Going through the different viewpoints again, I felt that there are two currents: on the one side, there is more awareness of the racial/ethnic/minority theme, while on the other side the internet tends to move those personal characteristics to the background. Online literary magazine are accessible from all places of the world, and in return, are frequented by writers from different nations—and looking through magazines, if you wanted to “group” or “classify” authors, it would be easier to approach this from the formats they work in.

More on Fictionaut

Photo by B. A. Van Sise (for ontheside.info

InDigest continued its reading series “1207″ the other night at the KGB Bar.  Dustin Nelson founded the quarterly online mag two years ago and has crafted a solid website that plays host to a variety of voices in the arts.

InDigest’s analog manifestation is the reading series, which encourages presenters to read something from their own work as well as something that inspired them as they wrote it. This time Deborah Clearman read from her Guatemela-based novel Todos Santos from Black Lawrence Press.  Clearman, not wanting to outshine her own words, read from the US State Department’s 11-page document of travel warnings for Guatemala. Emily St. John Mandel read an excerpt from her second novel The Singer’s Gun new this year from Unbridled Books, offering a quotation highlighting the difficulty of “being impeccable” in a universe without virtue. Finally, the disarming Aaron Michael Morales–who I’d seen at a Coffeehouse Press reading with Travis Nichols at McNally Jackson last week–read an excerpt from his new novel Drowning Tucson. Forgetting to bring something that inspired him, he read something that devastated him: a passage from a book about the sexual deviancy of meth addicts, the subject of the novel he’s currently writing. In the passage, a police officer describes the three bathtubs of human feces he found in a meth cook’s living room, as well as some other colorful habits of addicts.

Watch out for the next 1207 reading at KGB on August 22 with Justin Taylor, Tom Grimes, and JC Hallman.

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground), 1989

If you asked me about the general ratio of female and male authors included in BluePrintReview—the online literary magazine I founded in 2005, and that is now up to 24 issues—I would be able to give you the answer without going through pages: it’s about 50/50. Same goes for the answer to the question: “What’s the ratio of poetry versus prose?” Again, the answer would be: about 50/50.

These ratios developed during the first months of editing, combined with the plan to create issues that offer a balance of voices and cover a wide array of styles, approaches, and originating countries. This concept has continued since the start, with one exception: the current issue (“micro cosmos”), which is dedicated to flash fiction.

Even though I try for a balance of poetry and prose, those categories don’t appear anywhere. The starting page of each issue includes only the titles of the texts, without telling if it is poetry or fiction or non-fiction. Added to that, up to issue 22 all texts were centered, which blurred the lines between prose and poetry. In 2007, when one of the stories in BluePrintReview was selected by Sundress for their “Best of Net” list, the Sundress editor wrote and asked me to confirm that the text they had selected is a story.

Same goes for the images: there are photographs, digital art, and paintings included. Some photos look like paintings, which again blurs the lines of definition.

Up to summer 2009, there also weren’t any author names included on the on the issue starting page. Altogether, BluePrintReview is very much about not categorizing, about exploring the range of different formats, and the way they overlap.

Then came 2010, and a whole set of questions I hadn’t expected.

The first was: “How many poc (persons of color) writers are included in BluePrintReview?” I arrived at this topic through a Big Other blog post on the role of editors. The blog post itself opened with a quote of an editor about the disproportional submission quality from women and poc, and the quoted follow-up suggestion:

When you go through your back issues/backlist for the big names to list on your website, be sure to put the names of women writers and poc front and center. A publisher/magazine that has a lot of recognizable “minority” names on its website is basically putting out the welcome mat for “minority” writers.

Which lead to another question, put in words by post-author Roxane Gay (editor of PANK): “How on earth can you know someone’s race from their submission?”

I started to look through BluePrintReview from that angle, which lead to more questions: If the author is living in his home country (Africa, Asia, Middle East), would he or she still be counted as poc/“minority”? Or does that only go for authors living outside their home country, where they are in fact belonging to the minority of the citizens?

