Most magazines first readers seem to be MFA students. I wonder how many people considner the limitations of experience these students bring to their readings. Im sure they can do ok with endless family/relative/son/da/daughter/mom tales. Spame with quirky pscyhology studies. But who honestly thinks twenty year olds at any given MFA program have the experience and savy to understand all the ramifications in many social justice poems and stories? If the story is abouy t immigrants and coyotes (guides) some who are honest; some who are corrupt, how many twenty to thirty year olds are there who might have a competent understanding? Or if it is a story about a labor dispute how many MFA students will have the slightesting familiarity with the contract lingo or the ongoing backand worth wheeling and dealing? Then there s just plain near oblivion. Ie- I sent some poems to a magazine seeking "short poems." One was a haiku. I received replly saying that the poem was "too short" and "lacked significant detail>. The poem was a haiku as follows: Nursing Home Haiku.
We cram our elders
Into smelly rooms;
Don't ask why their eyes ooze gloom.
too short??????? It's a haiku. lacks significant details? Crammed elders,smelly rooms; eyes oozing gloom None of these are signifiicant details?????? you catch my drift here?
There is also a long long standing bias against stories about class. This is part of a longer conversation about the replacement of social justice literature that came out of the thirtis and forties int heUS with psychological, inner mind, existential literature that above all has the attribute of complete hummorlessness.
If Virginia Woolf were wirting today she would not get published save for some sharp feminist press. As it was, in her time, her books were published by Hogarth Press which was her husband Leonard. She had plenty of pluch, and she also had soe luck.
Ernie, yeah, I hear your concerns. I agree that class is sorely overlooked as an integral part of human experience and in what gets published. Some lit mags have cropped up recently that try to focus on this specifically. Pro Lit comes to mind. https://www.prolitmag.com/. But it's definitely a blind spot in the literary world.
And I think that's a fair concern about the first readers for a lit mag. Did you see my interview with Andrew Tonkovich of Santa Monica Review? That magazine sounds like it might be up your alley.
You might want to keep your eye out for magazines that don't have students as early readers, if that's something that doesn't sit right with you. So many magazines do not do this, especially ones not affiliated with universities.
Stay tuned for more editor interviews. Hopefully there will be more magazines that you'll find to be a good fit for you. Thanks for watching, and for the comments.
I greatly appreciate your prompt and pithy reply. Its happpens more that when i send comments, nothing ensues. I still feel the whole process is slanted against writers. I will notice that this past year when I decided to sent work to online mags (lpreviously, I had a snobbish attitude towards them) I had about twenty acceptances, poems and fiction.
In 1980 I published a short story collection with South End Press- I Looked Over Jordan And Other Stories, about hospital workers and their relationships. The book was optioned by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis for possible tv/movie development. Ruby adapted and performed the story 'Crazy Hattie Enters The Ice Age" for a show the Davis had on PBS TV- 'With Ruby and Ossie' ( a half hour variety show with sometimes stories, or music, or dance, etc). It was a big hit, reviewed in the NY Times, et. The Asbestos Workers Union used the title story ( about a dying shipyard worker exposed to asbestos continually on his job) in various educational workshops and training for their workers. The book sold out all of its three thousandd copies despite a minimum of publicity. South End was a lefty press, heavily suppiorted. by Noam Chomsky, the exceptional linguist and leftist politican who never met a short sentence in his life. South End wanted to have a 'cultural section" of novels, poems and drama, but they had neither the knowledge nor the understanding of what makes literature beyond political expediency. This is a big problem in much of the American left that thinks nonfiction is more important than fiction and poetry. But you can read the first three stories of I Looked Over Jordan on googlel I am. trying to find someone who will republish it. I think it is an important and rare addition to American literature and will love to see it remain in print. Thanks for listening.
This sounds like a great project, Ernie. And haha Noam Chomsky is definitely one of our more long-winded leftists.
I think a lot of writers feel the way you do, that the deck is stacked against them and that there is some kind of insider-networking process that determines who is getting their work published. While some of that certainly takes place, I hope these interviews will show writers how much editors actually do want to find great new voices, and how most editors truly are pulling from the "slush pile" to find those writers.
The class thing is tricky, and something I've thought about a lot. I think ultimately each of us just has to do the best work we can do, pulling from all the issues that are most important to us, while giving a shape to these issues in a way that will make our projects entertaining and interesting. No small task!
Great interview with Mr Stapleton, Becky!
I just subscribed. Now how do I sign up for next Wednesday’s session?
