Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.
A: Annual Literary Magazine
Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?
A: The inspiration for redrosethorns magazine came from All Of It publication. I also admire Writerly Magazine.
Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?
A: Ooo it's hard to choose a favourite. I love non-fiction and especially feminist writing. bell hooks is a particular favourite, but honestly if it has to do with gender, feminism, politics and mental health, I love consuming all the knowledge around these subjects.
Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?
A: I push hard on making my magazine as diverse as possible, which includes finding writers from an international community. I also want their voice reflected in the magazine and not what I, or we, want them to sound like. I deliberately do not change the English dialects (i.e. American and British English) as our goal is show the world through their eyes and we must honour their use of English if we are to properly achieve this.
Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?
A: Be creative in your work. We want diversity, which means we also want our pieces to be a variety of genres and styles. The themes we select are so broad we want our contributors to think outside the box and really play with their own interpretations of the theme. And never don't submit because you think is your work not good enough. If you get rejected, in most cases it has very little to do with the quality of the work.
Q: Describe the ideal submission.
A: The ideal submission is one where it is not blatantly obvious that the piece aligns with the theme. For example, our theme this year was Community/Connection. We expected that people would talk about family, love, and friendship. But one piece was more about connecting the dots, or showing how things are interconnected within community. It stood out immediately as a result, and challenged me to think more broadly with the theme I chose.
Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?
A: I don't mind either way if others share more about themselves. It is rarely a factor used when selecting submission for publication, though it is interesting to have some background information.
Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?
A: It would have to be incoherent to not read until the end. Otherwise I read every piece entirely.
Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?
A: We look at two parts: one that it doesn't require too much editing and two that it doesn't sound too much like another piece. We don't want to have all the pieces published talking about the same thing. So we weigh them next to each other and decide which piece will flow best with the entire magazine.
Q: What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?
A: As submissions come in, they get sorted into a 'to be read' folder. Once or twice a week, I go through the submissions for that week and then resort them into 'maybe', and 'no' folders. The rest of the time, I work on design, marketing the magazine, marketing for open calls, and connecting with others for interviews, potential interviews, and sometimes for a pep talk because sending out rejection emails are the hardest part of this job. Only once the submission dates are closed, do I go through the 'maybe' folder and sort them into 'potential yes' and 'no' folders. Then go back and forth with making final selections, comparing pieces and trying out different formats for the 'flow' of the magazine.
Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?
A: Utmost important. One they make life a lot easier, and two they are more accessible and it provides the author with different ways of submitting. The hard part is having so many software programmes which I am not a fan of as it gets to be too much to manage. But if there is something that is going to make submissions more seamless for me and the author then I want to incorporate that.
Q: How much do you edit an accepted piece prior to publication?
A: I only do minor edits, so basic proofreading. The author will always get to approve the edits and we are always open to dialogue. Sometimes we make mistakes too with the editing. ;)