Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.
A: Break our hearts!
Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?
A: Witness Magazine, Graywolf Press, Ninth Letter, Epoch, Arsenal Pulp Press, Beloit Fiction Journal, The Massachusetts Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Penguin Teen, Bloomsbury, The Iowa Review
Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?
A: We love promoting the work of new (and often marginalized) voices. Some recent examples: Carmen Maria Machado, Aimee Bender, Jacqueline Woodson, Alex Myers, Anna Claire Hodge, Casey Plett, Kate Milliken, Jericho Brown, Maria Kusnetsova, Lisa Nikolidakis, Kelly Link, Gabby Rivera, and others! Our current favorite artist (a local to New Orleans who did our most recent cover art) is pop artist Ashley Longshore.
Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?
A: Rather than focusing just on poetry and prose, our publication utilized the fact that it is largely run by undergraduates, and features interviews with established artists in all fields, all conducted by current students or recent graduates of Loyola University New Orleans.
Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?
A: We are excited by all genres and styles, and seek work that breaks our hearts and subverts our expectations.
Q: Describe the ideal submission.
A: We are looking simply for prose and poetry that stands out. Check out our most recent issue to read the pieces that stood out to us among hundreds of others.
Q: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?
A: Submitting a piece that has a lot of promise but hasn’t been through the editing process quite enough yet.
Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?
A: Most of us read submissions without reading the submitter’s bio first, but a brief bio is often helpful/interesting to us. Mostly, the work needs to stand out. Some of our pieces come from award-winning, established writers, and others from fresh, emerging writers as young as sixteen.
Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?
A: Nearly always, we read the entire piece. However, because of submission volume, if a piece really isn’t working halfway through, we may stop reading it.
Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?
A: We put together issues, and sometimes it comes down to which pieces would fit into the issue we’re already building. However, we do accept for future issues if a piece really stands out but doesn’t fit in the latest upcoming issue.
Q: What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?
A: Reading submissions, keeping up with upcoming book releases, and writing lots of emails. For me particularly, I communicate a lot with my other editors and with student interns. Working with students is perhaps the best part of my day!
Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?
A: Since we moved entirely online and amped up social media, we have found technology both frustrating and extremely helpful in terms of getting the work out into the world and read by a wide audience. However, the work itself is, as always, most important.
Q: How much do you edit an accepted piece prior to publication?
A: More than half of the time, we accept pieces that are already polished for publication. On occasion, when a piece shows extreme promise but needs edits, we work with the author of they are willing.
Q: Do you nominate work you've published for any national or international awards?
A: Yes, of course!