Editor Interview: Ghost Peach Press Prize in Poetry

Lyric, sharp, true.

This is such a difficult question to answer because there are so many publications I love and I'm constantly discovering new ones, but I consistently love AGNI, Fairy Tale Review, Green Mountains Review, Fugue, Puerto del Sol, Granta, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, The Mississippi Review, and Black Warrior Review, among others.

We've been lucky to publish work from amazing writers and artists, and I consider everyone we've published to be one of my favorites. In addition, I adore Paige Lewis, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, Jericho Brown, Melissa Febos, Morgan Parker, Leila Chatti, Chen Chen, Eula Bissm Jihyun Yun, Diane Seuss, Ada Limon, Maggie Nelson, Katie Condon, Eduardo C. Corral, and so many others. (If any of you see this, send us work!)

We have a close-knit team of editors so our publication has a clear aesthetic even when the work seems wildly different. We're also extremely attentive to the art that accompanies the work so we hope that each issue is visually stunning as well as emotionally, mentally, (and every other way one could be stunned). We only publish poetry and lyric essays, which I think also sets us apart from many other journals. Check us out and see for yourself!

Read the journal first.

The ideal submission is the one that stops us in our tracks and keeps us up at night thinking about it. It lingers for days, or months, or years. It's incisive, different, important. We always know it when we see it.

Our names. Ha!

No cover letter is better than a bad cover letter. I prefer it kept simple; a quick hello and a bio will do. A few previous publications are great to give us an idea of the writer's work and scope but a full list of every publication ever is usually over-the-top.

This depends on the length of the piece, obviously, but I am usually able to tell right away if the piece is a definite wrong fit and then I'll stop reading. If it's at all a 'maybe,' I read it all the way through.

The genre editors and I both have to vote yes on the piece, and the team meets to talk over each issue before accepting the work and putting it together.

Typically I read submissions that the genre editors have already voted yes on (the exception to this is our book contest in which I read first), so the process is really enjoyable for me because I'm reading good work but also difficult because I'm reading good work, and I have to decide what to accept and what to pass on.

We only accept pieces that are complete so any editing we do is minor (the removal of a line or two, a dropped ending or beginning, corrected typos, etc.). The author always has final say over this process.

Yes, we send to Best of the Net, Best New Poets, the Pushcart, and other such awards.