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Editor Interview: Lips Poetry Magazine

Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.

Lips Poetry Magazine

What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?

Paterson Literary Review

What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?

We publish established writers as well as new writers and teens

What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?

Read a copy of the magazine. We favor narrative poetry.

Describe the ideal submission.

Each year we nominate poetry for the Pushcart Prize and also place these poems on our Submittable site as samples of the kind of writing we are looking for.

What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?

Submitters either send us poetry that is not narrative poetry or poetry that is way too long.

How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?

We let the poem do the talking, not the bio.

If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?

We can tell early on if a piece is not right, but we have multiple readers who each read all poems in their entirety.

What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?

We do not publish poems with graphic content.

What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?

Our submission period is open from September 1 through November 30. Poems are assigned to readers as they come in. Each reader will go through their assignments within 10 days and comments on the poem before it goes to the next reader. This process repeats until it reaches the editor.

How much do you edit an accepted piece prior to publication?

Poems are fact checked but there is minimal editing, light editing for spelling and typos. Each poem is proofread and sent to respective poet for approval before publication.

Do you nominate work you've published for any national or international awards?

Up to six poems from the issue are nominated each year for a Pushcart Prize.

How is your project funded?

A foundation has been established to fund publication.

How do you promote your project and published authors/artists?

We have a public reading after the book has been published.

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