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Editor Interview: ANMLY

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

A: Secrets & manifestos

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

A: Right now, my favorites are Apogee Journal, Rigorous, Nat. Brut, Winter Tangerine, Blueshift Journal, Dorothy, Waxwing, Yellow Medicine Review, Obsidian, Cloudthroat, Grist, Underblong, LIT, The Margins, Queer Southeast Asia, Black Napkin, and The Wanderer.

Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?

A: Layli Song Solider and Don Mee Choi are always on my mind. I'd love to read someone who can write the way Nobuyoshi Araki approaches photography. Craig Santos Perez, Michael Wasson, Sherrie Flick, jayy dodd, KOKUMO, and Natalie Eilbert have been my major recommendations this past year.

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

A: We challenge the canon, and have a grassroots commitment to justice, without being a journal with a "social justice" theme, per se. We also work with translation and visual arts more than similar publications tend to. I never want someone to read one of our issues, and know what's coming. Because we have special folios in each issue, we have the opportunity to touch on topics like writing by neurodivergent queer and trans people of color, or writing from the Caribbean, or speculative fiction in translation.
We publish more hybrid and experimental work, but are interested in meaningful experimentation. Form for form's sake is less interesting to us than form that innovates, or makes something inside of the author burn brighter. We also refuse to accept that experimental work can't also be lyric, confessional, or multimodal. I'm generally interested in interrogation and deconstruction, personally.

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

A: Reading some of our previous issues will always be the best advice. Send us work you believe in. Take risks. Be you.

Q: Describe the ideal submission.

A: I read your writing, I burst into flames. These flames engulf the earth. Or, these flames fix the ozone layer, or something.

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

A: Some people think we're just being nice when we turn down their work, but invite them to send new work in the future. We always mean it when we say this! Also, we don't accept submissions via email. And please, never address us as "Dear Sirs."

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

A: We don't care about your past. We just want to be your future. If you're doing persona work, or writing something more conceptual, an artist's statement or note of intent can be helpful.

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

A: Of course we read the whole piece!

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

A: Sometimes I go up to the roof and shout the piece at the moon, just to be sure.

Q: What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?

A: You don't want to know.

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

A: Please beam poems into my body.

Q: How much do you edit an accepted piece prior to publication?

A: We don't tend to edit poetry very much. More poets work with editors or do peer swaps before sending in work, I think. Prose tends to at least receive copy editing. If we think a piece could be made stronger, we'll let you know. We only ever want to publish the best version of your work.

Q: Do you nominate work you've published for any national or international awards?

A: We do! We currently nominate for Bettering American Poetry, the Pushcart, Best of the Net, the Saboteur Awards, Firecracker Awards, Best Small Fictions, and several more specific awards and anthologies.