Editorial Brain Picking Part I by Angie Ledbetter

To get inside editors’ mindsets for Rose & Thorn’s blog readership, several generous literary folks have contributed to this series. Hope you enjoy their insights as much as I did. Please take a moment to visit their sites and to thank them for their participation. We’ll begin with a two-part Q & A, then cover the remaining interviews in future posts:

A. What do you enjoy most about being an editor?
B. Dislike most?

Name: Steven Seighman
Title: Editor/Founder
Publisher/Publication: Monkeybicycle
URL: http://www.monkeybicycle.net/
Years with publisher/publication: 5

A. From the very beginning, Monkeybicycle was about finding new writers just as much as it was about publishing more established ones. I think the most enjoyable thing about being an editor is getting a really fantastic story from someone I hadn't heard of before, and either working with him or her to polish it and make it everything I know it can be, or, even better, just being blown away by it right from the start.

B. One of the things that really frustrates me is when someone can't handle rejection. It doesn't happen too often, but every once in a while I'll tell someone their piece isn't quite right for Monkeybicycle (and one of the reasons I'm a bit slow to respond to submissions sometimes is because I don't use a templated response at all. I think there is something of value in everything that is sent to us, and I want to make sure the author knows what it is, so they can at least take something positive away from the Monkeybicycle experience, even if we don't think their work is right for us) and they take it as an insult, like I'm the meanest bastard in the world and have no idea what I'm talking about. Those times are definitely frustrating.

Name: Timothy Green
Title: Editor
Publisher/Publication: RATTLE
URL: http://www.rattle.com/
Years with publisher/publication: 5
Personal site/blog: http://www.timothy-green.org/

A. Believe it or not, it's the graphic design, the web design, the marketing—all the extra things I had to learn how to do, that I had no idea I'd enjoy. Everyone assumes it's the poetry that's the most fun, panning the slush pile for gold and holding it up to the light. And for a while it is. But then you realize that great poems are going to appear, and they're going to be great, and you're going to put together a collection that you can't wait to present to the world. If you read 1,000 poems, a handful are going to take your breath away. Once you start trusting that fact, it's not so much desperate and exciting as it is mechanical. It's a waiting game you always win if you're patient enough.
But the rest of it is a challenge, and the challenge is what's fun. I didn't know how to use Quark or Photoshop before I started working here. I'd never built a website. Without the funds to outsource anything, I had to teach myself. And it turns out, designing an ad or a newsletter, going out and photographing backgrounds for posters, all that stuff is really the best part. And trying to innovate, thinking of new ways to make the magazine more useful to readers, whether it's an exotic theme, or a new feature on the website. Trying to make poetry stand out in this massive sea of distraction. It's not easy, and that's the way I like it.

B. Sending out rejection letters. Especially to people I know, friends of mine, colleagues, or people who submit consistently and never make the cut. I probably care about it more than they do in the end, but it's always awkward and uncomfortable. No one likes to be the bearer of bad news, and we publish less than 1% of the material we receive, so there's far more bad news than good. It's literally hundreds of rejection letters a week, an unending dead weight of negative energy. Like dragging around the plague cart everywhere you go. That's melodramatic, of course, but it really is unpleasant.

Name: Beth Staples
Title: Managing Editor
Publisher/Publication: Hayden’s Ferry Review
URL: http://www.asu.edu/piper/publications/haydensferryreview
New blog: http://haydensferryreview.blogspot.com/

A. That’s easy—I love working with writers and artists. At Hayden’s Ferry Review, the Managing Editor (that’s me) doesn’t make the final choices for the issue—our editors change every year, and are chosen from MFA candidates here at Arizona State. I do help read the submissions and oversee the editorial and intern staff, but my role involves coordinating the submission process, corresponding with the authors, designing the issue and coordinating printing, managing marketing efforts, subscriptions and distribution, and overseeing HFR events and the HFR blog. I really enjoy mostly all of it, but my favorite time of the year is when the editors make their final decisions, and I work with our contributors to get the issue ready for printing. Our mission is to support emerging writers, and it’s very gratifying to make that happen.