Hi Judy, great! I will send the zoom link to all subscribers early next week.
You ask too much ; the odds are too tilted.
Odds tilted against writers?
Most magazines first readers seem to be MFA students. I wonder how many people considner the limitations of experience these students bring to their readings. Im sure they can do ok with endless family/relative/son/da/daughter/mom tales. Spame with quirky pscyhology studies. But who honestly thinks twenty year olds at any given MFA program have the experience and savy to understand all the ramifications in many social justice poems and stories? If the story is abouy t immigrants and coyotes (guides) some who are honest; some who are corrupt, how many twenty to thirty year olds are there who might have a competent understanding? Or if it is a story about a labor dispute how many MFA students will have the slightesting familiarity with the contract lingo or the ongoing backand worth wheeling and dealing? Then there s just plain near oblivion. Ie- I sent some poems to a magazine seeking "short poems." One was a haiku. I received replly saying that the poem was "too short" and "lacked significant detail>. The poem was a haiku as follows: Nursing Home Haiku.
We cram our elders
Into smelly rooms;
Don't ask why their eyes ooze gloom.
too short??????? It's a haiku. lacks significant details? Crammed elders,smelly rooms; eyes oozing gloom None of these are signifiicant details?????? you catch my drift here?
There is also a long long standing bias against stories about class. This is part of a longer conversation about the replacement of social justice literature that came out of the thirtis and forties int heUS with psychological, inner mind, existential literature that above all has the attribute of complete hummorlessness.
If Virginia Woolf were wirting today she would not get published save for some sharp feminist press. As it was, in her time, her books were published by Hogarth Press which was her husband Leonard. She had plenty of pluch, and she also had soe luck.
Ernie, yeah, I hear your concerns. I agree that class is sorely overlooked as an integral part of human experience and in what gets published. Some lit mags have cropped up recently that try to focus on this specifically. Pro Lit comes to mind. https://www.prolitmag.com/. But it's definitely a blind spot in the literary world.
And I think that's a fair concern about the first readers for a lit mag. Did you see my interview with Andrew Tonkovich of Santa Monica Review? That magazine sounds like it might be up your alley.
You might want to keep your eye out for magazines that don't have students as early readers, if that's something that doesn't sit right with you. So many magazines do not do this, especially ones not affiliated with universities.
Stay tuned for more editor interviews. Hopefully there will be more magazines that you'll find to be a good fit for you. Thanks for watching, and for the comments.
I greatly appreciate your prompt and pithy reply. Its happpens more that when i send comments, nothing ensues. I still feel the whole process is slanted against writers. I will notice that this past year when I decided to sent work to online mags (lpreviously, I had a snobbish attitude towards them) I had about twenty acceptances, poems and fiction.
In 1980 I published a short story collection with South End Press- I Looked Over Jordan And Other Stories, about hospital workers and their relationships. The book was optioned by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis for possible tv/movie development. Ruby adapted and performed the story 'Crazy Hattie Enters The Ice Age" for a show the Davis had on PBS TV- 'With Ruby and Ossie' ( a half hour variety show with sometimes stories, or music, or dance, etc). It was a big hit, reviewed in the NY Times, et. The Asbestos Workers Union used the title story ( about a dying shipyard worker exposed to asbestos continually on his job) in various educational workshops and training for their workers. The book sold out all of its three thousandd copies despite a minimum of publicity. South End was a lefty press, heavily suppiorted. by Noam Chomsky, the exceptional linguist and leftist politican who never met a short sentence in his life. South End wanted to have a 'cultural section" of novels, poems and drama, but they had neither the knowledge nor the understanding of what makes literature beyond political expediency. This is a big problem in much of the American left that thinks nonfiction is more important than fiction and poetry. But you can read the first three stories of I Looked Over Jordan on googlel I am. trying to find someone who will republish it. I think it is an important and rare addition to American literature and will love to see it remain in print. Thanks for listening.
This sounds like a great project, Ernie. And haha Noam Chomsky is definitely one of our more long-winded leftists.
I think a lot of writers feel the way you do, that the deck is stacked against them and that there is some kind of insider-networking process that determines who is getting their work published. While some of that certainly takes place, I hope these interviews will show writers how much editors actually do want to find great new voices, and how most editors truly are pulling from the "slush pile" to find those writers.
The class thing is tricky, and something I've thought about a lot. I think ultimately each of us just has to do the best work we can do, pulling from all the issues that are most important to us, while giving a shape to these issues in a way that will make our projects entertaining and interesting. No small task!
Good luck with everything.