Editor Interview: Marmalade Lit

Young, messy, & unique

A few publications I’ve always enjoyed reading include The Adroit Journal, Split Lip Magazine, and HAD. I also admire a range of fellow youth-led publications from more established magazines like Aster Lit to newer ones like Sonder Literary.

It’s hard to narrow down a list of favorite writers, but Megan Fernandes, Andrea Gibson, and Chen Chen are definitely among them, particularly for their poetry. I also love Kaya Dierks’s and K-Ming Chang’s fiction.

My ideal submission is a piece that utilizes a creative form to actually propel the narrative or message rather than to just “look cool” and has a strong balance between concrete and abstract imagery. I also love to see an emotional voice coming through.

We review all of our submissions anonymously. While we do ask for a bio in advance in case we choose to publish the piece, we don’t read over it until we’ve decided whether or not to feature the piece in our issue.

I always read through the full piece before deciding to reject or accept it, but if there are a lot of mechanical errors, the language is bland and unvaried, or a unique voice doesn’t come through toward the beginning, I can often get a sense that I’ll most likely reject it.

Both editors must choose to accept each piece before it’s published.

We provide basic proofreading for accepted pieces, but not substantial edits as we generally don’t accept pieces that require extensive changes.