Editor Interview: Epistemic Literary

Themes for connection

Several of our past and present contributors work with presses as editors and EICs, including Stanchion, Raw Lit, and others. A few others we enjoy reading ourselves are The Solitary Daisy, Temple in a City, and a new but promising mag Flight: A Literary Sampler. We also have started a new lit mag for kids (Nimblewitlit) and love the supportive community of mags like Little Thoughts Press.

I think it's only fair to mention those who keep coming back and sharing their work with us. Some of them have been with us from our very first issue: François Bereaud, Zary Fekete, Gretchen Filart, Susmita Singam, Chris Cottom, Rachel, Grant Shimmin, and Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos.
We've only recently expanded what we accept from artists and honestly love them all. A few that come to mind immediately are Melissa Fitzpatrick and Joanne Macias, and Adam Jon Miller.

Our contributors and readers appreciate the connection and global community we create with our themed issues. Topics are selected specifically to engage conversation across genre, culture, age, and personal perspective.

Take chances. Don't be afraid to think outside the box or go anti-theme. We like the dark and gritty just as much as the hopeful and touching. We don't shy away from hard conversations. And remember, we are all human, who make mistakes. If you have a question, issue, or a recommendation for an accessibility improvement, we want to hear from you.

Something with emotional connection that inspires conversation. For fiction, I prefer the dark takes but often am captured by a strong moment of hope. I want to see a full narrative in that short space, even if it's a unique take in narrative form. I love a risk taker. Our poetry editor and fellow EIC prefers non-rhyming unless it's impeccable. If it blurs the line too much toward story you're better off submitting to fiction or CNF and we can shoot it over to poetry if we think it in works. She wants something that makes her feel or think, consider life/the theme from someone else’s perspective.

We don't get too hung up on the process itself. Have a problem with the form? Email it. Made a mistake, let us know. Missed the deadline by a day or two? Just ask.
That said, sometimes the connection to theme is forced or too abstract. A typo is no big deal, but the work should be as polished as it can be. And occasionally, someone forgets to tell us their piece was accepted elsewhere and it breaks our little editor hearts when we offer acceptance and can't have it.

We don't ask for a cover letter at all. We don't care if you've never published before, if you started writing yesterday. We only care about the work. We don't even request the bio until after acceptance.

I guarantee poetry reads every word of every piece multiple times before making the decision. For fiction, I'll admit there are times where I DNF. Sometimes the work is a clear non-fit for us. We DO NOT accept hate in our mag. If I get past the midpoint and still can't find the narrative, I'll bail. Same if a story is incoherent.

If we are struggling to narrow our acceptances, we ask each other for help. I know we've all completely changed our opinion based on a new perspective from the other.

I don't think anyone would take on this job without loving it. It's a lot of work, with very little downtime between. Preparing for submission periods, creating forms, write ups, spreadsheets, managing the website, managing social media, supporting ALL of our contributors from EVERY issue, reading subs, making decisions, sending personalized rejections, hard choices, acceptance, and then the whole process for getting an issue from conception to publication. Oh, and then the yearly anthology, cover design, graphics for marketing...

We try not to change anything beyond proofreading but occasionally make suggestions on lines, words, phrases. Writers review every change before publication.

We nominate for Pushcart, Best of, Genrepunk, and are always looking for new places to rave about our contributors.

By us. The two of us come out of pocket for the costs of running the mag. We've recently started publishing a yearly paperback anthology of our issues to recover some costs and push ourselves toward the goal of paying contributors.

We manage bluesky and Instagram accounts to stay connected and share everything we can. We advertise issues on these platforms as well. We are members of sites like CLMP where we submit to lists all the time. We've done very well just on building a supportive community.