Editor Interview: North Carolina Literary Review

provocative NC writing

Southern Review, Southern Cultures, storySouth, and Algonquin Books. I also appreciate Press 53 of Winston-Salem, NC, for bringing neglected writers like John Ehle back into print.

As editor of the North Carolina Literary Review, I could get into a lot of trouble for answering this question, so I am going to limit my response to non-NC writers--and say Tim Gautreaux of Louisiana.

Our unique design

Read the submission guidelines--and that goes for submitting to any publication. I am regularly surprised by how many people apparently don't consult guidelines. We receive submissions from non-North Carolina writers at least once a month, in spite of all of our guidelines and listings indicating we only publish NC-related writers. I would also ask writers to subscribe to the publications in which they want to see their work published. I realize you can't subscribe to every magazine, but every writer should subscribe to some.

My favorite submissions are interviews that introduce a new writer and essays that reintroduce a neglected writer. I am also pleased when I notice that a submission comes from someone who supports our publication as a subscriber.

We still receive some non-NC submissions, some print submissions, and most often, poetry and fiction submitted outside of our contests. In order to spread the reading periods out, we only read creative writing during our various genres' competition periods.

We request biographical information only for use if we accept the submission for publication and to verify the author's North Carolina connection. Our readers consider the submissions blindly, so only the editor can see the author's publication credits. And we enjoy publishing someone's first story or poem as much as we appreciate the opportunity to publish work by some of North Carolina's literary stars.

Unless a submission is very poorly written, our readers do read them through to the end.

For creative writing, we have preliminary screeners with expertise in the genre. From their selections, associate editors narrow down to the number of finalists the final judge has agreed to read. And then a final judge selects honorees, which are guaranteed publication, while the editor and associate editors determine which other finalists we will publish.
For other content, we have preliminary screeners and then expert readers for those submissions that make it through screening. The editor ultimately makes the final decision, although I do not waste my readers' time: if they recommend publication, it is very unlikely that I would then reject a submission. Conversely, if they do not recommend a piece, it is unlikely that I will read it unless the idea of it is particularly appealing to me and the reader perceives some potential after revision. We are willing to work with writers on revising interviews and essays that we like, particularly when they fit our special feature section theme.

Other members of the staff work on the submissions process, so my day is divided between working with students on formatting tasks and editing: either working through an essay to insert revision recommendations or reading, rereading, re-re-reading content forthcoming in the next issue. I read and edit it at every stage of production, and at every stage, as the contents looks different on the page (from Word to our publishing program to the designed copy), something different that needs revision reveals itself. Also, I am reading to consider what images will go with the submission.

We do "provide substantive editing, line editing, copy editing, and/or basic proofreading." The author gets to approve the final edits.

The winners of our creative writing contests are included among our Pushcart Prize nominations. We also submit fiction we publish for the O.Henry award. And we select from the creative writing in our online issues for Best of the Net.