Editor Interview: Anobium

Strange/surreal writing.

We are big fans of an obscure journal/press out of Baltimore - The Shattered Wig Review. A lot of the writers with whom those publishers have a relationship are writers we admire, and the writing confidently falls into that realm of 'strange' we try our best to imitate.
Aside from that, we enjoy the erudition of the Chicago Review, the design of Ninth Letter, the independent attitude of Another Chicago Magazine, and the budget of McSweeneys.

We publish both fiction and poetry. The line between the two is a placeholder.
Some of our favorite writers are Franz Kafka, David Foster Wallace, Roberto Bolaño, Vladimir Nabokov, Jose Saramago, Sam Lipsyte, Haruki Murakami, Blaster “Al” Ackerman, Daniel A.I.U. Higgs, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Italo Calvino, Michael Chabon, Hunter S. Thompson, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Baudelaire, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Arthur Schopenhauer and others.

Too many journals have mastheads that read like a telephone book. Too many journals are too damn long. Too many journals shortcut on design and call it 'keeping it simple.'
We have a small staff. We publish what we like. We have no mysterious or intellectualized 'process.' Our journals and publications are meticulously designed, and short enough to digest in one sitting. It’s for those who would prefer a shot of 100-proof whiskey rather than a cup of lukewarm milk. It's the meat without the potatoes.

Watch Eraserhead. Write. Submit.
Also, it doesn't hurt to pick up some of our releases to familiarize yourself with the writers we like. There's no magic to it. Just keep your eyes on the ball before you take a swing.

The ideal submission isn't too short and isn't too long. It doesn't deliberate or get tied up in academic jargon. It doesn't talk about its undergraduate experience. It says something, rather than talking about saying something. It plays tricks. It makes a molehill out of a mountain. The ants sing it when they march in. It doesn't try to be anything other than what it is.
Because we're operating in a small world of the similar-minded, we understand that writers use journals like ours to begin to find their voice. There is no system. Either something works or it doesn't. We like it to give us the same feeling we get when we hear a prayer to a god we've never known.

That we're impressed by degrees and publishing histories.

On our submissions page, we ask for publication credits, but it's because we want an equal distribution of published and unpublished authors. Bios don't matter to us. We're in it for the writing.

Our editorial process works like this:
We receive a piece of writing. Our managing editor gives it a quick scan to determine if it is 'good' or 'not good.' Sometimes this can be discerned in a few words, sometimes in a few pages. There is no science for determining the qualities of 'good' in a piece. Either it corresponds with Anobium, or it doesn't. The 'good' writing (the writing that corresponds with Anobium) then gets forwarded to our editorial staff, which ranks and discusses the qualities of a piece. About 25% of submissions get to this secondary review process. Based on the rankings of the pieces, as well as the proposed direction and projected content for the release, we make our final decisions. It's time consuming, but it ensures that we get the wheat separated from the chaff.

'Good' and 'Not Good' are placeholders. We don't make evaluative judgements as much as we ask the question 'does this piece correspond with our projected direction?' The category of 'projected direction' is entirely dependent on how we want our volumes to come together. It's the non-sexy part of editing, and the time where we can make some writers happy, and tell other writers that we really liked their writing, but not for this or that particular project. It inspires a lot of great communication and gives us the opportunity to share in some really beneficial discussions, all of which continue to shape the category of 'projected direction.' Evaluation is not a systematized thing; it's an ongoing process.

I wake up. I turn on the gravity simulators in my spaceship. I do some aerobic and anaerobic exercises. And then I get to work. Occasionally I will go for a spacewalk to clear my head.