Editor Interview: Midwest Review

Midwestern voices

Cream City Review, Ninth Letter, Passages North, Iowa Review, either/or, Missouri Review, as well as Dzanc books, Belt publishing, Graywolf, Two Dollar Radio

We are always finding new voices to admire! In terms of established writers:
Louise Erdrich, George Saunders, Ocean Vuong, Kelly Link, Denis Johnson, Margaret Atwood, Lauren Groff, Marilynne Robinson, Bob Dylan, Alice Munro, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Naomi Shihab Nye

We're interested in what happens when we assemble a collection poetry, art, and prose by folks who identify--in some way--with the Midwest, all its various parts. It's something new every time, as expansive and complex as the Midwest. Our print publication features full color art, and our online edition (six months post print publication) brings our authors and artists to even more readers.

Read what we've published before, and then send us what we don't have yet. Send us your unique voice and perspective. Come at "the Midwest" in a new way. As always: revise, edit. And forgive us for not being able to take everything, and for being only human readers, who might occasionally miss something we shouldn't.

Hook us with language. Show us what's true--and then make us doubt if we got it all on the first read. Please read our guidelines, and read recent issues on our website to see the conversation you'd be joining.

We use Submittable, and so the process of submitting is pretty standard. Please don't fret about what to write in the cover letter. You can't really go wrong. It's a place to toot your own horn! That includes letting us know if you're a new writer. We're interested in debut authors and new voices too! But it's also okay if you're too Midwestern to toot your own horn. We get that too.

The work is the first thing, and most of our readers read the work first. If we are drawn to a piece, we read the cover letter to confirm the submitter does have connections to the Midwest. (By the way, we define that loosely, broadly.) After we've made our selections, it pleases us (though it's okay if this doesn't happen) when we have a variety of authors from different Midwestern states, from different rural, urban, suburban pockets, and from different walks of life and ranges of experiences and identities. The Midwest itself is an inclusive, multi-faceted, and ever growing and changing space.

We truly work to read each piece with our minds open to its possibility. Many pieces are read by more than one editor. Some pieces that make it to final publication do so after debate by editors who saw them in different ways. We also receive more and more submissions every year, far more than we could publish. It is best when the beginning grabs us, and longer pieces have to do even more work to sustain that level of energy.

We have multiple editors reading in each genre and asking each other to re-read things. We agonize through a process of trimming our top picks down to the number we can manage to publish in our one annual issue. We usually offer line edit suggestions to accepted authors, particularly in prose--though once a piece is accepted, those suggestions are up to the author to take or not.

I'm also a writer, so sometimes I'm receiving my own acceptances and rejections even as I'm sending them. (I send the rejections with closed eyes and a whispered apology--very Midwestern of me.) I'm also a writing teacher, so my days are filled with reading, writing, offering feedback--and appreciating the power of words. We do produce only one issue a year, about all our team of volunteer editors (we all have other full time jobs) can handle. I think this means that like our writers and artists our lives are stuffed to the brim with all the meaningful stuff that makes us want to make art, and share art, all the more.

We receive so many submissions these days that pieces that make it to acceptance are sharply written and highly edited already. I do take pride in offering writers the kinds of line edit suggestions I know I appreciate as a writer: a question about a reference or fact, a hyphenated word, slight excesses that could be trimmed, thoughts about how the title works, etc. Our line edit suggestions are for the authors to accept or reject.

Yes! In recent years, we've nominated pieces for the Pushcart Prize, the Best American series, Best Small Fictions, and the Pen/Robert J. Dau short story prize for emerging writers. One of our issue 12 writers was selected for a Dau prize! That was really exciting.

We do not have outside funding. We sell issues, and, alas, must ask for a (nominal) submission fee. Our editors and readers are volunteers. We are grateful to the university for supporting student internships so students who work in our office and help with our workflow can learn while earning credit (and occasionally these are paid internships, too!)

We use social media (in particular Instagram) to promote our authors and issues and to connect with the writing community. We also table at the annual AWP conference, as well as some other writers' conferences in the Midwest. We can also distribute to bookstores and libraries, and we've appeared at conferences to introduce ourselves to Midwestern booksellers.