Which brought me back to the gender theme, and made me wonder whether this theme sometimes is the focus of discussions because it is more visible than other characteristics of authors. At the same time, it’s interesting to see that the internet tends to level certain factors: the place where an author lives, both on a country/continent perspective, and the more local dimension of “part of town.” The social group an author belongs to, their age and appearance, their ethnic background, religion, etc.—all these factors aren’t visible in submissions if they aren’t explicitly stated in the bio. And even the gender aspect can be removed, either by using initials, or by creating an abstract.

One of the reasons why this topic kept churning in my mind was a companion project of BluePrintReview that had launched in March 2010: Daily s-Press, a book blog that features books from small presses. The concept of it: to explore the landscape of small and indie publishers, at the pace of one book per weekday. There were some initial search functions up already, mainly about the book type and format (fiction/poetry, paperback/e-book, etc.). Next to follow were geographical search functions (authors/editors by continents, maybe even countries), and also, a gender tag.

While listing other options that might be interesting, I arrived at age and ethnicity/nationality. Tags like these also would allow to group the books from different angles, and search for authors who have some characteristics in common, for example: authors in the same age-range, authors living in the some country, or authors with a similar ethnic background.

But to get there, I would need to ask questions of the awkward kind: What’s your age? Where do you live? What’s your home country? Do you belong to a minority? (Or: Are you a poc?)

Unsure how to best proceed, I mailed with some author friends. One of the replies I received was about the lingering problems that were connected with ethnicity/race and all the sub-categories this might involve, leading to the suggesting that I rather might use nationality as a context info in the book features, yet avoid search options that reinforce ethnic/racial categorizations.

Another friend pointed me towards an article on politically correct ways of describing ethnic races as suggested by The Guardian:

“Do not use ethnic to mean black or Asian people. In a British sense, they are an ethnic minority; in a world sense, of course, white people are an ethnic minority…

Avoid the world ‘immigrant’, which is very offensive to many black and Asian people, not only because it is often incorrectly used to describe people who were born in Britain, but also because it has been used negatively for so many years that it carries imagery of ‘flooding’, ‘swamping’, ‘bogus’, ‘scroungers’, etc.

The words black and Asian should not be used as nouns, but as adjectives: black people rather than ‘blacks’, an Asian woman rather than ‘an Asian’, etc”

Going through the different viewpoints again, I felt that there are two currents: on the one side, there is more awareness of the racial/ethnic/minority theme, while on the other side the internet tends to move those personal characteristics to the background. Online literary magazine are accessible from all places of the world, and in return, are frequented by writers from different nations—and looking through magazines, if you wanted to “group” or “classify” authors, it would be easier to approach this from the formats they work in; yes, there are some magazines that focus on nationality and gender (Lantern Review: A Journal of Asian-American Poetry, Melusine, or Woman in the 21^stCentury), but there are far more magazines that focus on micro fiction, or poetry, or short stories, or multimedia works—or on theme angles like fantasy, metaphysics, or horror. Following this thought, a poet who lives in the countryside probably has more in common with a rural poet in another country than with a horror author who lives in the same country, but in a large city.

Translated to Daily s-Press, this lead to the decision to focus on the writing, and let the authors speak through their books. The categories now start with format (short stories/poetry/novels), then move to ‘technical’ categories (anthologies, e-books, press with e-zine) and also to thematic groups (east/west, about a place, time and space). Here, I again tried to avoid the usual genre classification (romance, SF, crime).

Categories influence the viewpoint—I was reminded of this again when The New Yorker launched their fiction issue in June. Instead of just calling it “Summer Reads,” they titled it: “20 under 40.” And that’s exactly what the reviews and discussions then picked up on: instead of focusing on the stories and authors, the focus moved to the age categorization, and the whole topic of “youth” vs” “aging”. What almost went unnoticed was the fact that the issue came in a fine balance of 10 male and 10 female authors, and with more than 30% non-native writers included. That’s another effect of categories: they define the directly accessible statistics.

NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards

Which now brings me back to Daily s-Press: I didn’t keep track of the number of books and the gender of authors. But this morning, I took the time and did a count. There are 82 books featured in Daily s-Press so far. The gender ratio is almost even: 27 male authors to 25 female authors (the other 30 books are combined works, anthologies, first issues, etc.). I also set up a new search tag: “race + gender + age.” 12 books fit into this group; that’s 14%. And as numbers only give part of the picture, here some of the books, as doorstep to further reading: NO GENDER:NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards (anthology), The Asian-American Literary Review (first issue, with a 20-page introduction on author identity and writing), Traveling with Virginia Woolf by Kristina Marie Darling (e-book), Gaze by Marthe Reed (poetry collection). The  category also includes a feature on the New Yorker “20 under 40” issue.

After going through the Daily s-Press books, I revisited the list of books I read recently. The theme also reflects in quiet a number of titles, not on first glance, but on second: there is anthology of writers from Cuba—some of them live in Cuba, some in exile. Another anthology is from South Africa, with both poc and non-poc writers included. And inspired by a call for revisioned myth and fairy tale (The Velvet Chamber), I returned to my copy of Women who run with Wolves—which I read parallel to Toni Morrison’s A Mercy.

“How have these issues and books affected you as an editor?”  Maybe the choice of theme for the next issue of BluePrintReview gives a direct answer to this question—it will be about identity.

More on Fictionaut

Some highlights: First, Sally Bliumis-Dunn read several crisp and heartfelt poems from her collection “Talking Underwater.” Then Adam Gallari, in from England, read a character sketch of a 6’6” baseball player in the second person, rhythmically accusing the audience of Chasing Adonis. In confident cadence Bridget Bell read an invigorating poem “Our Small Pets,” published in Pedestal Magazine, that says “We named our goldfish Chaos. It lived for a hundred years.” (I had to thank her personally for this particular line. If there’s one thing you read from this list of links, read that poem, preferably aloud.) Anna Lisa McClelland read a well-voiced piece from an unpublished novel, getting perhaps the most laughs out of us. Then finally Caroline Silveira read her playful-wishful-smart “How James Franco Became My Boyfriend”, ending her story and the event with a happy ending.

Afterward I introduced myself to Rofihe and, laughing, he handed me an Anderbo t-shirt. I wear it today with pride.

The “first” online literary magazine was technically Swift Current in 1984. Begun by Frank Davey, Fred Wah, and David Godfrey, Swift Current was a literary database loaded onto a VAX 11-750 computer located at York University in Toronto and made accessible by subscription to personal users and institutions. More of a creative commons than an editor-run literary publication, Swift Current nonetheless served as a forerunner to the online literary magazine.

A decade later in 1995, Mississippi Review Online became the first contemporary online literary magazine, offering original literary content (differing from the print magazine), put together by an editor (Barthelme), and offered up to readers in a designed website. As Barthelme’s intro on the website explains, Rick Magazine is the continuation of what he began online at Mississippi Review. (It should also be taken into account in the history of online lit mags that The Missouri Review had a site a couple of years before this, though it was not as I understand original content.)

Here is Vallie Lynn Watson’s introduction to the Summer 2010 issue—the ‘first” issue—or Rick Magazine: Writing, Place, and Film.

I recently spent a semester in Wilmington, NC—also known as Wilmywood, or Hollywood East—drawn by the scenic background I’d seen in various movies and television shows filmed there over the years.  I wanted to study how film’s use of place could be used with similar effect in fiction writing.  (Only in academia can one get away with calling a six-month vacation in a resort town “research.”)

Playing among these Wilmington film sites and seeing firsthand how setting comes to life as a character of its own inspired the Writing, Film, and Place theme for this issue, though I wasn’t sure, until I started reading submissions, if my idea even made sense.  I chose works that not only refer directly to film, but also pieces that present place in a cinematic manner, realizing how our characters and narrators visualize the world around them reveals as much, if not more, than dialogue.  Ann Beattie’s opening essay “Writing Visually,” explores this idea far better than I can.

This issue would not have been possible without the kindnesses of Melina Reed, Gary Percesepe, Susan Swartwout, and, always, Rick Barthelme.  My thanks.

More on Fictionaut

Marcelle Heath: I’d like to start off by discussing the pleasures and pitfalls of online reading. What are your thoughts regarding reading habits and readership in general?

