Editor Interview: Flare

Beauty, spirit, fire.

There are so many literary journals out there to admire. Some of my personal favorites are Rattle, Copper Nickel, Beloit Poetry Journal, Painted Bride Quarterly, West Trade Review, and Tough Poets Review. -Lauren Tivey, Faculty Advisor

I am currently enjoying The Fig Tree Magazine and Nowhere Girl Collective, two indie publications run by women who are devoted to the art and craft of writing. -Jaden Rudd, Head Editor

As to poetry, my favorites are Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver, Diane Seuss, Maya Angelou, Walt Whitman, and so many others. I find artists like Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Artemisia Gentileschi incredibly inspiring, but really, FLARE is open to any striking art, including painting, sculpture, collage, fabric, comics, photography, and more. Just don’t send us any AI-generated material. -Lauren Tivey, Faculty Advisor

My favorite authors are George R.R Martin, R.F. Kuang, SenLinYu, and Ottessa Moshfegh. I enjoy their character driven stories, focusing on the flaws of a character, and how that individual moves through a world. -Jaden Rudd, Head Editor

Mark Z. Danielewski, Randy Ribay, F. C. Yee, Gregory David Roberts, and J.D. Salinger. -AJ Lugo Cortes, Managing Editor

FLARE’s editing team changes from year to year (though we do have some returning student editors). This lends a fresh vibe to every issue, and our editors are often quite enthusiastic about the work that’s chosen for inclusion, which comes across on the page. FLARE is both literary and quirky and often pushes boundaries. We publish bold, beautiful, and moving works full of passion and flair, and you never know what you’ll come across in any given issue.

Comb through our archived issues and send us work you feel like we have yet to publish. Read through our submission instructions ten times over if you need to, because nothing is worse for us than receiving a good submission and having to decline it because you didn’t follow our guidelines. -AJ Lugo Cortes, Managing Editor

Read the guidelines thoroughly, and send in polished work. -Lauren Tivey, Faculty Advisor

My ideal submission would be a well-polished piece, with intentional language and structure. I want to be able to tell the writer has spent time exploring a piece, and from that I want to feel an emotional connection to that world and character(s). The writer’s voice should be at the forefront of the piece, making it irreplicable and unique. -Jaden Rudd, Head Editor

Horror! Scare me, make me feel a real sense of fear, get me sucked into the story and worry for the characters. If your story can give me a sense of true mania, that would be my ideal submission. -AJ Lugo Cortes, Managing Editor

Poems that sing with originality. Rich imagery. Gorgeous metaphor. Masterful craft. Intelligence. Risk. Emotional resonance. Authentic oddity and descriptive detail. Nuance, but with a level of accessibility. Send us revised, polished poems that you’re proud of—send us your best. -Lauren Tivey, Faculty Supervisor

Do NOT put your name anywhere on your work, as we do anonymous submissions, to make sure there is no bias among our student editors. -AJ Lugo Cortes, Managing Editor

Many submitters don’t follow our guidelines regarding names. Our student editors are shielded from any knowledge of the submitter, so if your name appears in your Submittable header, anywhere in your document, or even in your document file name, we will immediately reject it. Many submitters also ignore word count limitations, and we must reject those, too, as space is limited in our print journal. Some people will submit multiple times in different categories, flooding us. In all these cases, submissions will be rejected.
-Lauren Tivey, Faculty Advisor

The work always comes before the author; if the work connects with us, we will read through the cover letter after we decide to accept, to learn more about the authors. -AJ Lugo Cortes, Managing Editor

We do ask for a cover letter and third-person bio, but only the managing team is privy to those until acceptance or rejection has been decided. Publication credits don’t matter so much, as we publish both established and emerging writers. -Lauren Tivey, Faculty Advisor

I read each piece to the end, unless there are glaring technical and grammatical issues. Everything else I read in its entirety, as it is impossible to judge a story without seeing it through.

We have teams of editors designated to the genres we publish, and each individual editor on that team will read through their assigned submissions, choosing the best work, before they submit it to a voting process by the whole team. The team will then present each piece to be considered by the entire editing staff of FLARE and voted into the magazine. Each chosen piece is then evaluated for any signs of AI, and any prior publication online, and if they pass, we send out acceptances.

Full-time student, part-time worker, part-time editor—every day I spend reading one thing or another, but to get to read through submissions is always a highlight of my day. To sit down and scour through hundreds of stories to read something that I feel will connect with an audience on a greater scale? Nothing beats that.

We only do basic proofreading. The pieces we want to see are ones that have been edited thoroughly. Any major suggested edits and changes we wish to make go through the author before publication.
-Jaden Rudd, Head Editor

We do edit for basic grammar and mechanics but try to keep this to a minimum. Writers agree to that process in our publishing contract. That’s why it’s so important to send in polished work. If a submitted piece requires too much editing, we will nearly always reject it, as we’re so pressed for time. -Lauren Tivey, Faculty Advisor

Not at this time, though we may consider it in the future.

While we receive a small operating grant from Flagler College, we also rely on semi-annual fundraisers run by the college, and monies received via our Tip Jar on Submittable. Donations are especially appreciated, as printing costs have risen sharply over the past few years, and we are always operating on a shoestring budget.

Our biggest platform is our Instagram, where we share contributors reading their published pieces via Reels. We also have an annual launch party on the Flagler College campus where we read works from the latest issue. Our Director of Development, Sarah Clayton, makes stickers, bookmarks, and other promo materials from our artists' pieces with their permission.