Editor Interview: Variant Literature Journal

A sublime experience.

So many! Alaska Quarterly Review, DIAGRAM, Black Warrior Review, NOON, The Forge, Superstition Review, STORY, Uncharted, Post Road, The Common, PANK, Booth, Fiction International, Harvard Review, Cafe Irreal, Chicago Review, The White Review, Conjunctions, Hotel, Crazyhorse, X-R-A-Y Lit, Gulf Coast, Juked, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Yalobusha Review, Threepenny Review, New Delta Review, Phantom Drift, Salt Hill, Smokelong Quarterly, TriQuarterly, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, New Orleans Review, Naugatuck River Review all come to mind.

If you haven't read Can Xue, Ted Chiang, Jo Ann Beard, Brian Evenson, Tom Drury, Henry Dumas, Julio Cortazar, Ann Carson, Italo Calvino, Ursula Le Guin, Kaveh Akbar, Leonora Carrington, Philip K. Dick, Kelly Link, Victor LaValle, Ilya Kaminsky, David Ryan, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Samanta Schweblin, Aleksandar Hemon, Elizabeth Scanlon, K. Iver, Claudia Rankine, Kazuo Ishiguro, Thomas Savage, Joy Williams, Samantha Hunt, Alexander Kluge, or Ottessa Moshfegh, get on it.

On the prose side, we work very closely with authors on revision, often making a shape-based revision request for a piece that's not quite right but holds our interest, followed by detailed line edits, prior to acceptance or declination. The attention of our readers is precious. We do not shy away from complex or strange material, or that with an element of genre.

Treat the attention of the reader as a precious resource.

Our ideal prose submission is formatted with pagination,12-point Times New Roman, double spacing, indented paragraphs, and no extra space between paragraphs. The title and the author's name are at the top of the first page, and also in the header. The story opens with narrative. Exposition is spare or exists within dialogue. The story logic is supported by recurring objects and sensory details. The reader remains engaged due to the writer's strong prose construction, syntax choices, and deft curiosity gaps. The reader inhabits the story and becomes transformed.

Well, our submission process is straightforward, and people don't get it wrong, much. We're only open for a month at a time per genre, though. So if you're thinking of submitting, don't delay.

A cover letter that include a brief bio is helpful to place the submission in context.

We instruct our readers to read at least four pages, after which they may choose to consult a checklist that prompts them to consider whether the story so far a) contains mostly narrative, b) is populated by characters who DO things, after which things HAPPEN, and c) demonstrates strong prose construction. If the answers are no, our readers may stop reading, although many chose to continue. We would love to say that a substantial majority of stories are read to the end, but that is not the case.

Every story is encountered by at least one editor. Promising stories get at least three reads. It is common for us to request revision prior acceptance. We do not require consensus for a piece to proceed to a request for revision.

Oh, I have a job and a family, so editing is squeezed in here and there. During prose submission months, I read submissions about three times a week. I send requests for revision and line edits as early as two weeks after receiving a promising submission, though often more like six weeks. I help with sequencing, onboarding readers, award submissions, etc. Our technology platforms allow us to work asynchronously.

A substantial majority of our published prose receives detailed edits in addition to copyediting.

Yes, we do. We nominate for Pushcart, the Best American series, and others.