Editor Interview: Off Topic Contest

Throat-grabbing creations

I love the work that Rattle does. It feels like they really just want to support and promote a wide range of poetry and poets. Press 53 has beautiful books, both inside and out. I've actually rarely come across a professional (in the broad sense) publisher that wasn't doing something cool and intriguing!

In literary fiction and nonfiction I love the work of Katherine Govier (especially The Ghost Brush), Michelle Butler Hallett (This Marlowe), Kwame Anthony Appiah (The Lies That Bind), Clifford Jackman (The Braver Thing) and Richard Wagamese (Ragged Company). In speculative fiction, I have to say Laura E. Weymouth's YA fantasy book The Light Between Worlds broke and warmed my heart in all the best ways. China Miéville's The City and The City blew my mind. I love stuff that shows me something new. The more imaginative and immersive, the better.

I'm trying to build a community around writing and reading, not just put stuff out into the world for strangers to read. I love that people can feel involved through our writing events and open calls. I also tend to seek people out and request material, rather than just relying on submissions. If I see something I like, I will sometimes ask the writer for more. This is how our first single-author poetry chapbook, All Forgotten Now, by Jennifer Mariani, came about. I loved her poetry and asked if she had enough for a collection. I also work with writers if I want to publish their piece but feel like it's not quite ready. I will send them suggested edits and let them revise and resubmit. I believe in giving feedback where possible (it's impossible to give feedback on every single submission), so the Off Topic Contest gives feedback on every entry too.

Read and follow the guidelines for every submission. The open calls have different requirements for different reasons. You are wasting your time if you send me a 40-line poem for a call with a maximum of 15 lines, or a fiction piece to the nonfiction contest. Your submission might get lost if you send it by email instead of through the submission form. I do my best to keep track of everything. The guidelines exist to help me give every submission its due diligence.
On a content note, try to write something thematically different from what others are writing. I get a lot of stories and poems about people murdering their spouses, or elderly people dying peacefully to join their already deceased partner. Switch up the setting too. I see a lot of buses and coffee shops and universities (these settings can be fascinating, but only if you make them so). Place your characters in a temp agency or on an airplane or in the driver's seat of a snowplow. Place them in a circus or a call center or a king's antechamber. Place them in historical settings and contemporary settings in various global regions. The fresher your story, the more it will stand out from the two hundred others coming in.

The ideal submission will come in through the correct channels (according to the specific guidelines). It will show me a world I haven't seen before, or a piece of the world that I have seen, but from a new perspective or in a new light. The writing will be polished and expressive. Every word will be where it should be. The writer will have thought about every comma and how moving that comma might change the rhythm. Most importantly, the story won't digress into too much backstory; the poem won't tell me the moral at the end. The submission will not tell us how we should live or think, but rather open up new possibilities and embrace the endless and beautiful diversity of ways of being. It will allow for human darkness and human light, without pretending one or the other is the "true" version of humanity. I love speculative fiction and poetry that uses weird words. I also love when writers can take the most mundane real-world event and turn it into something profound. My taste is quite broad, so it's hard to say exactly what I'm looking for. Let's say stories and poems that are crafted with care, that take risks without pretentiousness, and that make me want to keep reading.

It varies, but mostly people send me stuff that doesn't fit the requirements, or they send me stuff by email instead of through the submission form. In the first instance, that means I literally can't use it, so it's a waste of everyone's time. The Poetry Box is a poem printed on a physical postcard and mailed out every month with tea and chocolate to our subscribers. The poem has to be short, because postcards are small. For some reason, this one in particular seems to trip people up. Fifteen lines is fifteen lines. Count your lines (including blank lines - they still take up space).

I'm always curious about the people submitting, but I don't always read cover letters until I've read the actual submission. Previous publication credits don't matter in terms of selection - I've published people who had none. What matters most is the quality of the writing and how well it fits with the particular project and other selected pieces (if applicable). But again, I do have a curiosity and I will be suitably impressed if you've been published in a big name outlet. It won't affect my decision though.
That being said, if cover letters sound arrogant or rude, that will put me off.

I can generally tell if the piece isn't right. For poetry, I can see that it's too long pretty much right away, so I mostly don't read those ones (to save myself time). Other than that, I usually read stuff to the end. As I mentioned in another question, I will work with writers whose work is almost there. I'm also a freelance editor, so I have lots of experience giving constructive and practical feedback to tweak a piece. If I think I could use it with a few revisions, then I will send it back. Mostly I think I have a compulsion to finish what I read, even when I know it's not a good fit. I love reading and I love seeing all the creative things people come up with.

As submissions come in, I often give them a first read and then categorize them into Yes, No, Maybe, Probably. Then after the deadline, I go back to the Yes pile and see what I still like. I will also check the Probably pile. If there are slots left over, I'll go through the Maybes. And as mentioned, if something needs just a little more work, I will have a back-and-forth with the writer to see if we can mold it. I'll often read things through a few times on different days to see if it stands up to multiple readings. Only then do I send out an acceptance. It means it takes a little longer, but I want to give every piece a chance. It doesn't seem fair to reject something because I'm tired one day.

Most of the pieces I accept require very little editing. When I do suggest edits, I use a light touch. The author does get to approve final edits. Mostly what I suggest is line or copy editing. Proofreading comes when I'm proofing the final stages (the proofs, as it were). Every serious publisher does this, I believe. It's our job to make sure our authors' work is showcased in its best light. Spacing issues or misplaced periods are our responsibility. I do send these proofreads to authors if they want to see it.

Not at the moment, but it is something I'm working towards.