Timothy Schaffert: When I’m on the computer and I’m online, I’m generally doing fifty things at once. I start reading an article, I follow its links, I remember something I’ve been meaning to look up, so I look it up, then remember something else… in other words, I’m in a constant state of hitting pause, not to reflect, but to meander, to investigate something else. But literature calls for a full immersion; you want to turn yourself over to the author, and follow her lead. So though I do read fiction and poetry online—both new and old—the shorter it is, the more likely I’ll make it to the end of it without flitting away in search of information, or hyper-checking my email, or falling into the gaping maw of Facebook updates. But it’s while I’m online that I most often discover the work that I want to read offline.

Heath: What literary magazines, both print and online, do you see doing great things?

Schaffert: I’ve been rejected at some point by nearly all of them, so that colors my perspective. But it is dizzying how many journals are doing great work—clearly contemporary lit can thrive, even in less prosperous times. I confess to a weakness for the typographical excesses and giddy design schemes of McSweeney’s, which is kind of a literary Barnum-and-Bailey. I’ll probably never get around to reading the issue that’s designed like a newspaper, but I sure do love having it in my possession. The Normal School is a good-looking journal, and I admire the work they’re doing at Electric Literature. I love Fairy Tale Review, though I must disclose that I’m guest-editing an upcoming issue. The mini-books of featherproof books are a refreshing and charming approach to the publishing of short fiction. But, as a Nebraska native, I’d be remiss in not citing some of the literary projects (in addition to Prairie Schooner) with Nebraska origins: Cerise Press is a very classy online journal; both Octopus Magazine (an online poetry journal) and The Cupboard (a print quarterly) have editors who’ve spent some time in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s creative writing program, and the journals have gained national attention. Fine Lines, a journal based in Omaha, started as a teacher’s classroom project and brings a kind of good-spirited democracy to the publishing process.

Prairie Schooner Summer 2010

Heath: Tell us about your position as web editor for Prairie Schooner

Schaffert: Hilda Raz had the foresight to create a position that’s focused on digital development from an editorial perspective rather than a technical one; she has indicated that she wants me to bring a distinctive voice to Prairie Schooner’s online presence, to shape it into something singular and directed, even as it takes on multiple roles. I’m still just getting my feet wet, and picking up on the progress made by the journal’s managing editor, James Engelhardt, but my plan is to assume an editorial role with the blog, structuring it so that it’s offering a running commentary on the state of contemporary lit—and, at times, on the state of classic literature in contemporary culture—with postings from our staff and contributors. I suspect the blog may become a bit more essayistic than is conventional, but we want postings of depth, in the spirit of the print journal. And I’ll join in on other conversations happening at other literary blogs and websites. We’re also working in partnership with the University of Nebraska’s Center for Digital Research in the Humanities on a website that will feature born-digital multimedia work that is informed and influenced by the print journal, past and present. And I’m always trying to figure out how to best use social networking in a way that’s more than just promotion, or to at least keep up with the networks that are most relevant to the magazine’s purposes. But I’m not interested in having our online presence be equal parts everything—so we’ll always remain open to revising our approach as new online avenues emerge and old ones close. And it’s all, ultimately, in service of the print journal.

Heath: How does Prairie Schooner see its role in the changing online literary landscape?

Schaffert: The journal has been continuously publishing since 1926, and it keeps growing, keeps gaining support for its mission. Prairie Schooner will always publish new work by exceptional authors. Among the journal’s readers will be literary agents and book publishers, who will then carry the authors and their work to even more readers.

Heath: How has the economic downturn affected Prairie Schooner as a university affiliate?

Schaffert: Prairie Schooner and its editorship are endowed in perpetuity by the Glenna Luschei Fund for Excellence at Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska Foundation. Which is to say, the journal has great support from individuals such as Glenna Luschei and also from the university, which considers the journal a major part of its commitment to the humanities. And Hilda’s commitment to the journal has had lasting effect. A good editor must do more than just publish good work; she also makes sure the publication is respected and recognized for that good work.

Heath: Prairie Schooner is one of a handful of prestigious journals that only accepts paper submissions. Will Prairie Schooner move to an online submission system like Submishmash?

Schaffert: That conversation comes up every now and again, and the folks who manage the slush pile are aware of the possibilities. But I’ve not heard any specific plans in the works.

