in this bio, also seems full of potential pitfalls. Many writers want to provide biographical information. Such writers may be proud of the way their work speaks to something personal for them. They are eager to provide editors with this context for their submission.
Many writers, though, do not wish to include such information. Many writers do not want their work to be read in the context of their bodies, their names, their heritage. Someone in my Lit Mag Chat recently asked me, “I do not want to tell these editors I have a disability. Am I supposed to say this in my bio?”
There are dozens of valid reasons why a writer may prefer to not include personal information as part of their submission. Will such writers be considered less favorably in a contest where a writer’s identity is important to the judges? Maybe, maybe not. Without any specific guidelines as to how the bio should be written, we’re left wondering.
This brings me to another concern: How might a person’s publication history play into decisions of the judges? One great thing about writing contests, what I have always loved about them, is their anonymity. An unpublished newcomer who never went to college has an equal shot next to a seasoned veteran who’s won every award imaginable. With writing contests, it is always meant to be about the work, and thus the most welcoming space possible for emerging writers (who can afford to enter). Can editors who are looking at names and bios guarantee that they won’t be influenced, either positively or negatively, by publication history? Should new writers feel encouraged or daunted by this possibility?
To all of these concerns, I have some possible solutions.
One is, the editors could be clearer in their guidelines about the type of work they are looking for. They could state that they specifically want poetry and prose that draws from non-western traditions. They want to see characters not represented in the mainstream. They want to hear points of view that are not often heard.
By stating up-front that this contest seeks work of a particular style, perhaps with certain characters or settings, the editors can let writers control more of the narrative, so to speak. Editors can do less guessing about whether a work is written a certain way because of who the author is, a gesture that is problematic for a number of reasons, and focus more on the work itself.
Of course, editors may still harbor concerns about an author’s personal connection to the work. To that end, they could simply require a one-two sentence statement from the writers about how this work is part of their cultural heritage, identity, life experience, or whatever it is the editors are looking for here. By asking the writer to provide this information themselves, it returns agency to the writer. Writers will have a say in what aspects of their own identity are important to them and their writing.
Such a requirement seems win-win. Editors have the desired insight into the author’s identity. Writers have a chance to speak about that identity on their own terms, avoiding false assumptions being made about them. Editors spend less time guessing, surmising and possibly googling. Writers don’t feel left in the dark about what aspects of their biography may be relevant, and fretting over the ways in which additional biographical details may be acquired and perhaps misinterpreted.
This approach also minimizes the possibility of bio-based bias. Writers can be instructed to not list any publication credits at all. What matters is only the work and what the writer says about the work. The never-before-published can have the same shot as the person who’s published in dozens of magazines.
Why does any of this matter? It’s just a writing contest, after all.
Well, on a basic level, it matters because contests are not cheap. This particular contest is $20. Every writer who enters a writing contest wants to feel they have a fair shot. Every writer should have one. When editors make their guidelines specific in a certain way but vague in others, it adds to the uncertainty and vulnerability writers experience throughout the submissions process. One may wonder if the guidelines are even intentionally vague, in order to get as many entrants as possible. That doesn’t seem right at all.
Most importantly, though, writers deserve to speak about their work in the way that matters most to them. Giving writers agency in the process is a way to show them trust and respect. And in a process that can feel utterly frustrating, baffling, disempowering and demoralizing, a little bit of respect goes a long way.
That’s not too much to ask for, is it?
What do you think?
Are there pitfalls in relying on an author’s name and bio to make judgements about a submission?
Should the editors be clearer about the types of work they seek to publish?
Should editors specify precisely what should go into the bio?
Might editors who are interested in a writer’s personal connection to a work ask for a writer’s statement in the submission?
I would like to see editors who are concerned with the identity of their writers be as honest and specific as possible re which groups they seek, especially if they charge submission fees. In making identity such an important requirement, the literary world (or much of it) is trading one tilted playing field for another, and it's only fair to say who's welcome to play there.
This week I returned to the age bias question that was discussed last year. I am in my sixties and last year my first book of poetry was published by an independent press. I have a B.A. but no MFA. I have a Polish name that belongs to my ex-husband. When I went to the Poetry Foundation website, I found competitions for young poets, but no competition in which I could compete because a lifetime achievement award appears to be what older people might get. There is no accounting for the late bloomers there. I don't bother with competitions for individual poems because it seems too much like a lottery.
So the key to fixing the societal issues of sexism, racism, agism, homophobia, etc. in editors, judges, and readers for journals is to put the onus on the writers . . . ? Wow. How about lit journals and presses read more widely--contemporary writers their MFAs did not introduce them to, other journals, the classics, the canon, the various schools (as in New York School, Imagist, Surreal, etc.)? Places read blind for very good reasons--too many contests, books deals, etc. were being "won" by former students of judges, the person having an affair with the editor, etc. And the more prestigious the award, the more likely it was to go to a white, straight male or a white, straight woman male writers deemed "one of us." I am a woman and I am disabled; my poetry does not always reflect either of those things. And it shouldn't have to. I do not want to feel like I need to write about my disabilities to get a leg up. How narrow! How insulting! If editors, judges, etc. wish to broaden their horizons, then they should broaden their horizons. Read everything. Study everything. Presume you still have a lot of learn and go from there. Marvin Bell once told a workshop group I was in with him as the leader that we should all read the poets we don't like/get and try to figure out why. It was some of the best advice I ever got, and I think it is applicable here: open your mind to everything in your genre and work through your biases. Or hire more diverse readers, judges, and editors! Or both!
I wonder if this approach will give editors the liberty to choose a piece simply based on demographics. Everyone has biases; they could publish a good piece over a great piece simply to promote that person's beliefs, gender, ethnicity, whatever.
The article lost me at "largely white, male, cis, heteronormative lens." That's the sort of gibberish authoritarians use when they're trying to bully people into submission.
On the other hand, the piece unintentionally but conveniently summarizes a lot of what ails the literary world.
I'm thinking mostly of the obsession with identity.
I sense a desperate sort of "me too!" attitude behind that, a recognition of writing's uncertain future in a world increasingly shaped by wokeism and AI.
It's vitally important for us to figure out where we fit in this hideous new world, if we do at all.
We won't be able to do that through identify politics, which is designed to shut down debate instead of promoting it.
It's crazy you just published this. I was working on a piece to send you, based on seeing the same explanation for (likely) the same contest. The short version of what I was going to send: Okay, fine. Your logic makes enough sense I can see why you wouldn't run your contests blind. But if the goal is to include more diverse voices, and identity of the writer is part of that, then why stop at including a name and bio? Why not flat-out ask: "Are you a member of a historically marginalized group that we should know about?" Then the editors can define what groups they're looking for how they see fit. I've seen one journal do this. Otherwise, they're guessing from names or photos they might find online or whatever. If you want to use the personal identity of the author as part of trying to level the playing field, then don't use half measures. Go all the way.
I stand at the other end of that discrimination and ethnocultural bias. And it's very true that what gets published tends to be more often than not very white, and very academic sounding. The question is, should they get rid of the anonymity of their contest? I would say absolutely not. When I used my Latino name and sent ten stories out all of them got rejected within a month. When I sent the same stories under my pen name, eight were read and two got published, and within two years published four other stories. Then I began to write about the plight of immigrants and undocumented people and why they may come to this country. I submitted those stories and got rejected. I could not hide the subject matter. I entered them in competitions and something weird happened, editors sent me these long rejection letters telling me how relevant and how much they liked the work (yet, it was being rejected). It felt good at first, until their publications came out and the stories that won were the usual whitish, academia navel-gazing, with a token story about an LGBT subject. Then I read some articles in which they indicated that it's not just the name, but that many of these editors seek the type of work that was considered great writing in their MFA programs. So nothing has changed, nothing will change other than them feeling like they are inclusive and non-discriminatory when all they are doing is picking a slightly different shade of the same whiteness. Most of these publications also have their normal $3 entries where the writer uses his/her name. So why make the one where they charge $20 just the same? To me it says that they'd rather make the twenty bucks than the three dollars. Their unconscious bias has not changed one bit, only now they will feel artificially good pretending that they are doing something about it (when they are not).
For me, the most worrying aspect of my bio is my home address: I live in Israel. Especially nowadays, I fear being rejected because of that. Though I submit only non-political work my very address is political, these days (and perhaps all days..) it’s a trying position to be in, never knowing if you’ve been rejected on the merits of your writing or an editor’s pro-Palestinian stance (I don’t judge that stance, only I fear it).
