TCR Literary Journals Series: Newfound (An Interview with Newfound's Managing Editor Daniel Levis Keltner)

"The world doesn’t need another literary journal," says Daniel Levis Keltner, managing editor of Newfound. "This was my canned response to friends proposing to start journals. It takes a tremendous amount of work to accomplish the very basics—to publish hip, stirring, and quality work. So many already established journals out there need helping hands—why not pitch in? I’m no more original than anyone else. So, for me, to get into publishing meant the journal had to strive to achieve more."

Newfound is an online publication devoted to literary, visual, and artistic perspectives and interpretations of the physical world. Using fiction, essays, poetry, and visual art Newfound explores how place shapes identity, imagination, and understanding.

Daniel Levis Keltner, managing editor of Newfound.

A recent issue offers "Engagement," a short story by Darrin Doyle, in which a stable, middle-aged couple finds their lives unraveling when -- emboldened by drink and, perhaps more importantly, by the strangeness of being out very late at night -- they finally confront noisy neighbors.

Jaime Groetsema begins her review of a Chicago poetry reading by James Franco and Frank Bidart with a prelude about being interrupted by a fellow passenger while reading As I Lay Dying on a grimy city bus -- "He leaned over. He said what I was reading was his favorite book. His pleasure made me nervous...The man I thought I recognized was getting up. Was whispering in my ear. Was whispering and grinning: 'enjoy the book.' I couldn't read it anymore. The book was no longer mine."

TCR Literary Journals Series: A Brief Interview with Linda Swanson-Davies of Glimmer Train

Issue 88, Fall 2013

The Committee Room recently talked with Linda Swanson-Davies, co-editor and co-founder of Glimmer Train, a leading American literary magazine. An independent publication based in Portland, Oregon, Glimmer Train was established in 1990 by Swanson-Davies and her sister Susan Burmeister-Brown. Neither woman had an academic background in literature. They were simply voracious readers who wanted to bring good writing to a larger audience.

The journal's title comes from the sisters having had no plans to start a literary journal but could in retrospect see that glimmers of the idea had gone through their minds. Now that the idea had fully emerged they were going forward with it like a locomotive speeding down the rails.  

Glimmer Train is published three times a year in carefully put together print issues, including a Spring/Summer double issue. Swanson-Davies and Burmeister-Brown strongly believe that a handsome physical publication reflects the enduring quality of its contents. They are also committed to paying the writers whose work appears in Glimmer Train. Over $50,000, funded by contest fees and subscriptions, goes to writers each year.

TCR Literary Journals Series: Gargoyle

Gargoyle #60, 2013

The Committee Room continues its TCR Literary Journals Series with a look at Gargoyle, the venerable yet always up to date literary journal based in the Washington, DC area.

Gargoyle was founded in 1976 by Richard Peabody, Russell Cox, and Paul Pasquarella. Intending to call the new journal Pan, the three young editors went to Washington National Cathedral to photograph a statue of the god Pan. Photos of the cathedral's gargoyles turned out to be more interesting so the journal was renamed.

Cox and Pasquarella left Gargoyle after the first year but Peabody forged on working with other co-editors until 1990 when the magazine temporarily ceased publication. Gargoyle returned in 1997 with Peabody co-editing with Lucinda Ebersole.

TCR Literary Journals Series: The Journal (Ohio State University)

The Committee Room is excited about continuing its Literary Journals Series with a look at The Journal, Ohio State University's venerable literary magazine. Founded as The Ohio Journal in 1973 by the Ohio State English department, The Journal, a quarterly which publishes its Winter and Summer issues in print and its Spring and Fall issues online, specializes in longer stories, excerpts from novels, and writing not easily classified by genre. Robert Duffer of New Pages says that "the patience The Journal provides its writers - and readers - gives it a traditional sense of authority, one that endures."

The Journal was edited from 1985 to1990 by poet David Citino and was then co-edited for many years by novelist and essayist Michelle Herman and poet Kathy Fagan.  In recent years it has become a student-run publication with editorial positions changing hands annually.