Heath: Prairie Schooner has consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious journals in the country. What’s your secret?

Schaffert: If there are any company secrets, they’ve not been revealed to me. But if I were to speculate, I’d guess that, as the journal gained esteem, as its stories and poems were anthologized and awarded, it managed to attract submissions from other serious writers. And once a journal is associated with well-respected authors it becomes catnip for other authors looking to publish their work. The journal can only be as successful as the quality of work it receives. Also, there’s been a loyalty to Prairie Schooner by the authors who published early work in the journal, writers such as Cynthia Ozick, Steve Stern, Maxine Kumin.

Heath: When can we look forward to reading Prairie Schooner’s archives online?

Timothy Schaffert

Schaffert: JSTOR is digitalizing the archives, so we’re hoping the project will be completed soon. Once it is, you’ll be able to access Joyce Carol Oates’ first published story and the last poems published by Charles Bukowski in his lifetime. You’ll be able to read work by Dylan Thomas, Eudora Welty, Rita Dove, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Truman Capote, Toni Cade, Sharon Olds, Raymond Carver, and Cyrus Colter. Over 80 years of literary history.

And Project Muse currently makes current issues available, and issues dating back to 2003.

Heath: I’d like to discuss your eloquent response to Ted Genoways’ “The Death of Fiction?” in Mother Jones, which I’ve reprinted here.

The small literary press has long sought out its smallness. It emerged to publish that work that wouldn’t be published elsewhere, literature without the popular appeal that would warrant substantial publisher investment—in other words, it is by its very design obscure, challenging, and enigmatic. Therefore, a literary journal often relies upon patrons, universities, endowments, grant funding, and other pursuits to fulfill its mission, rather than setting commercial goals and seeking wide readership.

If cultural significance were a factor in the lit journal’s survival, it would have been dead on arrival. Ultimately, the journals provide a suggestion of an aesthetic that doesn’t exist in the otherwise noisy and unsightly culture, the printed page a link to a legacy we respect. Fiction and poetry requires a different level of attention than news and biography; major publications eliminating short fiction from their pages seems less a sign that the end is near than an acknowledgment that the weekly/monthly magazine is better suited to conveying information and opinion than it is at engaging the reader in an artful endeavor. The market for new fiction may be declining, but I’m still overwhelmed by the amount of new work available in books and journals (and often new books contain material that originated in journals).

The threats to university literary journals may have less to do with a recognition of a sudden irrelevance than a short-sightedness on the part of artless bureaucrats faced with the beautifully slim budgets of “publishing” online. Journalism and art have long relied upon a partnership that may not necessarily be beneficial to either; calling for fiction writers to write more like journalists may not be the solution. The mysterious appeal of poetry and fiction, the romantic nature of the writing and reading of it, the desire to publish your work and the work of others, drives a commitment to the literary journal’s longevity and its quiet role in giving voice to the imagination.

The question of cultural relevance definitely hit a nerve with many writers and editors, especially the notion that writers and editors were disengaged with the public sphere, when in truth most rely on other means of income to write in the first place. Any thoughts about the vociferous response to the article?

Schaffert: When a mainstream publication concerns itself with literary matters, it tends to get the rapt attention of writers and editors. The Mother Jones article was clear and to-the-point; but it was also relatively short, so it invited debate and speculation. It’s been a while since I’ve read the responses, but I seem to recall people debating many different aspects of the essay—even making Genoways’ salary a point of contention. So people were responding not only to what was being said, but challenging his authority to say it. But often the surest way to incite an arts community is to take the stance of a cultural scold, to tell artists they care about the wrong things. Surely all writers have at least once been told—by an editor, a teacher, a family member—that they shouldn’t be writing about what they’re writing about. Your writing is too domestic, its characters aren’t worthy of literature, it’s too fabulist or it’s too realist, it’s too cold or it’s too sentimental, it’s too domestic or it’s too political. And in the case of the Mother Jones piece, it’s the very life of all literature that’s presumably at stake. And I think if you write phrases like “most American writers,” you’re probably going to get people flustered. It’s difficult to make generalizations about the publishing community, or to even identify it as a community, because I can’t imagine it humanly possible to read everything new that’s put in print. It’s probably not possible to read even a fraction of everything that’s new. You could have a very productive year reading incredibly inspiring work that was never reviewed in any major publications. If there’s a problem with contemporary fiction, it’s not a dearth of good work, but the glut of it. I’m not sure how you’d even go about beginning to characterize the writing public—as Genoways points out, the writing programs are churning writers out by the thousands. But at the heart of his essay was a twinge of nostalgia I could appreciate—he wants contemporary literature to matter more to the general public, and in his mind the fault rests with the writers and publishers. In my mind it rests with the general public. But for me to say that is to make one of those sweeping generalizations, I suppose. Ultimately people will discuss that Mother Jones piece for some time to come—just as I sit here discussing it still—which seems to suggest that, even if fiction is indeed dead, we’re still quite preoccupied with taking its temperature.

