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Editor Interview: Great Weather for Media Anthology Series

Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.

A: The unpredictable

Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?

A: So many. Three Rooms Press, Punk Hostage, Canarium, Fence, [PANK], Ugly Duckling Presse, to name just a few.

Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?

A: Formed in early 2012, we publish innovative poetry, flash fiction, short stories, dramatic monologues, creative fiction, and the not-yet classified from writers around the world. We love organizing literary and musical events - across the United States and beyond - to promote the press and our contributors, and pride ourselves on being both approachable and professional. All the editors are writers themselves. We also hold a weekly reading series in New York City with features and an open mic. Find us at the Parkside Lounge every Sunday, 4 - 6 pm.

Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?

A: As always, read the guidelines. We accept first-timers and writers with years of publishing credits. Please don't send novels or anything else outside the guidelines.
Read your work carefully before submitting. And then read it again and again. Lose sloppy errors.
Take a proper look at our website and the writers we have previously published, order one of our books,or attend a reading. Get a sense of what we are about and whether your work is a good fit.

Q: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?

A: Submitting multiple pieces at once. Insisting we publish their poetry in their chosen font. Ignoring the word count.

Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?

A: A polite cover letter is always appreciated - a mention of how you found us is helpful. No threats or histrionics please! If you are not well-published, no need to pretend - we love discovering new voices. A bio can contain facts like you enjoy open mics, have a poetry blog, have a really interesting personal history or occupation, or just give us a couple of entertaining lines. A list of previous publishing credits interests us (and we find we often learn of new journals and small presses this way), but the work is judged on its own merit. An aggressive or insulting letter will not make us warm to you though.

Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?

A: We always read to the end unless the work is in a foreign language or is incomprehensible and poor. The first few paragraphs of a short story usually show if the style or genre is not right for us, however we do have several editors reading and we all have our own opinions.

Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?

A: We have several poetry editors who read the work as it comes in and vote whether it should go to the second round. All the next rounds are discussed between the editors over several weeks. A lot of work takes a few readings to sink in. Also we may like several pieces by a writer and we only decide which to take once the feel of the book begins to emerge. It is painful to reject work that has reached the final stage. Often it is excellent but too similar in tone or subject to another piece. Sometimes we feel it would need too many editorial interventions, or the formatting is not thought out enough. We have a guest prose editor each year who creates a shortlist which the main editors then select from.

Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?

A: Hugely important. Electronic submissions, through Submittable, make it easy for all the editors to read the work. We have an active facebook and twitter presence. Equally we appreciate our contributors promoting us through their own social networks. Poetry is still a problem for e-books but we are keeping an eye on developments.