B. Hmm...If I’m honest about it, probably renewal letters are the least fun. Of course, they’re very important to keep subscriptions up-to-date, so in the sense that I’m making sure the HFR gets out to subscribers and finds new ones, I enjoy it. In the sense where I’m knee deep in envelopes and covered in toner, it can be kind of a pain. I’m the only full-time, paid employee on the HFR staff, so in some ways I have to be a jack-of-all-trades. A lot of literary journal editors have to be. Some of the things I do I really love, and others I don’t, and others I feel are somewhat out my league doing (I have no marketing background, for example). But I really care about HFR, so I do the best I can. And I should mention our intern staff, which are really the ones that end up covered in envelope glue. They are invaluable.

Name: Cooper Renner
Title: Editor
Publisher/Publication: elimae
URL: http://elimae.com/
Years with publisher/publication: Not quite 4 years
Personal site/blog: http://cooprenner.com/

A. Seeing new works I would never have imagined; ongoing relationships with writers.

B. Reading submissions which may be perfectly fine writing, but are not appropriate for elimae; the sheer ongoingness of it—seeing submissions almost every day, seven days a week.

Name: Susan Burmeister-Brown
Title: Co-editor
Publisher/Publication: Glimmer Train Stories
URL: http://www.glimmertrain.org/
Years with publisher/publication: 18

A. Seeing what people are thinking and writing about. Finding the gems to publish. Publishing new writers. Working with my sister.

B. I wish we had more pages to publish more good work. We publish 40 stories a year.

Name: Reb Livingston
Title: Poet, Editor & Publisher
Publisher/Publication: No Tell Motel & No Tell Books
URL: http://notellmotel.org/ & http://notellbooks.org/
Years there: 4 years No Tell Motel, 3 years No Tell Books
Personal site/blog: http://www.reblivingston.net/ , http://www.cacklingjackal.blogspot.com/

A. I enjoy supporting and promoting poems that I love. It's one way I can contribute to the poetry community.

B. Hmm, perhaps dealing with the occasional difficult person, or unexpected freak-out. I have feelings too!

Name: John Amen
Title: Editor
Publisher/Publication: The Pedestal Magazine
URL: http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/
Years with publisher/publication: 7.5 years
Personal site/blog: http://www.johnamen.com/

A. I really enjoy the sense of being connected to other writers and artists, to having a sense of what is happening in the literary and performance art worlds. Also, that so many readers are enjoying what we publish is very satisfying. I think Pedestal has enabled me to be part of a broad community, and I really value this.

B. There are numerous logistics that have to be handled on a daily basis, and this can become tedious. But when I remember why I got into this in the first place (a love for and a desire to cultivate expression), it recontextualizes my frustrations.

Name: Cesar Garza
Title: Senior Editor
Publisher/Publication: The Rose & Thorn Literary E-zine
URL: http://www.theroseandthornezine.com/
Years with publisher/publication: 8

A. The power, the money...just kidding. We don't earn any money. What I enjoy most is having the power to showcase quality literary work, poetry in my case.

B. Two things: 1) Line breaks after the word "the"...call it a pet peeve. It's the weakest kind of enjambment there is. 2) Rejections, which is why a few years ago I implemented a "no rejections" policy for the poetry department of The Rose & Thorn. It might seem like a cop-out, but I figure most working poets get enough "though we enjoyed your work, it's a no." Why add to their "no" pile? Rejections are so often formulaic and impersonal, and no amount of sugarcoating will undo the fact that the poem they toiled over has not been accepted. In lieu of rejecting work (a negative action), we gratefully acknowledge every poetry submission with a receipt (an affirmative action), which specifies the issue the submission is being considered for, the start and end date of the current reading cycle, and the date by which a poet can safely conclude their work has not been accepted for publication. In effect, we're asking poets to read between the lines—their stock in trade.

Name: J.W. Wang
Title: Editor
Publisher/Publication: Juked
URL: http://www.juked.com/
Years with publisher/publication: since 1999

A. Discovering great stories, being a part of the process for these wonderful writers. There’s no money in this business; the only currency we deal with is writing and more writing. It’s always good to hear from someone about how much they enjoyed one of our stories. Makes it feel like we’re doing something worthwhile.

B. It’s a part of the process, it’s necessary and unavoidable, but I still wince every time I send out a rejection note.