Editor Interview: filling Station Magazine

Innovative, experimental

I admire the publishing efforts of my peers, who are working in an unfavourable climate for the arts. I would highlight some faves, like Arc Poetry, The Capilano Review, New Quarterly, Event, Malahat, Subterrain, & Room. Some favourite publishing houses include Book Thug, Coach House, Talonbooks, Nightboat, New Directions, Canarium, Ugly Duckling, Les Figues, Wakefield, Wolsak & Wynn, Wilfrid Laurier. Yeah, ok, I could go on all day -- I like to read around and I appreciate the diversity of the publishing industry so much.

Ha! These questions are hard. I'm leaving out so many, but at the moment, I'll go with: Anne Carson, Paul Celan, Adam Dickinson, David Dowker, Brecken Hancock, Erina Harris, Bessie Head, Liz Howard, Susan Howe, Franz Kafka, Anna Kavan, Myung Mi Kim, Julia Kristeva, Sylvia Legris, Tim Lilburn, Clarice Lispector, Christopher Logue, Nathanaël, Alice Oswald, M. NourbeSe-Phillip, Sylvia Plath, Lisa Robertson, Natalie Simpson, Sarah Waters. Better stop before I explode.

filling Station is unique in pursuing exclusively experimental or innovative literature in Canada. This may take many forms. Sometimes it's the voice that is innovative, or the style of writing. At other times, it may be an unusual collaborative effort or a set of formal or constrained practices. Occasionally, it is the topic or the mode of presentation that is refreshing. filling Station also has a mandate to support and encourage emerging writers, so we enjoy introducing new writers to our readers and in giving authors their first publications. Obviously, many of our contributors are much more experienced, but we are mindful of creating space for emerging writers within our pages.

Read, read, read. And write, write, write. The only way to develop both a compelling voice and a piece of work that succeeds as craft is to practice a lot and to enthusiastically check out what others are doing in their writing. This substrate is the understory for all literature. Given that you are already doing all that, check out our magazine on the newsstand, or via subscription, and read our submission guidelines carefully. Is flling Station a good fit for the work(s) you're considering submitting? If so, craft a brief covering letter and submit your work via Submittable, through our website.

Nothing milquetoast. It can be well-crafted, or turbulent and messy, in its genius. Something with a voice. Something that is playful or innovative in some way. Something that has conviction, style and substance, rather than an exercise.

We receive many submissions that are simply not innovative or experimental in nature, and therefore do not fit with our mandate. I advise anyone submitting to look at the magazine and to consider the submission guidelines prior to sending their work in. We also receive quite a few handwritten, scrawled submissions via mail, but we have shifted ENTIRELY to Submittable via our website, so a contributor using this method risks not being considered at all. Given the volume of submissions we receive, it is simply better for everyone if we use Submittable, and can effectively track submissions.

I like cover letters. They can tell us something about who reads and contributes to filing Station that is important as we consider our audience. However, it is truly up to the submitter to determine what they feel comfortable revealing in a covering letter. filling Station is mindful of stubborn inequities in Canadian literary publishing and we do benefit from knowing a bit about our submitters, though we do not operate with any kind of quota in mind. Nevertheless, several section editors have pointed out that they would be more willing to undertake more substantial revisions, through an editorial process with the writer, if it might help in addressing (in a small way) such an imbalance.

This depends on the piece. If it's a ten page story and nothing in the few pages interests me, I'm done. Even if page 4-6 are great and then there are some nice bits on 8, I'm still unwilling to publish bad pages to get to those good ones. In something shorter, I'll generally stick it out unless it's very clearly not a fit for us. The thing about fiction is that it takes up a lot of real estate in the magazine. I'm not going to ask the editor to give me ten pages of space unless I'm confident that I'm making good use of it.

For fiction at fS I pick a few pieces that somehow caught my attention (sometimes because they're just obviously great, sometimes because they did something I didn't expect, sometimes just because I want more opinions on a piece) and then I bring those to our collective. Everyone gets to vote, and if they feel strongly, to explain their vote/argue. Then I can veto that if I really want to die on that hill (this has never come up - I trust our collective and generally agree). In any case, I then send the stories that got the "Yea" to our managing editor, and she gets the final say.

I am a binge-doer, which means that I get things done in one or two days a week of committed effort, rather than by doing a little bit every day. I do this because I am more efficient when I roll up my sleeves and dive in, and a lot more time-wasting when I try to work in small, sane doses. Truth be told, it is the section editors and their collectives who vet submissions on the first pass, so I have a smaller task in considering our content at a later moment in the editorial process. This leaves me free to manage production cycles, design oversight, marketing, fundraising, events, and professional development. We are also introducing new elements to the magazine, like a feature article or interview, and a column dedicated to a topic in experimental or innovative practice. These, I will be editing.

This varies widely based on the quality of the submission, the intentions of the section editor, and the special characteristics of the piece. Something that really needs work but is very interesting is likely to get the attention it needs, whereas anything that is worth publishing but has serious writing problems is likely to be rejected with an invitation to revise and re-submit. Ultimately, the call is made by the individual section editors in question, because they maintain the closest relationship with contributors with respect to close reading & editing of their work.