Editor Interview: Inkwell Journal

new unheard voices

Poets & Writers maintains a list of several hundred small presses. I might want to delete one or two from that list but why bother. Any publication that ventures into these waters deserves my admiration.

My taste in fiction ranges from Voltaire to John Irving with a special place for Virginia Woolf. As far as poets go, I don't have any particular favorites - I like them all.

I think its our attention to details, plus our reputation formed over the past fifteen years. Because we're staffed by graduate students, editors change every year but somehow we've managed, very well I think, to maintain and improve on the quality of the writing that distinguished the first issues.

Pay attention to the guidelines. Don't try to catch my eye with gimmicks like special paper or a fancy cover letter. Just give me good solid writing.

Arrives in a 9x12 manilla envelope with a self addressed stamped business envelope and 1-page cover letter paperclipped to the submission. No staples. The work itself should grab me from the first stanza/paragraph and everything should tell a story - that is, have a beginning, middle and end.

I must say most submitters get it right, but those who don't might submit something without that very important return envelope, or they forget to include a cover letter, or they submit their work outside our reading period. Occasionally we get a handwritten submission which, unfortunately, we can't accept.

We ask our submitters to leave their personal info off the work, so the cover letter is very important. Our process separates the work from the cover letter and codes them so that once we've made a decision we can locate the cover letter. It's important to have name, address, email address and perhaps a phone number. It's also important to list what you've submitted. As far as previous publications go, it doesn't matter. The only time I'll need that information is if we use a writer's work and then it goes in the "Contributor's Notes."

I would like to tell you we read everything from beginning to end, but we don't. It's not like I'm going to go back and ask the author to make changes, so it has to be good - no, great - right from the beginning. If it isn't I toss it. Let me tell you, it's depressing to spend hours reading work that's less than good.

Each poem and story are read four times minimum. First a couple readers, then the editor responsible for the genre, and finally myself. Then at a certain point we all sit down, usually with an editorial advisor, and spend a day (from 9 am to 5 pm) reading and arguing and eating pizza. When we're done, we've got a book.

My job is mostly finding ways of promoting the publication, but a lot of my time is taken up with answering emails and letters. But before I leave the office I usually pick up a packet (30 poems or 15 short stories) to read during the evenings when I don't have homework.