It seems odd that one would abandon, what likely is the best way to evaluate on the basis of quality alone (reading blind) for a much more subjective and potentially *less inclusive* standard (tell me who you are before I evaluate your work). In science, the double blind study is the gold standard, and it has facilitated tremendous progress. Reading blind is not perfect, but please show me evidence that it does a poorer job at detecting quality than a notice to authors that states "we favor the work of X, Y, and Z". Now I suppose someone will pose the counter argument saying "there is no one such thing as quality" and I get that argument, but it is kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater if you really think there is no such thing as quality writing. If that's true why do we have so many MFA programs, hehehe. Yeah, I know white privilege dominated standards for many years, but are we really in that situation now? Personally, I feel the poetry world is very diverse and in general, it's quite clear what is quality work and what is not. And that includes a world of different experiences. I mean, isn't great writing that which allows you to view the world through eyes that are completely different from your own?
I have grown tired of labeling. As with so many things the intentions were good and pure but now it has gotten out of control. And there's the real possibility that writers who feel like they are failing to fit in will resort to false labeling. I have a writer friend who is queer but chooses not to include that in his bio (he identifies as "he") because he doesn't see his queerness as being relative to his writing. But lately he's been stressing out about it and wondering if he should rethink his choice because of labeling pressures.
As writers and humans I think we're expressing ourselves through our words. I'd like to be judged on that alone, but the industry has never operated that way which is why marginalization ever happened in the first place. It feels to me like editors are struggling to make reparations and it's gotten really messy. Please, editors, extend yourselves and your potential contributors the courtesy of clarity. Don't encourage writers to spend their time and/or money on your publication if we are not welcome.
Years ago, the marvelous website FOETRY pulled the bandages off everyone's eyes explaining how contests were THEN being run and judged.
Often a judge's name would be listed as "tba." So you'd mail in a ms + check with fingers crossed.
But when Richard Howard was the judge, it was exposed that only graduate students who had enrolled in his courses in Texas were awarded the contest prize (as well as with an NEA Fellowship, which he often judged).
As soon as FOETRY set forth the contest map and those sneaky underlying preferences, it was eye-opening. And it was outrageous to see it out there in black and white.
More than one poet has confided to me that s/he won a certain contest because s/he knew the judge - - - or it would not have happened.
FOETRY's gone but I have no doubt that this literary favoritism is still going on.
The submission fees of the unaware are often used to heap favor on the hand-picked shortlist.
However, your contest mileage may vary . . . . . :-)
Contest organizers attempting to replace implicit bias regarding the writing they review with an explicit bias based on who's submitting said work seems like an excellent idea. I mean, what could go wrong?
Years ago when I put together the Rumpus National Poetry Month series (mostly by myself in the early days), I didn’t read submissions at all, blindly or otherwise. I solicited poems from writers who I wanted to appear on the site. Some of them said yes, some no, some of them said not this year, and so on. And I aimed for a diverse group of voices, not just in terms of gender and ethnicity and identity but also style and form and where they were in their careers. I never wanted to read blindly because I didn’t trust myself to not let my own personal reading and writing biases overwhelm the page. I wanted to publish things that weren’t for me, and didn’t sound like me, and I did a pretty good job of it.
Those editors are correct when they say that reading blindly is flawed. I wrote the same thing myself at The Rumpus years ago in a piece about this subject in response to a new journal that had launched with 21 stories, 20 of them by straight white guys, and when questioned about it the authors fell back on the fig leaf of “we just chose the strongest work” without ever questioning why they felt the work that sounded the most like them was what they saw as the strongest. I want to be clear: the problem was not that they chose to publish those stories in their journal. It was that they were using reading blindly as a fig leaf to cover their unwillingness to examine their own biases and that they were super-defensive about it when someone pointed it out.
Where this gets complicated is with contests because there’s money involved, and people who are paying for entry want to feel like they have a fair shot at winning, and people without impressive publication records rightfully fear that if bios come into play, the judges and/or people who are hoping to break even or not lose too much money on the book are going to put their thumbs on the scale for the better known author. It’s not like this is a new problem. Old heads will remember Foetry, a site that called for more transparency in the book contest world because of stories about how judges were using their position to publish their friends or students. As with anything, there were some pretty egregious cases and some really bad assumptions of bad faith based on tenuous connections (I found myself defending a fellow recent MFA grad I didn’t actually get along with in one of them), but the reasons why the bad feelings were there were the same. There’s money at stake, and the prestige and increased academic job prospects that come with publication and a book prize, and if you pay money to enter and it looks like the game was rigged from the start, you have reason to be mad.
The conclusion I came to then is that the contest model is hopelessly flawed because there’s no way to reconcile the need to make a contest as fair and transparent as possible with the desire to not reinforce the existing stereotypes of what is “good writing” that have been put in place by largely straight white men for the last few centuries. But publishing is expensive and publishing poetry is not profitable and usually the people most interested in doing it don’t have money to lose on it, and so poetry contests exist as a viable funding model. I expect we’ll be having these conversations again and again and again.
Let’s be honest. The suggestion to read manuscripts with a name and bio attached is not an attempt at greater “fairness” or objectivity—it’s an attempt to get more works by minority writers published. And the only way to do that is to make sure you know who has written the piece. This is “bias” dressed up in different clothing, and nothing else. And by the way, what exactly are these supposed traits of white, male writing that lit mag editors are unconsciously drawn to, or trained to think represent excellence in writing? If those traits are real, why not mention them?
I find it ironic, at best, that editors talking about the need for transparency are setting criteria that is rarely if ever made explicit beyond some general comment about "seeking BIPOC writers." These same editors talking about transparency will take 20-30 bucks off each entrant, most of whom don't have a chance at winning. That doesn't seem right, unless those editors are very clear about what they want. Not long ago, I saw a the result of a contest that had one Asian judge who chose an Asian winner, a trans judge who chose a trans contestant, a black judge who chose a black contestant, and a gay white male judge who chose a gay white male contestant. Is this the future of contests? If so, count me out. And I say that as someone who isn't coming at writing from a traditional angle (I could check more than few boxes, but this seems just wrong and embarrassing to the journals). By the way, I paid $30 for that contest described above, and I would name the journal, but why? So many of them do it.
Since this comment thread has expanded beyond just contests, I want to add a couple more thoughts.
The first is that we need to recognize that when we speculate about why a story or poem was rejected at one place and accepted at another, that we really are speculating. The selection process is a black box, even to the people do the selecting more often than not. We choose things that hit us in some way, or maybe we choose something because we want a particular writer in our pages or maybe we choose something because our emotional state when we read it meant we were receptive to it in that moment. And the reverse is true. Sometimes we reject pieces because they hit us in a certain way, or because we have personal beef with the writer (yes, pettiness abounds in this world) or because our emotional state at the time of reading was wrong for that piece. And that’s not an exhaustive list. It’s just meant to show that there are way more potential factors at play for why a piece might be accepted or rejected than simply because the author changed the name on the submission. There’s just no way to know.
The other is that I think it’s a good thing for us to continue to have these conversations even when—especially when—they make us uncomfortable.
The literary world is a small one. Contest judges are likely to find themselves assessing work by people they know: former classmates, co-workers, friends, rivals, enemies. Blind judging takes out the potential for much personal bias. As for the white, cis, het male cultural bias, have these people actually read their own lists of contributors in the last decade?
Since this is on the heels of a similar discussion that started with the question "Is publishing fair?" maybe it's worth asking: What's the point of a contest that essentially starts with the author's bio instead of the writing submitted? Race isn't the only thing that leaps out of a bio. It's someone's MFA institution, how much else they've published, where they live (As someone in Alabama, believe me, I worry that the NYC set and people at elite institutions will make assumptions). I can't think of any rationale for not judging a contest blind, and when I hear jargon like "cis, heteronormative" whatever, I think, "these people are so out of touch and stuck in the ivory tower that I don't trust them to read my work, anyway." As I wrote elsewhere, this term was created by others and applied to me, and I'm not sure what it means, so why should I check the box? I'm straight, but I don't fit the definition of cis, and I'm certainly not heteronormative, but if I checked non-binary or queer, I wouldn't fit that bill, either. So, the whole endlessly atomizing categorization academics are promoting is not only a futile and grossly failing attempt to capture anything close to most people's realities, it provides a false measure for diversity. They're essentially meaningless categories. So, I fear that they are creeping into contests. That said, why should I care? Contests are so expensive and problematic at this point that I might as well start betting on FanDuel, which doesn't seem all that different at this point.
Editors should not be concerned with the racial, ethnic, gender or bodily identity of writers submitting materials to their journals. And writers are not required to and indeed should not mention such issues in their "100-word bios." I've been submitting poems, stories and novel excerpts to journals for more than 50 years, and I'm appalled by these new concerns in the literary world. The fact that an editor would take into consideration a writer's whatever-various identities -- cultural and personal -- as criteria for accepting material tends to sully the worth of the material itself. Oh, yes, you say, spoken like a white, cis-, heteronormative asshole who has had the advantage of his privilege for his whole life. Guilty, I suppose, as charged, but I and every other writer out there work their hearts out to create the best poems and stories they can. Those poems and stories deserve to be judged in the arena of total objectivity rather than through the pre-ordained lens of biography and identity.
