Editor Interview: manywor(l)ds

The gender/genre-bent

In terms of small presses publishing book and chapbook manuscripts, I'm most excited about Wendy's Subway, Dorothy, Arsenal Pulp, The Feminist Press, and LittlePuss. My main literary magazine rotation includes (but is not limited to!) Annulet, Split Lip Magazine, The Offing, Honey Literary, and A Velvet Giant.
Broadly, I'm a fan of publishers and works pushing literary/genre boundaries while maintaining rigor, quality, and commitment to craft.

Some contemporary writers I deeply admire include Kim Hyesoon, Anne Carson, Megan Milks, Fred Moten, Eli Clare, Larissa Lai, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Kathy Acker, Rivers Solomon, and Jeff Vandermeer. My favorite now-deceased writers include Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Dorothy Allison, and Ursula K. LeGuin.
My favorite artists (all-time) include Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Holzer, Sam Hensley, Vincent Van Gogh, and Georgia O'Keeffe.

We make explicit the implicit political commitments of hybrid work. We hope that those who engage with our publication think closely about the political implications of refusing genre and creating work that dares to be uncategorizable, and even unmarketable.

I know every editor says this, but READ THE GUIDELINES! Address us as "editors" and/or "Cavar and Joyce." Neither of us is a Ms., and misgendering = auto-rejection.
Don't send us "very genre" work (i.e. work better suited to Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's, etc.). We're also not the market for coming out/recovery narratives –– send in your queercrip/transMad stories that go beyond discovery, coming out, and acceptance. We want mess.

I'm not going to describe the submission's content, because publishable work comes in many shapes and sizes. The ideally-formatted submission, though, is addressed to "Cavar and Joyce," has a brief cover letter indicating whether the piece has been published before / whether or not it has been simultaneously submitted elsewhere, and a third-person bio for the author. The piece would be in a word doc (or PDF if formatting-sensitive) and within our page/wordcount limit. Content warnings (and, if a visual submission, alt text) will be indicated in the cover letter.

Many think that they need to disclose the details of their diagnoses/identity/relationships in order to "count." This is false. We at manywor(l)ds trust you as to your own identity, and you never need to tell us any personal details in order to "qualify" to submit.
Some people also think that when we have open reading periods, we're only accepting submissions for one issue at a time. However, we accept pieces for up to three future issues at once in order to curate a diversity of form and content.

The most important time to put extra information on one's cover letter is when writing about a sensitive, culturally/geographically-specific topic –– I'd like to see why you are qualified to write about it, especially if I myself am not familiar with the content or (sub)culture. If you're writing about being a two-spirit creative on Turtle Island, for example, you yourself being 2S and having lived here is immediately relevant to your piece, and I would like to see it mentioned.
In terms of publication credits, I'm always curious as to where manywor(l)ds submitters are publishing, or if this is your first publication! That said, a pub list is by no means required. A bio of some kind, however, is required; I trust you to choose the things that are most important to you.

If a piece violates our guidelines (too long, bigoted/hateful, ai-generated), I reject as soon as I discover that that is the case. There are some instances where I can tell by page one or two that a piece will not be suitable, and reject based on that. But if I have any interest at all, I read the whole thing.

Joyce, the managing editor, also reads all of the pieces and provides feedback. I read everything at least three times before responding.

When I'm reading submissions –– which I do periodically throughout a reading period, not all at once at the end –– I'm usually listening to something ambient, drinking a cup of coffee. While assessing submissions, I'm clicking through in-progress issues for future months, seeing if there's a spot for a given submission in any of them. Because I check the inbox regularly, rather than saving everything until the reading period is over, I review submissions in short bursts and stop when I get fatigued.

It's rare that we accept a piece pending revisions, unless it's a book review. Pieces submitted to us should be ready to publish as-is, though on rare occasions (usually if a piece is truly unique and compelling in a way we've never seen before) we'll work with an author to get the piece ready. Authors always get the final say in what their piece looks like, and have the right to pull their piece and submit it elsewhere if they do not like our edits.

We nominate for BotN, Pushcart, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and other awards as we come across them.