Heath: What’s Prairie Schooner’s vision in the next five years?

Schaffert: After over 20 years at the helm of the journal, Hilda Raz is leaving. Since she just launched her website, I hesitate to say that she’s retiring; I’m sure she has many projects in the works. Because Hilda was also a professor of poetry in the creative writing program, the search is on for another accomplished poet, editor, and teacher, and that person will be envisioning the magazine’s future, based on the foundation built by Hilda and the editors before her.

My mother liked to remind me that at the age of four I left a garden party one rainy afternoon with my toothbrush in my fist, fully intending a life of exploration, only to be returned later that afternoon by the postman. Her version of the story emphasized the boundaries that her daughter refused to accept. Mine was about the emancipation I felt when I closed the gate latch behind me and left everyone in my wake, and the world came to meet me like a wave.

On April 1, 1930, the first night of my newest expedition, I had a walled garden overarched by thick trees all to myself, and still was unable to sleep. I considered rousing my muleteer early but summoned just enough self-discipline to let him rest.

Orion wheeled slowly over the village roofs, and the wind stirred the wraith of a dust storm. I lay listening to the soft and granulating sound of the fall of fine particles. In the starlight I could see the mica in the sand as it gathered on my palms…

Armchair/Shotgun #2

New York City based literary magazine Armchair/Shotgun is looking for a new graphic & book designer:

Job Posting: Graphic and Book Designer

Armchair/Shotgun is seeking a graphic and book designer to assist in
the design, layout, and production of a Brooklyn-based literary
magazine which twice yearly publishes (on paper!) exemplary new
fiction, poetry, and visual arts.

Responsibilities:
- Layout of 150-page literary magazine twice yearly, including
typesetting, cover design, and interior design elements consistent
with existing design template and style.
- Design of supplementary materials such as posters, promo cards, etc.
- Coordination with printer on specs and prepress; approval of printer’s proofs.
- Assistance with coordination of visual arts.

Requirements:
- Strong working knowledge of typography and book design.
- Fluency in Adobe InDesign CS3 or above.
- Fluency in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator CS3 or above.
- Strong working knowledge of prepress color management and file management.
- Strong skills in prepress preparation of visual material (color and
file standards).

An ideal candidate will also have these qualifications:
- Commitment to building community by finding, publishing, and getting
to know emerging artists and writers.
- Interest in and knowledge of photography, painting, drawing, and multi-media.
- Flexible schedule (workload is heavy for 6-8 weeks at a time twice a
year, occasional at other times).

Location: Tri-state area, preferably New York City. The designer will
work from home on his or her own schedule, but should be able to
attend occasional evening and weekend meetings in Brooklyn and
Manhattan.

Compensation: This is an unpaid position as a member of an
all-volunteer magazine staff.

Timeframe: Immediate. Designer will begin coordinating with current
designer as soon as possible and assume primary  responsibilities in
August 2010.

Please send a cover letter and work samples (files or links) to
info@armchairshotgun.com. Work will be reviewed on a rolling basis
until we find the right person.

For more information, please contact info@armchairshotgun.com or visit
us on the web at:
www.armchairshotgun.com
www.armchairshotgun.wordpress.com
www.facebook.com/pages/Brooklyn-NY/ArmchairShotgun/302138571610?ref=ts