Editor Interview: Mason Jar Press

Accessible Avant-garde

We're a big fan of all the cutting-edge magazines, journals and publishers that push the boundaries of art. We love places that admire craft and form while having a sense of humor. We want to read work that breathes and makes us think and challenge what writing is.
A non-comprehensive lists of other places we adore:
Publishing Genius
Civil Coping Mechanisms
Split Lip Press
Barrelhouse
Hobart
Third Point Press
Smokelong Quarterly
SFWP
jmww
Electric Literature

We love a lot of writers, so this is a tricky question. How do we list everyone we like without feeling like we're leaving someone out? It's kind of mean to ask us this! Especially because who we read isn't necessarily tied into who we want to publish. Michael Tager (the Managing Editor) reads mostly genre fiction, like David Brin, George RR Martin, Ursula K LeGuin. I'm not actually much of a reader, though I'm influenced a lot by Raymond Carver. But we don't want to publish anything like those authors!
I'd say our big influences in publishing are poets like William Carlos Williams, Lucille Clifton and short story writers like Lorrie Moore.

Mason Jar Press toes the line between what the masses can appreciate and challenging art. We're not interested in mainstream literature, stuff that's been done to death. We might want to read that, but we don't want to publish it. And conversely, the Avant-garde that's REALLY out there, I mean, who's it for? We don't want to put out stuff that 10 other writers want to read. We don't want to be the publishing equivalent of Sonic Youth (Michael really likes them, FYI).
We want real people to read what we publish, but we want to make them think. I don't know how many presses have that particular population in mind. And we're not bound by form and genre. We've published anthologies, nonfiction. We're currently seeking submissions for a LGBTQ-themed Urban Fantasy called Broken Metropolis (until December 2017). It's highly specific, but also universal. It's an exciting project!

First of all, it really comes down to the work. Write fire and then edit your fire into diamond...fire (metaphors are hard). If you aren't sending us your best, we're going to pass, simple as that. But there are other things to do.
Everyone says this, but read the submission guidelines. So many people miss the mark. If we're looking for LGBTQ urban fantasy fiction, don't send us poetry. Just...don't.
But besides that, buy a book and read it. See what we're publishing and try to wrap your head around it to see if your writing fits. Follow us on Twitter, follow our writers on Twitter. See what they're writing. And check out mine and Michael's writing. We both publish and we edit other places. In other words, do your research and due diligence. It'll make your chances better.

Fire. Well-edited fire that's a little weird but ultimately accessible.

Gosh, everything. We recently had open submissions for manuscripts and people sent us a single flash fiction. Not sure what they thought was going to happen, but those were easy rejections.
Right now, for Broken Metropolis, we're getting a lot of submissions, but it's obvious some people didn't closely read the submissions. The theme isn't LGBTQ or it's not urban fantasy, but like dragons. It's good writing, but it's not meeting what we're asking for. We're willing and excited to help revise/edit, but if it isn't even close, we're not going to publish it or expend the effort. It needs to be in the ballpark.
Otherwise, people send in fonts and whatnot we hate. Those aren't deal-breakers, but not following directions is a bad sign. Because publishing a book is a long collaborative process, and disregarding guidelines is simply a red flag that you're difficult to work with. If you refuse to get the font right, which is easy, what happens when we ask you to remove a short story from the collection, or we want you to pass the Bechdel test?
Oh, aggressive cover letter are pretty much an auto-rejection. Don't be mean.

We typically skim the cover letter to see if you followed directions before we dip into the work, but it doesn't matter up front because the writing is the most important. If we're not interested, we're not interested. After we're intrigued by a work, then we'll read the cover letter a bit more closely and then do a Google search. Not for publication credits, but to make sure you're on the up and up. There are reasons we'd choose not to publish someone, mostly if they're involved with organizations that we're all out on. We haven't had that happen yet.
Publication credits don't mean a ton to us for publication purposes. If a piece is exactly, 100% equal in all respects and one person received the Pultizer prize or something and the other person was published in a single genre magazine seven years ago, maybe that'd tip the scale. BUT writing is never exactly equal and the work that's amazing will always, always win.

For the first round of reading, if we're not interested in continuing reading after a chapter or two (if it's a novel), or a couple short stories or poems (if it's a collection), we're probably going to reject it. We usually know sooner, because we've been in the game for awhile now, but we want to give everything a fair shake. Out litmus test is simply do we want to read more. If we do, we kick it up to the next level, where we read further and further. And if we forget that we're reading a submission and get drawn into it, that's a damned good sign.

We're devoted to diversity of all kinds and want to make sure the writing is as well. For example, writing needs to pass the Bechdel test and the Mako Mori test. And if you don't know what those are, you'll probably fail those tests. And if you fail those tests, it won't make it through the process.

Both Michael and I have day jobs, so that has to be taken under consideration. Most writers and editors have side hustles if we're being honest (if we're being more honest, the writing and editing and publishing IS the side hustle) and our time is precious to us. We have families and spouses and kids and friends and all of them are priorities. That being said, we LOVE this stuff.
Michael is probably the more active writer and editor. He edits for another journal and has a couple freelance gigs, with designated days and times where he's working on Mason Jar or he's editing book reviews or writing his own stuff. Deadlines are helpful for us because we'd be under water if we didn't have some sort of order. We meet regularly to talk about our goals and benchmarks that need to be made. And we meet with our authors and editors regularly as well. We just had a meeting with Dave Ring, our editor for Broken Metropolis, last week about submissions and adjusting timelines. In two days we're talking to Dave K about his book release--the Bong-Ripping Brides of Count Drogado. And next week we're talking to one of our new authors who we signed from open submissions, Erin Dorney.
Too many meetings, but what can you do?
Writing is also all about community, so we're going to readings and conferences as much as we can. We're both introverts, but social introverts. We enjoy talking to people but crowds exhaust us. How cliche.

It's a collaborative process and we are hands-on. We've given lots of editing to all of our books thus far and anticipate more with our new authors. Developmental editing of course, but also nitty gritty line edits. Neither Michael nor myself are particular wonderful line editors, though we're competent, but our associate editors are ballers at it. But both of us are very good developmental editors. And EVERYTHING is run by the author. We'll make them justify when they want to ignore us, but we're not monsters and if it's a point of contention, we'll usually defer to the artist.
Our process thus far has been:
Round 1: broad notes (what's working, what's not, areas to expand/cut, etc.). This is where we'll ask for new poems, new chapters.
Round 2: narrower developmental edits (flesh out this scene, expand this character/theme/poem style more)
Round 3: general line edits for clunky language, go through and edit out words like "just" or "was" or "things."
Round 4: hardcore copy edits
Round 5: formatting
Round 6: one last go-round

We have just started to. We're still young and just now taking new editors on, because we didn't have the time or energy to nominate work like we wanted to. But now we have an expanding staff and are able to nominate our books. Thankfully. Our authors are amazing and deserve all of the awards. All of them.