Editor Interview: Glass Poetry Press

Beautiful words & worlds.

Hyacinth Girl Press, Hermeneutic Chaos Press, Sibling Rivalry Press, dancing girl press, Red Bird Chapbooks, Two of Cups Press, Imaginary Friend Press, all the ones I'm forgetting.

Saeed Jones, Peter LaBerge, Khaty Xiong, Ariel Francisco, Steven Sanchez, Jennifer Givhan, Kate Fadick, Jennifer Met, Roy Guzman, Sarah Ghoshal, Anna Meister, Shara McCallum, Danez Smith, Fatimah Asghar, Chen Chen, Alison Stine.

I strive to create beautiful looking books to compliment the beautiful poems. I work with the authors to select and design the covers. I try to ensure a clean, readable font. And I strive to ensure my authors never feel taken advantage of. There is no requirement or pressure on authors to purchase copies and all authors, in addition to their comp copies, are offered additional copies at cost.

Read the chapbooks I publish. Read the journal Glass publishes. Read other chapbooks and books and journals published elsewhere. Then (and during) write. Write something unexpected. Write something I never thought I'd like and do it so well that I can't help but fall in love with it.

Clean, clear font. Well organized. Follows the basic guidelines. Amazes me within the first few lines and never lets go. It really comes down to the poems - wow me with the poems and there's a good chance I'll want to share them with readers.

They withdraw their manuscript so they can fix a typo or so they can make a revision and then they resubmit it. Those really should be taken care of before submitting but, I know, sometimes things happen. But I'm limited by submittable as to how many submissions I can receive and every time someone submits, withdraws and resubmits, that means another author doesn't have a chance to submit and that's not fair. Rather than withdraw and resubmit, just add a note in submittable.

I like to know stuff. I mean, we're people and it's always good to remember that, especially as an editor. It keeps me humble to remember that people are sharing their work with me. But I don't look at that info until after I've read the submission and made a decision.

All of it. But I usually know pretty quickly whether it is appropriate for the press.

I read it. I read it again. I read it and ask myself how badly do I want to share this with the world?

There's not much behind the scenes - it's just me so it's a process of reading the work, reading it multiple times, usually over multiple days to see if my reaction is the same. And then I make my final decision.

That depends on the piece. If it has the potential but needs a little work, I'm happy to be a part of that process. But it is done on a case by case basis. Many don't need work and are ready. Some need a little work and some need more. If I think it's going to be worth that work - if I believe in the project enough - I'll put in as much work as necessary.