Editor Interview: Salmagundi Magazine

essays, stories, poems

N+1. The New York Review of Books, Antioch Review, The Common, Three Penny Review, Rattle, Paris Review, Hudson Review, Southwest Review

Marilynne Robinson, Chase Twichell, Russell Banks, Daniel Harris, Carryl Philllips, Dubravka Ugresic, Phillip Lopate, Vijay Seshadri, Ann Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Moody, Nick Flynn, Katha Pollitt, Susie Linfield, Carolyn FOrché, Richie Hoffmann, Tom Healy, Robert Pinsky, Frank Bidart, Louise Gluck, Carl Phillips...many others!

We publish a variety of genres, not all of it belletristic. Apart from publishing first rate new work by contemporary writers of poetry, fiction and personal essay we also publish cultural criticism and symposia on cultural issues such as Race, Religion and Nationalism, Identity, Kitsch, The Sense of the Past, The Clash of Civilizations, and so on.

Read the magazines in which you aspire to publish. When you find material that seems to be in the same realm as your own in subject matter, range and style, then submit your work. Write an informative but short cover letter. If someone advised you to do so, name the advisor.

There is no such thing. There is only excellent work; that is what is ideal.

They submit without understanding our purpose and taste as editors. We are not a journal which publishes new original research on Paradise Lost, for example.

Yes. The credits do not matter, but they help get our attention.

It depends... If a piece is great from th ebeginning we read it in its entirety before accepting it. Unfortunately, less excellent material is usually apparently so rather early on, after a page or two...

There are three of us here at the office. Rarely do we consult our board of auxiliary editors , but on occasion , we do so.

We are always hopelessly behind, and then we read and read and catch up. When something strikes one of us, we consult the other two.

It always depends...If we are taken with something of substance but see the need for some edits, we write to the author and suggest the changes or additions. Sometimes we do this editing ourselves and send the result to the author for approval. Poems seldom are edited, and usually are sent out for approval in proof form.

Yes, of course. SALMAGUNDI work is often selected for Pushcart Prizes and sometimes for Best American Essays. Our international readership is pretty limited and we are not in touch with prize opportunities outside the U.S. and Canada, alas.