Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.
A: short literary fiction
Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?
A: Well this changes all the time, but reliable standbys are: AGNI, Boulevard, The Kenyon Review, The Normal School, One Story, Ploughshares, A Public Space, Split Lip Magazine & Press, Witness
Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?
A: Also changes all the time: Laila Lalami, Victor LaValle, Rebecca Makkai, Carmen Maria Machado, Elizabeth McCracken, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jesmyn Ward, Colson Whitehead
Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?
A: At CRAFT we read short and flash fiction with a focus on the elements of craft, the art of fiction. We love when a writer teaches us something or surprises us with their use of an element or elements. We do not charge fees for our short and flash fiction submissions, and we pay our authors. We value accessibility and so keeping CRAFT free to read and free to submit to is important to us. With each accepted piece, we publish a craft essay by the author that explores their writing process.
Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?
A: Please read work from our fiction archive to get a sense of our tastes, our evolution, and what we have recently published, and please read the guidelines. Rejections are hard for us, too. Really. We accept fewer than 0.5% of the pieces submitted to us, and have to decline truly excellent work all the time.
Q: Describe the ideal submission.
A: A story that opens in scene and grounds us in time and place by the time we turn the first page. Characters who stick with us long past the first read. Dialogue that develops character. Plot. That emotional something that makes us want to go right back to the beginning and read the story again.
Q: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?
A: We have a pretty flexible submission process and are open all the time with no submission fees. It is very rare for us to decline something because it's noncompliant. We are exclusively a fiction market, so we turn away nonfiction and critical essays about craft in nonfiction and poetry books. Do we want your piece in TNR 12 pt double-spaced? Yes we do! It is the easiest to read. Will we read your single-spaced piece in Arial? Yes we will, but you can help us by making it easy to read your work.
Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?
A: We tend to read the cover letter after the piece. Publication credits are not very important, as we love to publish both new and established writers. The presence of a brief, personal, professional cover letter can lend insight into what the potential editorial process would be with a submitter, but in no way makes or breaks a decision.
Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?
A: We read the whole piece.
Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?
A: Most pieces are initially evaluated by a single first reader. About 20% of randomly selected stories are initially evaluated by a small team of first readers who discuss the piece. Any story that comes out of the first read with an equivocal or positive vote goes to a second reader and/or section editor(s), and then to the associate editor and editor in chief. At the minimum, an accepted piece has been read by three of us. I compile my notes with those of the readers and editors and use them in the first round of developmental edits with the author.
Q: What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?
A: This is one of two half-time jobs for me, alongside a few smaller gigs (the romantic freelance life). I devote two long full days to CRAFT each week, plus odd hours here and there on the other days. On a full day, I might start with some reading, then some editing while I'm most fresh, then the weekly assignments for our readers and editors, followed by tidying up in Submittable, and then filling the social media dock with posts for a few days, then some WordPress work like building pages for the stories. When putting in a ten-hour day, I find it very helpful to change up the work every hour or so.
Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?
A: Technology is critical to our process. We are an online journal. We use all the usual suspects, including Submittable, Wordpress, Buffer, the social media platforms, and G Suite. To stay organized, I rely on Asana and Airtable. Online publishing increases access. Not only is it free to submit to CRAFT, it is free to read CRAFT. We're excited to embrace technology and amplify voices.
Q: How much do you edit an accepted piece prior to publication?
A: Almost all stories receive substantive edits. Some pieces require very little, but many go three or more rounds of extensive developmental, line, and copyedits. We certainly agree on a final draft with the author.
Q: Do you nominate work you've published for any national or international awards?
A: Yes! Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, various PEN awards... basically everything we can find to nominate for. We love our writers and want to see their words in more places.