As a physically disabled and autistic writer and reader (though still a white, cis woman in a hetero-appearing relationship), I appreciate being valued for my lived experience and the relationship between my writing and my identities.
But.
I am afraid that if only disabled or atypical people are considered to write characters like me, there will not be enough representation. Disability is everywhere. (I have seen exactly one character with my particular flavour of spinal cord injury.) I won't speak for other marginalized groups, but everybody needs to be writing disability accurately.
I dont want to see anyone's work being rejected for who they are. Perhaps more carefully scrutinized? And while we're scrutinizing, maybe the judges arent qualified to make that judgement at times? Perhaps that could be addressed in the guidelines as well?
When looking for new work, good editors seek out the true voices of the age. In an ideal world work is judged on its particular merits. Except there are such things as bad editors, and there is no such thing as an ideal world.
On the one hand it seems to me that editors who place a bio equal to or above the submission aren't being honest with anybody, especially themselves. On the other hand instead of ascribing prejudice to an editor's rejection maybe what you sent in just sucked.
Like Becky intimated, editors get to decide what they're looking for, and writers can choose to apply or not as they see fit. The thing is, once editors decide what they want they should be honest about it, and writers who don't read the guidelines have no room to squawk.
This is such an interesting article and discussion. I don’t know the answer, but I wonder if it’s because we’re in the middle of a paradigm shift when it comes to what is considered “good writing.” If it’s not the historical mostly white, cis, male work, which I agree shouldn’t be a universal standard, what would a new standard be? Can we agree on universal standards, or will we choose to write in a particular tradition and identify it as such?
If you're an uncredentialed writer with few or no publications, it seems to me that you'd prefer blind submissions no matter what your race, ethnic, class, gender, ability/ disability, age, etc. (things, btw, than can sometimes be evident from the themes or concerns of the work). I'm strongly in favor of more diverse representation, but I'd think that more diversity at the editor, guest judge, and line reader level would be a better counter to bias than doing away with blind submissions. Having blind submissions but voluntary checkboxes that ask a submitters background might be another, though less preferred, solution. It may, of course, be that some litmags are averse to blind submissions for other reasons (maybe legitimate but unstated) and are simply using diversity and anti-bias arguments as a cover.
What a great article and conversation to be having! A simple way to get around this for contests would be to include diversity check boxes, like on a job application, which authors could choose to opt into or not. Submissions could still be read anonymously in that the names
and pub history are hidden from judges. The other advantage to collecting this kind of data is that it's the sort of information that grantors always want to know in grant applications. There is no perfect way to overcome biases. We all want to be liked and validated and accepted and ultimately published, but the very nature of interacting with art is a form of judgement based on our personal likes, dislikes, and biases. This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be as inclusive as possible and push our personal boundaries.
If one puts oneself in an editor's POV, the difficulties become immediately evident. Most of the writing in lit mags does not rise to "literature" and each story represents on average 2-4% of total submissions. Assume half of what gets published does not come from the "slush" ( the very expression is an insult to every writer and immediately disqualifies the user from being taken seriously) but from preferred sources - agents, friends and family of editors, previously published writers, etc. Most contests have more than half their finalists selected before the contest closes. It's a racket and they should all be boycotted, including even the handful that are truly quality just for guilt by association. The problem is that we write to find similar voices to fill the darkness, and so the contest always has the edge. It is perenially discouraging to pay $30 for two brief sentences: 1) thank you for your money 2) and please submit next year - only to read the winners a few months later to find pieces of bewildering mediocrity. I sustain myself with two constant reminders. One is that the cream always rises to the top, so keep churning. The other is that all writing is (or should be) a form of prayer. It's an internal dialogue with one's higher self, someone who sits above all these other considerations. When we pray, we don't (or should not) expect applause ....
I think there's also an assumption here that diversity of identity is going to be what best leads to diversity of thought, which is the kind of diversity I think really should matter. I would expect that most contest judges are going to be very liberal. What happens if a bio suggests that someone leans conservative? I knew a reader for a litmag who told me that she automatically rejected anything by a cop. I don't think of cops as submitting to litmags a whole lot, but that's probably a reflection of my own bias - there were obviously enough that this woman developed a rule for them. One thing that bothers me about the push for "diversity" is that it always seems to be defined in a very limited way. A lot of people here have mentioned ageism, and it makes me wonder what percentage of contest judges would even consider combatting ageism an important part of encouraging diversity.
I have a BIG PROBLEM with all of the editorial positions you cited. For them to say they are going to counter their built-in bias with an external adjustment is, no matter how transparent, a total cop out. "I have a bias against xxx, but because I am unable to overcome it (if I can even detect it), I am going to compensate by including more of xxx's work in my magazine. I don't like or even admire it, but feel duty bound to include it." WHAT?
How about instead of relying on some external mechanism, you deal with your internal biases and adjust your aesthetic organically? By getting to know people, by reading--for God sake, go to therapy. This type of artificial pseudo correction is what drives so many authentic people away from academia. Furthermore, it makes the selection process more biased, more arbitrary, not less.
I backed off of paid contest competitions years ago just because of trends I was noticing in the results--stylistic similarities, topic choices, and coincidental (oh really?) placement of rising stars.
I've pretty much done the same now with free contests.
Contests are essentially another form of market. I get yelled at when I say that, but I was part of a circle with a Writers of the Future contest winner, and his perspective was exactly that--the contest isn't necessarily a measure of best quality submission but a measure of what best fits the market, which in this case is the judging panel.
Blind submissions don't necessarily get around that market definition, either.
I still think that diversity is better achieved through asking the question "are you a member of a historically marginalized group that we should know about?" Or, as in some cases, openly stating that you are dedicating the magazine issue/contest/whatever to specific marginalized populations.
It's complicated. If we read a story about a white hetero cis educated male and it turns out to have been written by black lesbian no college woman, would that change of perception of the story? And vice versa? Are we discriminating against our black writer if she writes a cracking story about a white cis man?
Let's be honest. If someone appends a sentence about their identity and says, for example, "I'm a White cis-gender male who grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati," would they have a snowball's chance in hell of winning a contest today?
I have virtually stopped entering contests. I am no more responsible for my pigmentation and cultural background than anyone else, and it is gradually being held against me. I don't think, though, that that's unfair. I was just born too late and have lived too long. I still love to read and write poetry, and that's enough for me.
Such a good discussion. I’ve never revealed my two minority elements (age being one) in my bio or any submission so I can’t say whether I was rejected or accepted based on this. My intention was to let the writing stand for itself. As an editor of a small publication many years ago, now defunct, though, I wanted a good representation of cultures and backgrounds in the authors chosen. That was very important to the magazine’s purpose. I might accept a good piece over a great one because the good piece broadened the representation base, including more diversity. So the question becomes how do authors present themselves and do they highlight their own diversity to have a better chance for their writing to be chosen? A tricky thing. Then it becomes more of where you come from that matters than what you write. I’m uneasy with that.
What about simply judging based upon literary merit alone. Period. Full stop. If we are in this writing thing, shouldn’t excellence be the only metric by which our writing is judged? Am I missing something?
Kudos to you on your publication, Clare! How fortunate you are to be able to afford entry fees for such contests. But, as you've indicated, contest fees exclude those who cannot afford to pay. That leaves a good number of talented writers who struggle financially out of consideration. While it's admirable to want to support literary journals, unfortunately many of us simply do not have that luxury.
Every time I read submission guidelines lately, unless the publication is already focused on a specific underserved community, they mention that they are actively looking for contributors to meet their DEI goals. I think the diversity goals are good, but this is an example of their manner of implementation being counterproductive. The implication seems to be that they’ll grade submissions on a curve to favor more diverse candidates. This seems more patronizing than supportive. A better way would be to get more diverse readers/judges or change the standards by which they judge to include work from writers who make their BIPOC/disabled/queer identities a focus of their writing. And yes, I would say that should be disclosed as something they will favor.
I don’t like my identity as a disabled writer to be an issue unless it’s important to what I’m submitting. I think it’s the same for heritage and other diversity factors. Contests (and lit mags) should be looking for more diverse *submissions* as opposed to more diverse *submitters*. (Especially if it’s a contest. After all, does a writer’s historical disadvantages make their writing better if it’s basically the same as from a cis abled white male?) I don’t think a writer’s bio should play a part in judging, either way, unless the disclosed goal of the contest is most interesting bio.
