Editor Interview: The Forge Literary Magazine

Thought-provoking prose

wigleaf, FriGG, Hobart, Santa Monica Review, Monkeybicycle, Matchbook, Necessary Fiction, American Short Fiction, One Story, Michigan Quarterly Review, Confrontation, and New Letters among many others.

The tastes of our editors is quite diverse, and we couldn't really come up with a definitive list. Among our favorites, however, are:
Elizabeth Stroud
Hilary Mantel
Anthony Doerr
George Saunders
and Roxane Gay, who is one of our great heroes for the grace that she brings to everything she does.

Being writers ourselves, one of our goals is to be as author-friendly as we can. To this end, we respond quickly, provide feedback when possible, and we pay for accepted work.

We are a new publication, but we do have high standards. Please send us your very best work.

We feel that the best literature manages to include excellence in all aspects: originality, plotting and pace, interesting writing and thoughtful themes.
We tend not to favor endings with big twists or punchlines, cliches and tropes, and typos.
Make us feel something, whether it's sadness, hilarity or joy.

We read anonymously, and so we ask that any identifying information be removed from submitted manuscripts. This is the thing that authors most frequently neglect to do.

We read all of our submissions anonymously. We don't want our evaluation of a manuscript to be swayed either by a writer's earlier successes or the fact that they are unpublished. Most of our readers don't even have access to the cover letters, and we like it that way.

We try to read every piece to the end. I think we are all optimists at heart--we want a story to succeed. And even if it seems like things are going badly, we all hold out hope that the author will pull it out in those last paragraphs.

Our editorial process is a little bit different from most publications. We assign each story to two readers. A reader can vote "yes", "no", or "maybe". If a story gets at least one maybe it is sent to a third reader. One yes or two maybes will see the story sent on to the editors at large. These stories form the pool from which our Editors of the Month make their selections.

Reading the slush, hoping for gems.

This varies widely, depending on the piece and the editor. Most work is accepted as-is, with standard proofreading being the our only intervention in a manuscript. However sometimes we get a story that is teetering right on the edge of greatness, and in that case one of our editors might choose to work with the author to tighten things up a bit. Of course, the author gets the final say in whatever is eventually published.

Yes. We nominate our favorite work for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, the Best American series, and the Million Writers award.