Editor Interview: Stone of Madness Press

Queer Mad Poetry & Prose!

Cavar: My favorites include Split Lip Magazine, COAST | noCOAST, Strange Horizons, Honey Literary, Whale Road Review, and Bodega Magazine. We also love our literary friends at perhappened, Mixed Magazine, opia Magazine, Delicate Friend, and Hooligan Magazine (and many more).

Cavar: I'm always looking for work that pushes genre boundaries, or explodes them entirely. I love Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Eli Clare, Samuel R Delany, Gayl Jones, Kim Hyesoon, Ursula K Le Guin, Helen Oyeyemi, Larissa Lai, Tracy K Smith, Rivers Solomon, Claudia Rankine, Michelle Tea, Bryan Washington, and Jeff VanderMeer. To name "just a few"!

Cavar: Honestly, I love that we're not the only magazine focused on publishing queer, trans, and disabled writers. The more, the merrier. That said, I think that our titular focus on Madness sets SoM apart from others: even within disability communities, Mad experiences, irrational ones, ones whose textualization "makes no sense" –– these are often condemned or overlooked, especially when the Mad person is LGBTQ. At SoM, we're trying to provide a space for the difficult-to-categorize, the painful, and the messy, the Mad, in a way that challenges readers and writers to think outside their own experiences and into a new world of possibilities.

Cavar: As all editors tend to say: read the magazine! Beyond that? Simply read, this is absolutely crucial if you want to improve your craft. We also recommend going through at least three rounds of revisions to each piece before submitting it anywhere, not just to us –– we're not equipped to work on your piece if it's still in draft form.

Cavar: I'm continuously surprised by the content I love, so I'll focus on form: the ideal submission is in Shunn's Standard Manuscript format: TNR or similar, 21, page numbers, contact information in the top left corner. We also seek submissions with clearly-designated trigger warnings, whether on the manuscript, in the body of the email, or both. We have a strong preference for submissions in Doc/DocX form, but also accept PDFs.
We like, but do not require, a brief cover letter, addressed to the editors (and NOT to "Sir/Madam;" this is an instant reject for us) and introducing yourself. If you're not sure what to write, don't be intimidated! Cover letters are awkward and we're pretty chill. If you can, include a short bio, including your name, pronouns, and social media links. Since we're all writers ourselves, we love simultaneous submissions, and strongly encourage you to submit simultaneously –– but please withdraw if accepted elsewhere, since we do not typically take reprints.

Cavar: Far too few submitters use trigger/content warnings on their pieces. Not only does this severely reduce your likelihood of acceptance, it also poses the potential for harm to our editorial team and our staff readers. Warnings are a crucial access need, and our entire team is disabled/ND/mentally ill: please respect us by giving a head's-up if you're dealing with tough content (including but not limited to suicide, eating disorders, self-harm, addiction, sexual assault, abuse) in your work.
One other thing that isn't exactly wrong, but warrants a note: Many submitters disclose their exact diagnoses, the specifics of their queer and trans identities, or their (professional/self-)diagnostic status. You are more than welcome to do this if you feel inclined, but you do *not* have to explain in this depth. Your queer, trans, disabled, and Mad self-identification is enough for us, and we trust our submitters by default, including those who are questioning and/or closeted. We're anti-transmedicalism and pro-self diagnosis, and trust that you and only you are the authority on who you are.

Cavar: This was answered in previous questions, but briefly: we love, but do not require, cover letters; the best cover letters to us let us know the name and pronouns of the author, the title and word count of the piece, and whether or not the piece is a simultaneous submission. As for author bios, we welcome them, and encourage you to tell us where you've been published before. We especially welcome writers to self-identify as teen/emerging writers and/or previously-unpublished, as we love to publish people new to the community.
Please don't explain your story/poem(s) to us in your cover letter. We're already about to read them!

Cavar: Our readers, and at least one of our editors, read a piece in full (usually several times) before rejecting or accepting. If there's any doubt as to our decision, we keep the submission around until enough eyes have been on it.

Cavar: We consider fit, length, whether or not we've published a writer recently (we almost never publish the same person in back-to-back issues, though we welcome submissions from previous contributors), and how many slots we have left in a given issue. Sometimes, we'll decide to accept a piece that needs minor revisions, so we also assess the time commitment that a given set of revisions might require, and confirm with the writer that they are open to working with us.

Cavar: I love reading submissions with a cup of coffee; clearing out the inbox is really soothing for me. I typically do my reading either right after I get up or right before I log off for the night, as a way of warming up or winding down for the day. I put on lyricless music –– either one of those lowfi/instrumental YouTube playlists or something saved on Spotify –– and have a marathon-emailing session to get through all of the clear acceptances and rejects in the inbox. Then, I'll go through the Maybes, leave comments, and check in with co-editors for their thoughts. In the short-term, I usually get through a chunk of emails every session, but my long-term pile of Maybes to reconsider also grows.

Cavar: Sometimes, we go through several rounds of revisions with an author before a piece is published. Often, we'll make some brief copy-edits (typos, punctuation), and sometimes we'll publish a piece exactly as-is. We have limited resources for detailed revision, so edits are usually the latter types.

Cavar: We nominate for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.