I understand focus on background more when it comes to book publishing, which is often more about publishing what will sell, not what is judged to be best. In that case, the writer’s platform (read: existing audience) becomes more relevant and is often personal.
I think the premise that greater diversity of voices comes from authors’ identities is itself faulty. Why is it the assumption that we writers write autobiographically. Even when I try to write memoir, it is difficult to pinpoint the “I” I am writing of.
Yes, contests should be explicit about what kind of cultural content they will consider, that way writers can decide if we’d like to write those kinds of characters and settings. Anyone can write anyone, that’s what writing is.
Abraham Lincoln was first inaugurated on March 4, 1861. A month later, at 4:30 AM on April 12, under the direction of Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, the newly confederated Southerners began shelling Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The new President suddenly had a war on his hands. On July 4th he appeared before Congress to gain support (and money) for what everyone hoped (and assumed) would be a short military exercise to quell the rebellion. In his lengthy July 4th speech to Congress, Lincoln called out the Southerners for hanging their entire cause of secession on what he called an “ingenious sophism.” A sophism is something that appears to be true, while actually being false.
Lincoln said:
“Accordingly, they [the Southerners] commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps through all the incidents to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the National Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State.”
Then Lincoln goes on to ask rhetorically, “Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of ‘State rights,’ asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself?”
Ever since I first read Lincoln’s July 4, 1861, Address to Congress, I have maintained a vigilant lookout for ingenious sophistry. I have found that it is rampant. Some folks have even begun calling it fake news.
Now, February 10, 2024, we read of certain editors who are cited here in Becky Tuch’s Weekend Conversation on the LitMag News SubStack channel. I’ll try to paraphrase their collective sentiments as I understand them: They apparently think something is gravely wrong with the literary world and that it is being caused by old, white males whose sexual preference is for women. And further, they aim to fix it.
For the last several years I have tuned into Becky’s interviews where she invites the chief editors of literary journals to talk about their editorial philosophies and processes. I don’t have the statistics, but my hunch is this: Females are not underrepresented in the world of chief editing in the world of lit mags. I suspect this also holds true in publishing companies, large and small. In my own small circle, I can call the names of several very sharp female former editors who have moved out of publishing to take up other careers. I know no males who fit this description.
As an old white man who happens to like women, I’m fine with whatever editors want to do with the manuscripts they receive. Personal taste alone is adequate for me. They hold the keys to heaven and I don't begrudge them for it. They need offer no further rationale nor defense to explain what they accept and what they reject.
But before we accept these several editors' claims that there is something wrong with the literary world, and that it is being caused by old, white men with a sexual preference for women, maybe we should all go back and read Lincoln’s July 4th address to our U.S. Congress. It is a salutary document. And it helps you recognize an ingenious sophism when you see one.
Richard Ellett Mullin
Here's a link for anyone who cares. And...apologies in advance...this famous speech came from the hand of an old white man who happened to like women.
Very thought-provoking article! While reading it I was thinking mostly about what the reader brings to a story, and how do we account for that when judging the quality of a piece. It would be helpful to know what parameters the contests are using to judge a piece before submitting of course but it's not possible to articulate those parameters in every aspect.
The vast, vast majority of Western literature has been filtered through the white male lens for the entirety of its existence and that's not going to disappear for quite some time. Exploring new venues by which new voices and new rubrics of evaluating the value of art is beneficial if we're ever going to break through the ruling ideology of the past.
Presently, money still plays a dominating role in the gatekeeping of what is deemed valuable or worthy of our admiration. For the most part, white males had and still have most of the money which limits others accessibility to art, culture and social status. But if you are not a white male and have enough money you can find a way to squeeze yourself into the conversation. Although the things you can buy with tremendous amounts of money tend to be things valued by the white male gaze.
I've strayed a bit from the topic. I've yet to come across a contest that asks for a bio and I don't think the literary world is in any danger of losing the anonymous contest submission any time soon. I'm all for moving beyond the norm, for breaking tradition, and finding new paths forward. There's plenty of space to add new dimensions to what we value; the old ways don't need to be eradicated entirely as well. There's often too much fear that someone wants to take something away from us when all we want is to add something new to the pot. There's more than enough for everyone, despite what those at the controls would like us to believe.
The question of built-in biases in the literary world, including regarding writing styles, is bigger than writing contests, but afflicts Big Five publishing. I was just reading about the shouting matches Hanya Yanagihara had with her esteemed editor over her first novel, which he judged too melodramatic, too strongly written-- even though the way it was written was essential for the story she had to tell. She held her ground for the most part. The novel became a best seller. The editor, incidentally, has bragged in interviews that he was one of the creators of what he himself called "the Great White Postmodernists."
(As Ring Lardner once said, you could look it up.)
Another spot-on article, Becky... and one that will have me making more coffee as I re-read and absorb ! FWIW: I almost always attach a brief "bio" with each submission(s), treating that part of the process (for me) is like blowing on dice, prior to throwing them onto the editorial "craps table". A gesture that may, or not, enhance the game of chance in my favor, as I firmly believe sending and submitting work is an absolute boxcar-parlay roll. And a "rejection" isn't a loss, it just means I have to wait until my next roll, and add it on to whatever comes after. #BabyNeedsANewPairOfShoes
I'm not a fan of blind submissions. For me, this relates to "The Death of the Author" (which is just literary theory) and I never bought into it. I think you can separate the author from their art (to an extent) but, as an editor, I want to know the person behind the work.
I think it's important to know if someone might be appropriating material that is not affiliated in any way with their cultural background. I worry about this a lot when it comes to persona poems, for example. There are "right to write" concerns.
I'd be interested to hear what writers/editors think differs when it comes to contests vs. regular submissions. The stakes are certainly higher and money is a more significant factor. We're always finding out that people are not treated equally in many ways. VIDA has done a good job of exposing that many journals/presses do not represent women equally. Research has found that writers with an Ivy league degree (even decades after they received their Bachelor's) were still far more likely to receive prizes. All this to say, we're well aware that we are not all playing on a level field.
Bias is all around. As a translator of Latin American literature, mostly women's lit, I see that masters of the novel and short story form are kicked to the curb by some editors if they don't write in the style of so-called "magic realism" (a term invented by a North American critic), or contain enough elements that appeal to the exotic idea of "Latin-ness" for Anglo readers, i.e. "She's not Mexican enough." Certainly, age bias exists for work in translation as well, and the cute new Argentine writer with an active Instagram account will always draw more attention than the sixty-ish master writer who can't be bothered with social media. As for my original writing, when I reduced my first two names to initials, my acceptance rate went up 200%. There's no scientific way of knowing whether that was the reason; maybe I was just a better writer by then. As for the biographies, it serves a reader to know that the author of the piece won a major national award or that she's published forty books, or whatever. Perhaps, however, that information should be delivered after the shortlist is formed rather than at the beginning. As for contests, I rarely enter them anymore. A simple cost-benefit analysis has shown me it's not worth it.
Kristen, perhaps. I didn't say memoirs but thinly disguised memoirs, a text depending heavily on autobiographical material while aspiring to fiction. My familiarity with Tucson's Festival of Books influenced my comments. A novelist friend was tasked by the TFB managers to find and invite a novelist who wasn't a young, female, immigrant writer of color. He found one, but only after a long and dreary search.
Frankly, biases aside, unless there is no submission fee, I see little point in entering contests. Often, one must pay a substantial fee to have work considered and, ultimately, the work of only one or two or perhaps three writers will be selected for publication. It seems to me, one's work has a greater chance of publication if submitted to the vast number of journals that require no fee or minimal fees.
Another great conversation, Becky--big props! Another quick comment, building on my earlier call for an "organic aesthetic" rather than relying on external info. I still think quality, however vague, is the metric by which writing should be judged, while keeping in mind the fact that our tastes change with our consciousness, naturally, and that the surge of new, historically silenced, voices is (or should be) due to their having original, fresh, urgent, novel, stories to tell. THAT'S the point of inclusion, to INCREASE the quality, broadening our aesthetic rather than narrowing it. If an editor doesn't recognize this or is unable to evolve, they're in the wrong line of work.
1. Everyone has biases, conscious or otherwise. Get over it.
2. Read the magazines you plan to submit to; if they are not publishing a wide range of POV's, styles etc, give them a miss, no matter how good acceptance by them will look on your CV. ;-)
3. Of course literature was controlled by white men (and their attitudes) once because those were the days of needing to be wealthy to publish in print. A small matter of the internet changed that forever. Be the publisher you want to see.
4. I have yet to hear of a published peer-reviewed piece of research that categorically proves that people of certain colours, names, genders, nationalities etc are being excluded, either consciously or unconsciously, from publications claiming to be all-encompassing,
As long as weak poets like Rupi Kaur and Amanda Gorman (young female poets of color) are lionized and become best-selling poets, the intense focus on a poet's identity is problematic.
