Editor Interview: The Blotter Magazine

Fine pieces others missed

McSweeney's - because it has courage to take on scary book projects. You know when they put their name on it, it's worth your dough-re-mi. The Sun (Chapel Hill) - because it's quietly stuck to its guns for 4 decades. A beautiful magazine of words. F&SF - because it has weathered changes in taste within its genre over many years and still come up swinging. The Missouri Review - it is what an academic literary magazine should be, not taste-maker but an advocate of finest craftsmanship. Bancroft Press (Baltimore) - a good little book-press. I just like underdogs.

out-on-the-edge of writing Mark Z. Danielewski, epic-novelist Dan Simmons, philosophy professor Ron Cooper, Holly Day (poet out of Minneapolis), blogger Joe Buonfiglio, NC storytellers Charles Frazier and Ron Rash, poet-songwriter Paul Allen. Patiently waiting for second novel by Amanda Coplin (The Orchardist) and next work by Laura Hillenbrand. Will re-read Joseph Heller, Howard Fast, Humphrey Cobb, and keep my Complete Wallace Stevens on bedside table.

We put out a free, sixteen page (1/2 color), pulp paper, issue each month: 8000 copies distributed in some fine cities in the US South, and a few other places, too. We place a copy of each issue on our website, and keep an archive of all copies out there as well. Some art, a story or two, some poems, an essay or a short author or artist interview. The occasional book review (about something you should have read a while ago!) We call it a single-sitting reader. One cup of coffee won't go quite cold while you indulge yourself. Sometimes I am surprised at the caliber of writers that submit to us - they are world-class, and they come from all over to be with us - and we're just a little monthly thing on a shelf near the front door. What sets us apart? Can it be as simple as us being free?

We're nice people - we understand if you don't follow the "submitting your writing in the English Speaking World" guidelines perfectly. Try to have a subject on the subject line - it keeps my computer from dumping it into the spam file. Otherwise, just do your best. Write your best. Tell the truth the best way you know how.

A pleasant note with an attachment in a doc file that contains a story that makes me smile because I was surprised - by the word-choices, by the honesty. I will respond with a note that thanks you for sharing your work with us, what I liked about it, and if I plan to publish it, when I will do so. I will ask for a short biography, if you haven't already included such information, and let you know that I will send you courtesy copies when we go to print, with the hopes that the two words "to print" bring some level of pleasure to you.

Not much. The world is often too rigid, and that's not what we're about. I suppose the worst thing is forgetting to attach the attachment, but that can be fixed with a note. Once I received a contest entry with no name or address on it, and had to do a reverse search for the e-mail's owner. That was exciting. We try to not take our role so seriously that it overshadows that the writers are exposing themselves to us in the most personal of ways, and make mistakes doing so. Little mistakes that can be overlooked, if we want.

Whatever they want to reveal to us. Cover letters are fun, biographies are useful. I do like to know what people have accomplished.

All of it. We like to tell folks what we think they did right, and what didn't work for us - just a little bit of what we hope is useful information. Of course, that's extremely personal, and high-risk. It's best if one has read all of something before reaching conclusions.

We have one factor that has come up from time to time: if we suspect that a serious, thoughtful piece will be perceived as satire by our readers, we will group-think it to determine if this is a risk, and gently reject it on that point. Almost everything else is editorially game.

Reading. Reading, coffee. Reading, some writing, more reading. Looking at beautiful pictures. Selecting beautiful pictures. Feeding the ducks and geese. Taking notes. Sending rejections. Sending acceptances! Printing some things out so I can sit in a different chair and read them. Two or three days a month: layout! Proofreading with the gang! Looking the final copy in PDF format. Uploading to the printer's e-mail address. Talking on the phone with my webmaster. Talking on our weekly radio show (Tuesdays at 10PM EST on wcomfm.org). Taking a walk outside. Sitting on the swing, listening to the birds. Looking at the trees and the sky and, and, and...