Editor Interview: Birdcoat Quarterly

We publish serious play.

Ninth Letter, Publishing Genius, Penny

Yusef Komunyakaa, Ryo Yamaguchi, Dorothea Lasky, Mary Ruefle, Some People You Ain't Never Heard Of, Ross Gay, Brandon Courtney.
For art, we like Cosmo Whyte, Dolan Cyr, Stephanie Dowda, Kahn & Selesnick, Alex Kuno, and Some People You Ain't Never Heard Of.

Care, Design, Intelligence. We put a lot of thought into the interplay of design & art & literature. We invite readers to come with us.

Polish is very important, regardless of what you're doing. We aren't sloppy. Whatever you're working on, do it with gusto and effort, avoid being shy or ashamed, put yourself in the center.

The ideal submission, the IDEAL, is something that unintentionally interacts beautifully with the visual art and the other pieces around it. That isn't expected. We end up having to reject quality work, but the best submissions are ready for print.

The only thing that I would say is "wrong" is that submitters occasionally respond to rejection emails with frustration or a desire to engage in greater depth. We aren't equipped to do that. Our attention has to be on the journal itself. Who knows why something didn't get in? Submit again later. Try something different.

This isn't as important to us, though we always love to hear from people we have met face to face at a conference or festival. In the cover letter, we do have a look at bios, in part because we like to publish at least several emerging writers in each issue.

We are generous with our submissions. We read what's sent to us.

Our editors and assistant editors read each submission and vote on it. Work that has positive votes gets sent to the "editorial table" where it's discussed. Then, we decide what to take. If an editor feels that a piece is an obvious take, it'll get sent directly to me right away. In this way, we try not to lose it to another journal.

Our editorial team is tight knit, and I'm in touch with everybody about the pieces in Submittable. I'll get a text that says, "read this, it blew me away"... if I'm slammed I'll just text back, "take it" and then read it as soon as I can. Most of us are in Atlanta, and we sometimes meet up and read, or I'll meet with a genre editor and go through some pieces literally on the editorial table.

Not much. We hardly touch poetry--only obvious errors. Essays, however, might get a few suggestions. We won't accept a piece if we think it has obvious flaws.

Yes. We go to bat for our writers on social media as well. We also have internal awards, such as the Red Lobster Prize, an editors' choice for the best piece in a given issue.