I'd love to read a non-mainstream poet's detailed depiction of their own particular culture's standards for literary excellence. Say, a gay Mexican poet's understanding of what comprises a good "gay Mexican" poem. And what, exactly, is a gay Mexican poem? Any poem written by a gay Mexican? Any poem that features gay Mexican "content"? Who knows? The editors aren't telling.
I remember submitting a poem to a prestigious journal and receving a form rejection. I waited a year and re-submitted the same poem to the same mag with a bio suggesting I was Black (my name encourages that mistake). I received another rejection, this time with a personal note from the editor praising the piece and asking me not to be discouraged, to send more poems whenever I was ready. I was discouraged.
Those involved in this thread might benefit from seeing the Oscar-nominated movie "American Fiction," which could add more nuance to this discussion about authorial identity.
"The unspoken assumption behind blind submissions is that 'quality is quality'— that we know 'good writing when we see it. I DON’T BELIEVE IN THIS IDEA. We do not have universally agreed upon standards of “good.” There is no ultimate measure of goodness in a piece of writing in a vacuum; its quality is determined within the frameworks of a culture, generally by whatever groups are in power."
This passage strikes me as deeply goofy. In light of mainstream Western values, Rod McKuen's "Thoughts on Capital Punishment" sucks big-time. I wonder what non-mainstream cultural standards, if any, would find it excellent? Of course, "literary excellence" is not an infallible mathematics. But stating we can't "know good writing when we see it" means all writing is equally equal.
I would like to see editors who are concerned with the identity of their writers be as honest and specific as possible re which groups they seek, especially if they charge submission fees. In making identity such an important requirement, the literary world (or much of it) is trading one tilted playing field for another, and it's only fair to say who's welcome to play there.
This week I returned to the age bias question that was discussed last year. I am in my sixties and last year my first book of poetry was published by an independent press. I have a B.A. but no MFA. I have a Polish name that belongs to my ex-husband. When I went to the Poetry Foundation website, I found competitions for young poets, but no competition in which I could compete because a lifetime achievement award appears to be what older people might get. There is no accounting for the late bloomers there. I don't bother with competitions for individual poems because it seems too much like a lottery.
So the key to fixing the societal issues of sexism, racism, agism, homophobia, etc. in editors, judges, and readers for journals is to put the onus on the writers . . . ? Wow. How about lit journals and presses read more widely--contemporary writers their MFAs did not introduce them to, other journals, the classics, the canon, the various schools (as in New York School, Imagist, Surreal, etc.)? Places read blind for very good reasons--too many contests, books deals, etc. were being "won" by former students of judges, the person having an affair with the editor, etc. And the more prestigious the award, the more likely it was to go to a white, straight male or a white, straight woman male writers deemed "one of us." I am a woman and I am disabled; my poetry does not always reflect either of those things. And it shouldn't have to. I do not want to feel like I need to write about my disabilities to get a leg up. How narrow! How insulting! If editors, judges, etc. wish to broaden their horizons, then they should broaden their horizons. Read everything. Study everything. Presume you still have a lot of learn and go from there. Marvin Bell once told a workshop group I was in with him as the leader that we should all read the poets we don't like/get and try to figure out why. It was some of the best advice I ever got, and I think it is applicable here: open your mind to everything in your genre and work through your biases. Or hire more diverse readers, judges, and editors! Or both!
I wonder if this approach will give editors the liberty to choose a piece simply based on demographics. Everyone has biases; they could publish a good piece over a great piece simply to promote that person's beliefs, gender, ethnicity, whatever.
The article lost me at "largely white, male, cis, heteronormative lens." That's the sort of gibberish authoritarians use when they're trying to bully people into submission.
On the other hand, the piece unintentionally but conveniently summarizes a lot of what ails the literary world.
I'm thinking mostly of the obsession with identity.
I sense a desperate sort of "me too!" attitude behind that, a recognition of writing's uncertain future in a world increasingly shaped by wokeism and AI.
It's vitally important for us to figure out where we fit in this hideous new world, if we do at all.
We won't be able to do that through identify politics, which is designed to shut down debate instead of promoting it.
It's crazy you just published this. I was working on a piece to send you, based on seeing the same explanation for (likely) the same contest. The short version of what I was going to send: Okay, fine. Your logic makes enough sense I can see why you wouldn't run your contests blind. But if the goal is to include more diverse voices, and identity of the writer is part of that, then why stop at including a name and bio? Why not flat-out ask: "Are you a member of a historically marginalized group that we should know about?" Then the editors can define what groups they're looking for how they see fit. I've seen one journal do this. Otherwise, they're guessing from names or photos they might find online or whatever. If you want to use the personal identity of the author as part of trying to level the playing field, then don't use half measures. Go all the way.
I stand at the other end of that discrimination and ethnocultural bias. And it's very true that what gets published tends to be more often than not very white, and very academic sounding. The question is, should they get rid of the anonymity of their contest? I would say absolutely not. When I used my Latino name and sent ten stories out all of them got rejected within a month. When I sent the same stories under my pen name, eight were read and two got published, and within two years published four other stories. Then I began to write about the plight of immigrants and undocumented people and why they may come to this country. I submitted those stories and got rejected. I could not hide the subject matter. I entered them in competitions and something weird happened, editors sent me these long rejection letters telling me how relevant and how much they liked the work (yet, it was being rejected). It felt good at first, until their publications came out and the stories that won were the usual whitish, academia navel-gazing, with a token story about an LGBT subject. Then I read some articles in which they indicated that it's not just the name, but that many of these editors seek the type of work that was considered great writing in their MFA programs. So nothing has changed, nothing will change other than them feeling like they are inclusive and non-discriminatory when all they are doing is picking a slightly different shade of the same whiteness. Most of these publications also have their normal $3 entries where the writer uses his/her name. So why make the one where they charge $20 just the same? To me it says that they'd rather make the twenty bucks than the three dollars. Their unconscious bias has not changed one bit, only now they will feel artificially good pretending that they are doing something about it (when they are not).
For me, the most worrying aspect of my bio is my home address: I live in Israel. Especially nowadays, I fear being rejected because of that. Though I submit only non-political work my very address is political, these days (and perhaps all days..) it’s a trying position to be in, never knowing if you’ve been rejected on the merits of your writing or an editor’s pro-Palestinian stance (I don’t judge that stance, only I fear it).
It seems odd that one would abandon, what likely is the best way to evaluate on the basis of quality alone (reading blind) for a much more subjective and potentially *less inclusive* standard (tell me who you are before I evaluate your work). In science, the double blind study is the gold standard, and it has facilitated tremendous progress. Reading blind is not perfect, but please show me evidence that it does a poorer job at detecting quality than a notice to authors that states "we favor the work of X, Y, and Z". Now I suppose someone will pose the counter argument saying "there is no one such thing as quality" and I get that argument, but it is kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater if you really think there is no such thing as quality writing. If that's true why do we have so many MFA programs, hehehe. Yeah, I know white privilege dominated standards for many years, but are we really in that situation now? Personally, I feel the poetry world is very diverse and in general, it's quite clear what is quality work and what is not. And that includes a world of different experiences. I mean, isn't great writing that which allows you to view the world through eyes that are completely different from your own?
I have grown tired of labeling. As with so many things the intentions were good and pure but now it has gotten out of control. And there's the real possibility that writers who feel like they are failing to fit in will resort to false labeling. I have a writer friend who is queer but chooses not to include that in his bio (he identifies as "he") because he doesn't see his queerness as being relative to his writing. But lately he's been stressing out about it and wondering if he should rethink his choice because of labeling pressures.
As writers and humans I think we're expressing ourselves through our words. I'd like to be judged on that alone, but the industry has never operated that way which is why marginalization ever happened in the first place. It feels to me like editors are struggling to make reparations and it's gotten really messy. Please, editors, extend yourselves and your potential contributors the courtesy of clarity. Don't encourage writers to spend their time and/or money on your publication if we are not welcome.
Years ago, the marvelous website FOETRY pulled the bandages off everyone's eyes explaining how contests were THEN being run and judged.
Often a judge's name would be listed as "tba." So you'd mail in a ms + check with fingers crossed.
But when Richard Howard was the judge, it was exposed that only graduate students who had enrolled in his courses in Texas were awarded the contest prize (as well as with an NEA Fellowship, which he often judged).
As soon as FOETRY set forth the contest map and those sneaky underlying preferences, it was eye-opening. And it was outrageous to see it out there in black and white.
More than one poet has confided to me that s/he won a certain contest because s/he knew the judge - - - or it would not have happened.
FOETRY's gone but I have no doubt that this literary favoritism is still going on.
