Editor Interview: Clockhouse

Drama, prose, and verse

With editors on staff, I’ve discussed common admiration for Joan Didion, Rainer Maria Rilke, Donald Barthelme, Pablo Neruda, Tom Waits, Annie Dillard, Elizabeth Bishop, and Arundhati Roy.
I come from the poetry world, so I personally admire poets who reach beyond the exactly describable to the world of echoing feeling. I’ve recently been captivated by Sonia Sanchez, Nicolás Guillén, James Tate, and James Merrill.
Individual editors on our staff of thirty have a very wide range and field of interests.

In the words of the founders of the journal in the mission statement,
“Dare. Risk. Dream. Share. Ruminate.
How do we understand our place in the world, our responsibility to it, and our responsibility to each other? Clockhouse is the eclectic conversation about the work-in-progress of life–a soul arousal, a testing ground, a new community, a call for change. Join in.”
We are dedicated to supporting conscious writing, work that is awake and questioning. We seek to support singular voices and under-represented communities.

Think of how you read fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction: if the piece doesn’t grab you from the start, it’s not going to endure. How can you grip the reader and keep them hanging on? Is the heart of the piece beating noticeably in the coat of the prose or poetry? When is less more, and when is more actually more?
Enough riddles: tell it true, even in a roundabout way.

Kick our heart around. Surprise us. Force us to weigh what you are saying in the way that you are stating it.

When reading submissions, the credits or history of the writer do not matter: only the quality of the work is important.
The cover letter is wonderful for providing context after the voting and for quicker production for publication, though. It’s great to see the backgrounds of writers and to measure the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of our journal’s appeal and outreach.

Fiction, creative non-fiction, and drama readers start judging from the first sentence; if the first paragraph/set of lines doesn’t catch the reader, readers will often move on. Likewise, if the first page doesn’t interest them, they will reject the piece. Individual readers, of course, have different philosophies, and some readers experience the whole piece before making judgments. There is discussion between readers as well, so it is not just one reader’s opinion. First feelings are vital for the process, though.
For poetry, I personally need an initial readthrough to catch the feeling of the poem; after one readthrough, I might not be able to tell you what the poem is about, but I am prepared for a second reading based on a recognition of the flow. So, I often read poems twice or three times (or more) to really understand their nature.

All pieces are read by three readers who vote separately without knowing other readers’ assessments. They can leave comments for other readers, though.
After this initial stage, genre leads will talk with readers to collect their favorites. Among the genre readers, they will come to a consensus on the work they’d like to see included and make recommendations to the Editorial Director and Publisher, who trust in their genre lead readers.

Most of my job in the “reading stage” is communicating with the staff. The readers are the front line of the conversation; in my role, I facilitate that conversation and hear their impressions and perceptions while entering into that discussion as needed.
Once the selections have been made, I communicate with authors and work with staff to put the journal together, including formatting, ordering, and line editing as needed.

My philosophy, for 99% of the time, is “only correct what needs correcting.” If you have the wrong “it’s,” we will correct it. If the format of a play doesn’t match the house style, we will contour it to the house style.
In rarer cases, if the format of a poem will change with publication or sentences seem to have major errors, we will work with the writer to ask for changes, and authors get to approve these types of edits.

We nominate works in the journal for the Pushcart Prize and look for additional opportunities to support contributing authors.

All members of the editorial team are graduates of the Goddard College MFA in Creative Writing program. The journal grew out of the Clockhouse Writers’ Conference (CWC), a nonprofit organization founded in 1997 that conducts conferences, readings, writing groups, and a retreat each summer for Goddard MFA-W alumni. The organization and conference fund the journal’s activities.
Everyone who works for this organization, from the Lead Steward to the Board of Stewards to the Editorial Director, Genre Leads, Editors, and Readers at the journal, is a volunteer and working from a place of mutual respect and community.
Even though Goddard College closed in 2024 (and is deeply missed), CWC and Clockhouse Journal continue to thrive because of the dedication and passion of this alumni group.

We promote the journal, our authors, and our call for submission through social media, our websites (clockhousewriters.com and clockhouse.net), and our mailing list. We also include calls for submissions in Duotrope, Poets & Writers, CLMP and other sites and publications.
As well, we utilize IngramSpark’s promotional email audiences.
For the launch of each volume, we have an online reading event with authors from the publication. It’s a great opportunity to meet a community of authors and experience their work in a supportive environment.