Editor Interview: Funicular Magazine

We go for the knockout.

Popshot, Wigleaf, Jellyfish Review, Feathertale, Prism, Glass Buffalo, Filling Station, F(r)iction.

Italo Calvino, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hemingway, Elena Ferrante, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Salman Rushdie, Denis Johnson, Kathy Fish

The three things we see as differentiators are that we are committed to blind judging to remove as much of our bias as possible, we offer editorial feedback from both editors and a one-week response option for a very small fee (we also offer free submissions), and that, currently, we are a very small publishing team which means that every piece submitted is considered by both editors and is not vetted by pre-readers.

It's common advice, but it's important to read what we've already published (either online or in print). This will give you an idea of whether your work will fit in our magazine. Reading our guidelines is also critical. We judge blind so if we see a name on your submission we can't consider it. Finally, just because we allow for multiple submissions, that doesn't always benefit your submission. Choose your best work and send it to us. Less is, almost always, more.

I'm not sure there is an "ideal" submission. If there was a blueprint for writing none of us would be doing this. What we love is writing that leaves us breathless by the end. We often talk about the "gut punch" effect. We want to feel like you just smashed us in the stomach. How you deliver that blow is entirely up to you. It's different every time.

Don't leave your names on your submissions! As said earlier, we judge blind and if we see your name we can't consider your work. Second, if you don't know the magazine go to our website. We make it easier to get a sense of what we publish than many magazines. Take advantage of that. Don't just blanket every journal with your writing. We can tell when you're doing that.

As a publication that judges blind, we don't immediately need to know anything about you. One of our goals was to create a magazine not driven by publication credits, but the quality of the work. We aren't interested in cover letters, but we do like a thoughtful, brief, bio to work with after we've accepted work.

We read everything to the end, but we generally know very early if your work is a perfect fit for us. Even if a story with a weak beginning picks up halfway through and delivers an excellent end, a reader isn't (often) going to give a story the same kind of time an editor will. Work on your beginnings! They're critical to capturing our attention, but also our readers' attention.

We take the stories we've accepted and print them all out. We then take them to the Canadian wilderness and place them each on a small pyre and light them. Whichever pieces produce a blue flame are the ones we keep. The rest are offered as a sacrifice to nature.
Then, we also consider how they'll fit with the other pieces in the issue. Even though stories aren't based around a theme, they often feel connected.

It's not glamorous. We thought there would be more time for larger discussions, promotion of pieces internally, the kind of things you see on TV. In reality, it's a lot of strained eyes and trying to remember our Submittable passwords. It's a huge time investment and if you're not careful, can consume all your personal writing time too. So it's all about finding a balance.

This is also something we thought we'd have more time for. Very seldom have we accepted a piece with the intention of working with a writer to edit it. More often the work we accept is in a ready-to-publish state. In our first three issues, we've probably worked with writers to edit their pieces three or four times. We also provide feedback to rejected work (if the paid submission option was selected) so that provides a lot of time spent on offering general feedback on structure, pacing, language, etc.

We are a young magazine, so we have not yet, but we're excited to start nominating the pieces we've published for awards.