TCR Literary Journal Series: Beloit Fiction Journal

The Committee Room is happy to continue its Literary Journal Series with a look at the Beloit Fiction Journal.  Founded in 1985 by novelist and journalist Clint McCown, who was then a young professor of English at Beloit College in Wisconsin, and a group of enthusiastic Beloit College students, the BFJ has since its inception provided a showcase for both established and unknown writers. Fred Burwell, writer and blogger, was a member of the original student staff.  He sums up one of the BFJ's guiding principles when he recalls those early days -- "We discovered that manuscript cover letters with laundry lists of past publications meant nothing – it would be too easy to stock a magazine with names familiar to the literary magazine establishment. Only the quality of the story mattered."

Chris Fink took over as editor of the Beloit Fiction Journal when McCown stepped down in 2005.  A widely published writer of fiction and non-fiction, Fink's stories and essays have appeared in many publications including the Alaska Quarterly Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Malahat Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Other Voices, and Phoebe. His book of fiction, Farmer's Almanac, is forthcoming from Emergency Press in 2012.  He formerly edited the Cream City Review.

Fink graciously sat down for an interview with TCR.

TCR Literary Journal Series: African American Review

The Committee Room continues its Literary Journal Series with a look at the African American Review.

For nearly fifty years, the African American Review and its predecessors have published groundbreaking articles on the African American contribution to a variety of literary fields including science fiction, theater, children's literature, and literary theory in addition to offering contemporary fiction and poetry.

Houston A. Baker, writer, critic, and former president of the Modern Language Association, has called the African American Review "vibrant and invaluable" and a "foremost influence" within African American scholarship.

African American Review traces its roots to the Negro American Literature Forum, a newsletter-like publication founded in 1967 at Indiana State University and aimed at school teachers and college professors eager to introduce students to African American texts. Despite its modest format, Negro American Literature Forum quickly began attracting contributions from leading figures on the African American cultural scene including poet/novelist/librarian Arna Bontemps, scholar/educator Richard Barksdale, and film historian Thomas Cripps.  In 1976, Negro American Literature Forum updated its name to Black American Literature Forum and strengthened its commitment to presenting scholarly, theory-based material.  In 1983, the Modern Language Association's Division on Black American Literature and Culture named Black American Literature Forum the division's official publication.  In 1992, Black American Literature Forum changed its name to African American Review, a more encompassing title that reflects its goals of reaching a wider audience and making a broader cultural impact.

TCR Literary Journal Series: Bellingham Review

The Committee Room continues its Literary Journal Series with a look at the Bellingham Review. Founded in 1977 at Western Washington University by poets Knute Skinner and Peter Nicoletta, the Bellingham Review states its mission as publishing "literature of palpable quality: poems, stories, and essays so beguiling they invite us to touch their essence...a kind of writing that nudges the limits of form, or executes traditional forms exquisitely." BR's Editorial Advisory Board includes Tess Gallagher, Rita Dove, Henry Taylor and other stellar names.

Bellingham Review publishes twice annually -- a print edition in the spring and an online edition in the fall.  BR also sponsors three contests --

The 49th Parallel Award for Poetry (final judge 2012 Linda Bierds)

Annie Dillard Award for Creative Non-Fiction (final judge 2012 Sheila Bender)

Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction (final judge 2012 Robin Hemley)

BR's current editor in chief is award-winning essayist Brenda Miller. Miller is the author of Listening Against the Stone: Selected Essays (Skinner House Books, 2011), Blessing of the Animals (Eastern Washington University Press, 2009), and Season of the Body (Sarabande Books, 2002).  She is co-author with Suzanne Paola of Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction (McGraw-Hill, 2003).  Her work has appeared in many publications including Utne Reader, Georgia Review, and Missouri Review.  She has received six Pushcart Prizes.  

Miller recently sat down for a chat with The Committee Room.

TCR Talks with Bellingham Review Editor Brenda Miller


Q: Could you elaborate on what "literature of palpable quality" means?
A: We mean writing that is so vivid you feel you could literally “touch” it.  We mean writing that resonates for a long time.

Brenda Miller and her dog Abbe (photo by Anita K. Boyle)

Q: How many submissions does BR receive in a typical month during your submission period?
A: It depends. During open submissions, between September and December of each year, we usually receive about three hundred manuscripts a month. During our contests, between December and March, we’ll receive a little more.