The submission fees of the unaware are often used to heap favor on the hand-picked shortlist.
However, your contest mileage may vary . . . . . :-)
Contest organizers attempting to replace implicit bias regarding the writing they review with an explicit bias based on who's submitting said work seems like an excellent idea. I mean, what could go wrong?
Years ago when I put together the Rumpus National Poetry Month series (mostly by myself in the early days), I didn’t read submissions at all, blindly or otherwise. I solicited poems from writers who I wanted to appear on the site. Some of them said yes, some no, some of them said not this year, and so on. And I aimed for a diverse group of voices, not just in terms of gender and ethnicity and identity but also style and form and where they were in their careers. I never wanted to read blindly because I didn’t trust myself to not let my own personal reading and writing biases overwhelm the page. I wanted to publish things that weren’t for me, and didn’t sound like me, and I did a pretty good job of it.
Those editors are correct when they say that reading blindly is flawed. I wrote the same thing myself at The Rumpus years ago in a piece about this subject in response to a new journal that had launched with 21 stories, 20 of them by straight white guys, and when questioned about it the authors fell back on the fig leaf of “we just chose the strongest work” without ever questioning why they felt the work that sounded the most like them was what they saw as the strongest. I want to be clear: the problem was not that they chose to publish those stories in their journal. It was that they were using reading blindly as a fig leaf to cover their unwillingness to examine their own biases and that they were super-defensive about it when someone pointed it out.
Where this gets complicated is with contests because there’s money involved, and people who are paying for entry want to feel like they have a fair shot at winning, and people without impressive publication records rightfully fear that if bios come into play, the judges and/or people who are hoping to break even or not lose too much money on the book are going to put their thumbs on the scale for the better known author. It’s not like this is a new problem. Old heads will remember Foetry, a site that called for more transparency in the book contest world because of stories about how judges were using their position to publish their friends or students. As with anything, there were some pretty egregious cases and some really bad assumptions of bad faith based on tenuous connections (I found myself defending a fellow recent MFA grad I didn’t actually get along with in one of them), but the reasons why the bad feelings were there were the same. There’s money at stake, and the prestige and increased academic job prospects that come with publication and a book prize, and if you pay money to enter and it looks like the game was rigged from the start, you have reason to be mad.
The conclusion I came to then is that the contest model is hopelessly flawed because there’s no way to reconcile the need to make a contest as fair and transparent as possible with the desire to not reinforce the existing stereotypes of what is “good writing” that have been put in place by largely straight white men for the last few centuries. But publishing is expensive and publishing poetry is not profitable and usually the people most interested in doing it don’t have money to lose on it, and so poetry contests exist as a viable funding model. I expect we’ll be having these conversations again and again and again.
Let’s be honest. The suggestion to read manuscripts with a name and bio attached is not an attempt at greater “fairness” or objectivity—it’s an attempt to get more works by minority writers published. And the only way to do that is to make sure you know who has written the piece. This is “bias” dressed up in different clothing, and nothing else. And by the way, what exactly are these supposed traits of white, male writing that lit mag editors are unconsciously drawn to, or trained to think represent excellence in writing? If those traits are real, why not mention them?
I find it ironic, at best, that editors talking about the need for transparency are setting criteria that is rarely if ever made explicit beyond some general comment about "seeking BIPOC writers." These same editors talking about transparency will take 20-30 bucks off each entrant, most of whom don't have a chance at winning. That doesn't seem right, unless those editors are very clear about what they want. Not long ago, I saw a the result of a contest that had one Asian judge who chose an Asian winner, a trans judge who chose a trans contestant, a black judge who chose a black contestant, and a gay white male judge who chose a gay white male contestant. Is this the future of contests? If so, count me out. And I say that as someone who isn't coming at writing from a traditional angle (I could check more than few boxes, but this seems just wrong and embarrassing to the journals). By the way, I paid $30 for that contest described above, and I would name the journal, but why? So many of them do it.
Since this comment thread has expanded beyond just contests, I want to add a couple more thoughts.
The first is that we need to recognize that when we speculate about why a story or poem was rejected at one place and accepted at another, that we really are speculating. The selection process is a black box, even to the people do the selecting more often than not. We choose things that hit us in some way, or maybe we choose something because we want a particular writer in our pages or maybe we choose something because our emotional state when we read it meant we were receptive to it in that moment. And the reverse is true. Sometimes we reject pieces because they hit us in a certain way, or because we have personal beef with the writer (yes, pettiness abounds in this world) or because our emotional state at the time of reading was wrong for that piece. And that’s not an exhaustive list. It’s just meant to show that there are way more potential factors at play for why a piece might be accepted or rejected than simply because the author changed the name on the submission. There’s just no way to know.
The other is that I think it’s a good thing for us to continue to have these conversations even when—especially when—they make us uncomfortable.
The literary world is a small one. Contest judges are likely to find themselves assessing work by people they know: former classmates, co-workers, friends, rivals, enemies. Blind judging takes out the potential for much personal bias. As for the white, cis, het male cultural bias, have these people actually read their own lists of contributors in the last decade?
Since this is on the heels of a similar discussion that started with the question "Is publishing fair?" maybe it's worth asking: What's the point of a contest that essentially starts with the author's bio instead of the writing submitted? Race isn't the only thing that leaps out of a bio. It's someone's MFA institution, how much else they've published, where they live (As someone in Alabama, believe me, I worry that the NYC set and people at elite institutions will make assumptions). I can't think of any rationale for not judging a contest blind, and when I hear jargon like "cis, heteronormative" whatever, I think, "these people are so out of touch and stuck in the ivory tower that I don't trust them to read my work, anyway." As I wrote elsewhere, this term was created by others and applied to me, and I'm not sure what it means, so why should I check the box? I'm straight, but I don't fit the definition of cis, and I'm certainly not heteronormative, but if I checked non-binary or queer, I wouldn't fit that bill, either. So, the whole endlessly atomizing categorization academics are promoting is not only a futile and grossly failing attempt to capture anything close to most people's realities, it provides a false measure for diversity. They're essentially meaningless categories. So, I fear that they are creeping into contests. That said, why should I care? Contests are so expensive and problematic at this point that I might as well start betting on FanDuel, which doesn't seem all that different at this point.
Editors should not be concerned with the racial, ethnic, gender or bodily identity of writers submitting materials to their journals. And writers are not required to and indeed should not mention such issues in their "100-word bios." I've been submitting poems, stories and novel excerpts to journals for more than 50 years, and I'm appalled by these new concerns in the literary world. The fact that an editor would take into consideration a writer's whatever-various identities -- cultural and personal -- as criteria for accepting material tends to sully the worth of the material itself. Oh, yes, you say, spoken like a white, cis-, heteronormative asshole who has had the advantage of his privilege for his whole life. Guilty, I suppose, as charged, but I and every other writer out there work their hearts out to create the best poems and stories they can. Those poems and stories deserve to be judged in the arena of total objectivity rather than through the pre-ordained lens of biography and identity.
As a physically disabled and autistic writer and reader (though still a white, cis woman in a hetero-appearing relationship), I appreciate being valued for my lived experience and the relationship between my writing and my identities.
But.
I am afraid that if only disabled or atypical people are considered to write characters like me, there will not be enough representation. Disability is everywhere. (I have seen exactly one character with my particular flavour of spinal cord injury.) I won't speak for other marginalized groups, but everybody needs to be writing disability accurately.
I dont want to see anyone's work being rejected for who they are. Perhaps more carefully scrutinized? And while we're scrutinizing, maybe the judges arent qualified to make that judgement at times? Perhaps that could be addressed in the guidelines as well?
When looking for new work, good editors seek out the true voices of the age. In an ideal world work is judged on its particular merits. Except there are such things as bad editors, and there is no such thing as an ideal world.
On the one hand it seems to me that editors who place a bio equal to or above the submission aren't being honest with anybody, especially themselves. On the other hand instead of ascribing prejudice to an editor's rejection maybe what you sent in just sucked.
Like Becky intimated, editors get to decide what they're looking for, and writers can choose to apply or not as they see fit. The thing is, once editors decide what they want they should be honest about it, and writers who don't read the guidelines have no room to squawk.
This is such an interesting article and discussion. I don’t know the answer, but I wonder if it’s because we’re in the middle of a paradigm shift when it comes to what is considered “good writing.” If it’s not the historical mostly white, cis, male work, which I agree shouldn’t be a universal standard, what would a new standard be? Can we agree on universal standards, or will we choose to write in a particular tradition and identify it as such?
