Editor Interview: The Southampton Review

New & established authors

I'm really into traditional literary print publications such as FENCE, Subtropics, N+1, A Public Space, The Kenyon Review, and The Paris Review. But there's so much amazing writing on the internet, available to anyone with access. I follow writers and academics I admire on Twitter and they're always linking to stories and articles they think are amazing. It's like a crowdsourced reading list, as variable as the people who do the recommending. Most of the gatekeepers of literary publishing are white, and that impacts what's printed. Twitter/the internet subverts the racial boundary. Anyone can publish anything. It means there's a lot of bad writing out there, but also a lot of wonderful, moving, creative writing that hasn't traditionally found a home in print literary journals. As a managing editor, if I read something I like, I look up the author and message them and encourage them to submit to TSR.

Recent authors we've published that I love include Neel Patel, Julialicia Case, Bret Anthony Johnston, Olabajo Dada, Jessica Soffer, Meg Wolitzer, and Tiffany Yanique. We've also published some incredible nonfiction by George Saunders, Thea Lim, Scott Latta, and Mary Kudenov. Among my favorite poets we've published are Timothy Liu, Alicia Mountain, Nausheen Eusuf, Shelley Wong, and Michelle Whittaker.
Of the fine art and photographs that we print, Jonathan Smith, Andrea Kowch, a collaboration between poet Major Jackson and artist Jill Moser, and Julio Reyes really stand out.
The thing is, I'm one of six people who solicit work and read submissions in Submittable. This is just my personal taste—but browse through the archives of TSR and you'll see we publish a wide variety of styles.

It would have to be the art portfolios. Our journal is printed in full color, which means we can pair the art with pieces of prose or poetry that are complementary. An issue of TSR averages 230 pages of content, and having art portfolios that break up the pages of text makes a difference in how you read the journal. I like to think that people have a copy of TSR on their coffee tables or night stands and pick it up over the course of several months, read a few pieces, look at some of the art, put it back down. Repeat, etc. Our journal is best savored slowly, I think. Partly because of the density of pieces, but also because of the sheer variety. It takes more than one sitting to digest all of the content.

Carefully proofread your cover letter and the first three pages of your story. Typos and grammar errors are human, and we're understanding of that. But typos and errors that appear in the cover letter or first three pages of a submission (or in the first poem of a set) tend to suggest that care was not taken at some point in the submission/writing process. We take time and care when we read each submission, and we like to see the submissions reflect that the author has done the same.
I would also say, regarding cover letters, the best formula is to keep it short and simple. We like to see the title of the piece(s) you're submitting, a word count if appropriate, and if the submission is simultaneous. Beyond that, a short bio is appreciated. That's it!

Whether a piece of writing moves us is subjective. But we can say it's ideal when there are zero typos or grammar errors and when the cover letter doesn't contain superfluous information. But, even if those conditions are met, it's no guarantee we'd publish the piece. We have to have our socks knocked off for that to happen. (It does happen.)

Usually it's length—and that happens more often in the Screenplay/Drama category. People will send us their feature-length screenplay and that's usually an automatic no. We accept prose up to 7,500 words and up to 5 poems. Sometimes we get 40 page novel excerpts in Submittable. It's really just about an author or artist using their common sense—instead of sending us the feature-length screenplay, send us what you consider the most publishable scenes. Instead of a 40 page novel excerpt, send us what you think is the best part that can stand on its own.

We pride ourselves on publishing new and emerging authors. Publishing credits are not especially important to us—quality of the work matters most. Having said that, publishing credits can be a help to an author if we're on the fence about a piece in terms of the amount of editing it needs. If there are prose or poems we love, but that we feel need a substantial amount of work, we're more likely to take them if we see that an author has publishing credits. To us, a record of previous publication indicates the author understands the process and can work well with an editor. We've found that to generally be the case.

I will be honest: I do not read every piece to the end. I do my absolute best to read every piece to the end, I begin reading every piece intending to read it to the end, but there often comes a point when I know that the writing is not the right fit for TSR. The converse is true—sometimes I read all the way to the end and still feel like the piece isn't a good fit. In a previous answer, I recommended that authors make sure there are no typos or grammar errors in the first three pages of their prose. This is because it's often within the first three pages I'll know whether or not something is working for me. The greater the abundance of typos and grammar errors, the sooner I'll come to that conclusion.
I want to say that I'm also a writer. I also submit. And I also receive rejections. I understand the effort it takes to craft a story or create a poem and I do my very best to honor that effort. Being on both sides of the submission process is illuminating. Of course I want to think that the editors at the journals where I submit read my stories to the end, but I know this isn't the reality and it doesn't bother me. Most journals are underfunded and understaffed. Most journals have volunteer readers. If a literary journal is rolling in dough and has a staff of hundreds, that's something else. If the editor-in-chief of that literary journal is making millions of dollars then, yes, I would expect that journal to be able to afford to pay people to read every submission to the end. Barring that, if my story isn't interesting enough for someone to make it all the way through, that's on me.

There's always a back and forth. With the exception of most solicited work (and this is the case for some of those pieces, as well), one of us will find something we love, send it to the other editors and say, "What do you think?" A plurality of voices weighs in on each piece we publish.

It really depends where we are in the yearly publishing schedule. We do two issues a year, one in July and one in November. The real push is about three months before we go to the printer. So during that time, a typical day would include corresponding with authors about edits to their pieces, doing actual editing work, keeping up with social media postings, updating our website, keeping track of subscriptions, assigning pieces in Submittable to our editorial staff, and dealing with the day-to-day stuff like printing and mailing. As a managing editor I have more administrative duties than our editor-in-chief. I say that I deal with the business-side of the journal, but I'm always reading submissions and editing. We have TSR Online now, with a schedule of publishing one piece per week. I'm always looking for content for that. And, of course, as a writer I try to find time in my day to write something other than emails.

This is on a case by case basis. There's always some editing, even for the poems. In some cases, we're willing to substantively edit a piece—but the author has to be okay with this, too. In all cases we proofread an accepted piece carefully, and will offer line-edits if we feel it's necessary. We send the author proofs once the piece has been styled, and the author gets a final say about that.
In the end, we will defer to an author. We enjoy having a back and forth with an author about a piece of writings. It's okay if an author doesn't accept all of our suggested edits. We are always trying to make a piece of writing the absolute best it can be in the author's own voice and style. If a story comes to us light on the commas, we won't try to insert commas everywhere it might be technically correct to do so, because that's not the author's style. Most authors are wonderful to work with, and appreciative of the effort we put into their work.

Yup—we absolutely do. We submit annually to the Pushcart Prizes, the Best American series, the O. Henry Awards, and the PEN America Best Debut Short Stories and Caine Prize (when we have eligible stories).
A note here about being nominated for a Pushcart Prize: Many of the author bios that come to us let us know that the author or a specific piece of writing was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. I think what a lot of people don't realize is that anyone can nominate themselves for a Pushcart. Saying that you or a piece of writing was nominated for Pushcart is essentially meaningless. On the other hand, if something you wrote received a Pushcart Notable Mention or won a Pushcart, those are accolades worth touting.