If you're an uncredentialed writer with few or no publications, it seems to me that you'd prefer blind submissions no matter what your race, ethnic, class, gender, ability/ disability, age, etc. (things, btw, than can sometimes be evident from the themes or concerns of the work). I'm strongly in favor of more diverse representation, but I'd think that more diversity at the editor, guest judge, and line reader level would be a better counter to bias than doing away with blind submissions. Having blind submissions but voluntary checkboxes that ask a submitters background might be another, though less preferred, solution. It may, of course, be that some litmags are averse to blind submissions for other reasons (maybe legitimate but unstated) and are simply using diversity and anti-bias arguments as a cover.
What a great article and conversation to be having! A simple way to get around this for contests would be to include diversity check boxes, like on a job application, which authors could choose to opt into or not. Submissions could still be read anonymously in that the names
and pub history are hidden from judges. The other advantage to collecting this kind of data is that it's the sort of information that grantors always want to know in grant applications. There is no perfect way to overcome biases. We all want to be liked and validated and accepted and ultimately published, but the very nature of interacting with art is a form of judgement based on our personal likes, dislikes, and biases. This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be as inclusive as possible and push our personal boundaries.
If one puts oneself in an editor's POV, the difficulties become immediately evident. Most of the writing in lit mags does not rise to "literature" and each story represents on average 2-4% of total submissions. Assume half of what gets published does not come from the "slush" ( the very expression is an insult to every writer and immediately disqualifies the user from being taken seriously) but from preferred sources - agents, friends and family of editors, previously published writers, etc. Most contests have more than half their finalists selected before the contest closes. It's a racket and they should all be boycotted, including even the handful that are truly quality just for guilt by association. The problem is that we write to find similar voices to fill the darkness, and so the contest always has the edge. It is perenially discouraging to pay $30 for two brief sentences: 1) thank you for your money 2) and please submit next year - only to read the winners a few months later to find pieces of bewildering mediocrity. I sustain myself with two constant reminders. One is that the cream always rises to the top, so keep churning. The other is that all writing is (or should be) a form of prayer. It's an internal dialogue with one's higher self, someone who sits above all these other considerations. When we pray, we don't (or should not) expect applause ....
IMHO Ted Franco
I think there's also an assumption here that diversity of identity is going to be what best leads to diversity of thought, which is the kind of diversity I think really should matter. I would expect that most contest judges are going to be very liberal. What happens if a bio suggests that someone leans conservative? I knew a reader for a litmag who told me that she automatically rejected anything by a cop. I don't think of cops as submitting to litmags a whole lot, but that's probably a reflection of my own bias - there were obviously enough that this woman developed a rule for them. One thing that bothers me about the push for "diversity" is that it always seems to be defined in a very limited way. A lot of people here have mentioned ageism, and it makes me wonder what percentage of contest judges would even consider combatting ageism an important part of encouraging diversity.
I have a BIG PROBLEM with all of the editorial positions you cited. For them to say they are going to counter their built-in bias with an external adjustment is, no matter how transparent, a total cop out. "I have a bias against xxx, but because I am unable to overcome it (if I can even detect it), I am going to compensate by including more of xxx's work in my magazine. I don't like or even admire it, but feel duty bound to include it." WHAT?
How about instead of relying on some external mechanism, you deal with your internal biases and adjust your aesthetic organically? By getting to know people, by reading--for God sake, go to therapy. This type of artificial pseudo correction is what drives so many authentic people away from academia. Furthermore, it makes the selection process more biased, more arbitrary, not less.
Contests. Arrgh.
I backed off of paid contest competitions years ago just because of trends I was noticing in the results--stylistic similarities, topic choices, and coincidental (oh really?) placement of rising stars.
I've pretty much done the same now with free contests.
Contests are essentially another form of market. I get yelled at when I say that, but I was part of a circle with a Writers of the Future contest winner, and his perspective was exactly that--the contest isn't necessarily a measure of best quality submission but a measure of what best fits the market, which in this case is the judging panel.
Blind submissions don't necessarily get around that market definition, either.
I still think that diversity is better achieved through asking the question "are you a member of a historically marginalized group that we should know about?" Or, as in some cases, openly stating that you are dedicating the magazine issue/contest/whatever to specific marginalized populations.
It's complicated. If we read a story about a white hetero cis educated male and it turns out to have been written by black lesbian no college woman, would that change of perception of the story? And vice versa? Are we discriminating against our black writer if she writes a cracking story about a white cis man?
Let's be honest. If someone appends a sentence about their identity and says, for example, "I'm a White cis-gender male who grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati," would they have a snowball's chance in hell of winning a contest today?
I have virtually stopped entering contests. I am no more responsible for my pigmentation and cultural background than anyone else, and it is gradually being held against me. I don't think, though, that that's unfair. I was just born too late and have lived too long. I still love to read and write poetry, and that's enough for me.
Such a good discussion. I’ve never revealed my two minority elements (age being one) in my bio or any submission so I can’t say whether I was rejected or accepted based on this. My intention was to let the writing stand for itself. As an editor of a small publication many years ago, now defunct, though, I wanted a good representation of cultures and backgrounds in the authors chosen. That was very important to the magazine’s purpose. I might accept a good piece over a great one because the good piece broadened the representation base, including more diversity. So the question becomes how do authors present themselves and do they highlight their own diversity to have a better chance for their writing to be chosen? A tricky thing. Then it becomes more of where you come from that matters than what you write. I’m uneasy with that.
Your 1-2 sentence “identifier” is an excellent idea.
What about simply judging based upon literary merit alone. Period. Full stop. If we are in this writing thing, shouldn’t excellence be the only metric by which our writing is judged? Am I missing something?
Kudos to you on your publication, Clare! How fortunate you are to be able to afford entry fees for such contests. But, as you've indicated, contest fees exclude those who cannot afford to pay. That leaves a good number of talented writers who struggle financially out of consideration. While it's admirable to want to support literary journals, unfortunately many of us simply do not have that luxury.
Every time I read submission guidelines lately, unless the publication is already focused on a specific underserved community, they mention that they are actively looking for contributors to meet their DEI goals. I think the diversity goals are good, but this is an example of their manner of implementation being counterproductive. The implication seems to be that they’ll grade submissions on a curve to favor more diverse candidates. This seems more patronizing than supportive. A better way would be to get more diverse readers/judges or change the standards by which they judge to include work from writers who make their BIPOC/disabled/queer identities a focus of their writing. And yes, I would say that should be disclosed as something they will favor.
I don’t like my identity as a disabled writer to be an issue unless it’s important to what I’m submitting. I think it’s the same for heritage and other diversity factors. Contests (and lit mags) should be looking for more diverse *submissions* as opposed to more diverse *submitters*. (Especially if it’s a contest. After all, does a writer’s historical disadvantages make their writing better if it’s basically the same as from a cis abled white male?) I don’t think a writer’s bio should play a part in judging, either way, unless the disclosed goal of the contest is most interesting bio.
I understand focus on background more when it comes to book publishing, which is often more about publishing what will sell, not what is judged to be best. In that case, the writer’s platform (read: existing audience) becomes more relevant and is often personal.
I think the premise that greater diversity of voices comes from authors’ identities is itself faulty. Why is it the assumption that we writers write autobiographically. Even when I try to write memoir, it is difficult to pinpoint the “I” I am writing of.
Yes, contests should be explicit about what kind of cultural content they will consider, that way writers can decide if we’d like to write those kinds of characters and settings. Anyone can write anyone, that’s what writing is.
Abraham Lincoln was first inaugurated on March 4, 1861. A month later, at 4:30 AM on April 12, under the direction of Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, the newly confederated Southerners began shelling Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The new President suddenly had a war on his hands. On July 4th he appeared before Congress to gain support (and money) for what everyone hoped (and assumed) would be a short military exercise to quell the rebellion. In his lengthy July 4th speech to Congress, Lincoln called out the Southerners for hanging their entire cause of secession on what he called an “ingenious sophism.” A sophism is something that appears to be true, while actually being false.
Lincoln said:
“Accordingly, they [the Southerners] commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps through all the incidents to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the National Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State.”
Then Lincoln goes on to ask rhetorically, “Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of ‘State rights,’ asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself?”
Ever since I first read Lincoln’s July 4, 1861, Address to Congress, I have maintained a vigilant lookout for ingenious sophistry. I have found that it is rampant. Some folks have even begun calling it fake news.
Now, February 10, 2024, we read of certain editors who are cited here in Becky Tuch’s Weekend Conversation on the LitMag News SubStack channel. I’ll try to paraphrase their collective sentiments as I understand them: They apparently think something is gravely wrong with the literary world and that it is being caused by old, white males whose sexual preference is for women. And further, they aim to fix it.
For the last several years I have tuned into Becky’s interviews where she invites the chief editors of literary journals to talk about their editorial philosophies and processes. I don’t have the statistics, but my hunch is this: Females are not underrepresented in the world of chief editing in the world of lit mags. I suspect this also holds true in publishing companies, large and small. In my own small circle, I can call the names of several very sharp female former editors who have moved out of publishing to take up other careers. I know no males who fit this description.
As an old white man who happens to like women, I’m fine with whatever editors want to do with the manuscripts they receive. Personal taste alone is adequate for me. They hold the keys to heaven and I don't begrudge them for it. They need offer no further rationale nor defense to explain what they accept and what they reject.
But before we accept these several editors' claims that there is something wrong with the literary world, and that it is being caused by old, white men with a sexual preference for women, maybe we should all go back and read Lincoln’s July 4th address to our U.S. Congress. It is a salutary document. And it helps you recognize an ingenious sophism when you see one.
Richard Ellett Mullin
Here's a link for anyone who cares. And...apologies in advance...this famous speech came from the hand of an old white man who happened to like women.
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/july-4-1861-july-4th-message-congress
July 4, 1861: July 4th Message to Congress | Miller Center
Very thought-provoking article! While reading it I was thinking mostly about what the reader brings to a story, and how do we account for that when judging the quality of a piece. It would be helpful to know what parameters the contests are using to judge a piece before submitting of course but it's not possible to articulate those parameters in every aspect.
The vast, vast majority of Western literature has been filtered through the white male lens for the entirety of its existence and that's not going to disappear for quite some time. Exploring new venues by which new voices and new rubrics of evaluating the value of art is beneficial if we're ever going to break through the ruling ideology of the past.
Presently, money still plays a dominating role in the gatekeeping of what is deemed valuable or worthy of our admiration. For the most part, white males had and still have most of the money which limits others accessibility to art, culture and social status. But if you are not a white male and have enough money you can find a way to squeeze yourself into the conversation. Although the things you can buy with tremendous amounts of money tend to be things valued by the white male gaze.
I've strayed a bit from the topic. I've yet to come across a contest that asks for a bio and I don't think the literary world is in any danger of losing the anonymous contest submission any time soon. I'm all for moving beyond the norm, for breaking tradition, and finding new paths forward. There's plenty of space to add new dimensions to what we value; the old ways don't need to be eradicated entirely as well. There's often too much fear that someone wants to take something away from us when all we want is to add something new to the pot. There's more than enough for everyone, despite what those at the controls would like us to believe.
The question of built-in biases in the literary world, including regarding writing styles, is bigger than writing contests, but afflicts Big Five publishing. I was just reading about the shouting matches Hanya Yanagihara had with her esteemed editor over her first novel, which he judged too melodramatic, too strongly written-- even though the way it was written was essential for the story she had to tell. She held her ground for the most part. The novel became a best seller. The editor, incidentally, has bragged in interviews that he was one of the creators of what he himself called "the Great White Postmodernists."
(As Ring Lardner once said, you could look it up.)
Another spot-on article, Becky... and one that will have me making more coffee as I re-read and absorb ! FWIW: I almost always attach a brief "bio" with each submission(s), treating that part of the process (for me) is like blowing on dice, prior to throwing them onto the editorial "craps table". A gesture that may, or not, enhance the game of chance in my favor, as I firmly believe sending and submitting work is an absolute boxcar-parlay roll. And a "rejection" isn't a loss, it just means I have to wait until my next roll, and add it on to whatever comes after. #BabyNeedsANewPairOfShoes
Really good pull quotes.
Very interested to hear what others think.
I'm not a fan of blind submissions. For me, this relates to "The Death of the Author" (which is just literary theory) and I never bought into it. I think you can separate the author from their art (to an extent) but, as an editor, I want to know the person behind the work.
I think it's important to know if someone might be appropriating material that is not affiliated in any way with their cultural background. I worry about this a lot when it comes to persona poems, for example. There are "right to write" concerns.
I'd be interested to hear what writers/editors think differs when it comes to contests vs. regular submissions. The stakes are certainly higher and money is a more significant factor. We're always finding out that people are not treated equally in many ways. VIDA has done a good job of exposing that many journals/presses do not represent women equally. Research has found that writers with an Ivy league degree (even decades after they received their Bachelor's) were still far more likely to receive prizes. All this to say, we're well aware that we are not all playing on a level field.
Bias is all around. As a translator of Latin American literature, mostly women's lit, I see that masters of the novel and short story form are kicked to the curb by some editors if they don't write in the style of so-called "magic realism" (a term invented by a North American critic), or contain enough elements that appeal to the exotic idea of "Latin-ness" for Anglo readers, i.e. "She's not Mexican enough." Certainly, age bias exists for work in translation as well, and the cute new Argentine writer with an active Instagram account will always draw more attention than the sixty-ish master writer who can't be bothered with social media. As for my original writing, when I reduced my first two names to initials, my acceptance rate went up 200%. There's no scientific way of knowing whether that was the reason; maybe I was just a better writer by then. As for the biographies, it serves a reader to know that the author of the piece won a major national award or that she's published forty books, or whatever. Perhaps, however, that information should be delivered after the shortlist is formed rather than at the beginning. As for contests, I rarely enter them anymore. A simple cost-benefit analysis has shown me it's not worth it.
Time to try a new bio:
Fuck the bio. Read my words instead.
Kristen, perhaps. I didn't say memoirs but thinly disguised memoirs, a text depending heavily on autobiographical material while aspiring to fiction. My familiarity with Tucson's Festival of Books influenced my comments. A novelist friend was tasked by the TFB managers to find and invite a novelist who wasn't a young, female, immigrant writer of color. He found one, but only after a long and dreary search.
Frankly, biases aside, unless there is no submission fee, I see little point in entering contests. Often, one must pay a substantial fee to have work considered and, ultimately, the work of only one or two or perhaps three writers will be selected for publication. It seems to me, one's work has a greater chance of publication if submitted to the vast number of journals that require no fee or minimal fees.
The argument here is hidden because stating it in plain language would cause an uproar.
The argument is that lit mag editors should be racists when deciding which submissions to accept and reject.
The "anti-racists" are the biggest racists of all.
Another great conversation, Becky--big props! Another quick comment, building on my earlier call for an "organic aesthetic" rather than relying on external info. I still think quality, however vague, is the metric by which writing should be judged, while keeping in mind the fact that our tastes change with our consciousness, naturally, and that the surge of new, historically silenced, voices is (or should be) due to their having original, fresh, urgent, novel, stories to tell. THAT'S the point of inclusion, to INCREASE the quality, broadening our aesthetic rather than narrowing it. If an editor doesn't recognize this or is unable to evolve, they're in the wrong line of work.
Some brief comments:
1. Everyone has biases, conscious or otherwise. Get over it.
2. Read the magazines you plan to submit to; if they are not publishing a wide range of POV's, styles etc, give them a miss, no matter how good acceptance by them will look on your CV. ;-)
3. Of course literature was controlled by white men (and their attitudes) once because those were the days of needing to be wealthy to publish in print. A small matter of the internet changed that forever. Be the publisher you want to see.
4. I have yet to hear of a published peer-reviewed piece of research that categorically proves that people of certain colours, names, genders, nationalities etc are being excluded, either consciously or unconsciously, from publications claiming to be all-encompassing,
As long as weak poets like Rupi Kaur and Amanda Gorman (young female poets of color) are lionized and become best-selling poets, the intense focus on a poet's identity is problematic.
I'd love to read a non-mainstream poet's detailed depiction of their own particular culture's standards for literary excellence. Say, a gay Mexican poet's understanding of what comprises a good "gay Mexican" poem. And what, exactly, is a gay Mexican poem? Any poem written by a gay Mexican? Any poem that features gay Mexican "content"? Who knows? The editors aren't telling.
I remember submitting a poem to a prestigious journal and receving a form rejection. I waited a year and re-submitted the same poem to the same mag with a bio suggesting I was Black (my name encourages that mistake). I received another rejection, this time with a personal note from the editor praising the piece and asking me not to be discouraged, to send more poems whenever I was ready. I was discouraged.
Those involved in this thread might benefit from seeing the Oscar-nominated movie "American Fiction," which could add more nuance to this discussion about authorial identity.
"The unspoken assumption behind blind submissions is that 'quality is quality'— that we know 'good writing when we see it. I DON’T BELIEVE IN THIS IDEA. We do not have universally agreed upon standards of “good.” There is no ultimate measure of goodness in a piece of writing in a vacuum; its quality is determined within the frameworks of a culture, generally by whatever groups are in power."
This passage strikes me as deeply goofy. In light of mainstream Western values, Rod McKuen's "Thoughts on Capital Punishment" sucks big-time. I wonder what non-mainstream cultural standards, if any, would find it excellent? Of course, "literary excellence" is not an infallible mathematics. But stating we can't "know good writing when we see it" means all writing is equally equal.