Q: What happens when a manuscript is received at BR?
A:  We’re now encouraging authors to submit their work via an online submission program, Submittable, so it is automatically logged in to the genre readers’ mailbox.  The readers, read several pieces a week and write notes about them and assign them to the genre editors, who also read every piece that is submitted. Those they feel are publishable, or that have merit, are then submitted to me with their rationale. I then read those pieces and choose the ones we will publish. I will sometimes write to an author and ask for revisions before guaranteeing publication.

Q: What percentage of submissions are rejected after just one reading?
A: Probably about ninety percent of the work we receive is rejected after one reading.

Q: What are the most common reasons a manuscript is rejected?
A: The first page of a prose piece needs to be perfect, and it needs to grab our attention (in a good way). If the first page has awkward sentences or typos, or starts with an explicit, offensive scene, it will be rejected. If it starts with clichéd descriptions, it will be rejected. If it is about a time-worn theme, without evidence that the author has found an original form or voice for this theme, it will be rejected. The same goes for poetry. The writing needs to be original, vivid, sensory, with a distinctive voice.

Q: BR has impressive names on its Editorial Advisory Board.  What does the Advisory Board do?
A: The Advisory Board had more of a role in the establishment of the journal and its transition to the university. Now they do not have a real formal role in the running of the journal.

Q: BR recently came out with its first online issue.  Can you talk about the differences between editing a print journal and editing an online journal?
A: It’s very exciting to have two different versions of the journal now available, as this diversity allows us to publish more work. We look for the same quality of work for each edition, and often when I decide something seems right for the online version, it’s because I can envision the perfect illustration to go along with it. The online edition allows us more leeway with graphics and illustrations than we can have in the print edition.

Q: What is the circulation of the print version? Of the online version?
A: The circulation for the print journal is about 1,200. We haven’t tracked the number of hits we’ve received in the online edition, but our hope is that the online work reaches an even larger audience. We are going to be adding a podcast and enhancing the design of the online edition next fall.

Q: What separates BR from other literary journals?
A: I’d say it’s the consistent voice we’ve developed, though my editorial staff changes every year. If you read several issues, you can “hear” how our contributors are all quite diverse, but all seem to approach their material with a compelling blend of reverence and irreverence.

Q: Who are BR's readers?
A: Most of our readers have contributed to our three literary contests: The Annie Dillard Award in Creative Nonfiction; the Tobias Wolff Award in Fiction; and the 49th Parallel Poetry Award.  Since they receive a subscription with their contest entry fee, the majority of our subscribers have submitted to our journal in the past. So our audience is made up mainly of other writers.

Q: How does BR or any academic-based literary journal reach beyond people in the "field" of creative writing?
A: We’re always looking for ways to do that. We donate copies of our magazine to schools and shelters. We’ve had a poem from our magazine read on the air during a baseball game! But I think our primary role will always be to provide publishing opportunities for creative writers, a way to showcase their work and enhance professionalism.

Q: How do you balance your work as a writer with your work as an editor and professor?
A: It’s not easy! I do most of my new writing on writing retreats when school is not in session, and then revise and send out work during the school year. I write with my students to keep my writing mind going.

Q: Could you talk about the different skills required in writing, editing, and teaching?
A: In writing, I need to get very quiet and listen. In editing, I need to get very judgmental. In teaching, I need to be compassionate.

Q: As a writer, you specialize in non-fiction and have said in interviews that you weren't so good at writing fiction, especially plot.  Can you talk about the strengths needed for writing fiction and non-fiction?
A: For me, my strengths come from my poetry background; that is, I relish in language and imagery, in metaphor and connection. My essays can be quite fragmented, held together by shimmering threads. While some fiction can also work this way, my strengths are in revealing my own vulnerabilities through these kinds of lyric structures. Fiction has a different purpose, it seems to me.

Q: Does a short story really need a plot?
A: No, but it does need something that keeps it moving forward. As does nonfiction.

Q: Would you agree that contemporary readers are more interested in "real life" than in fiction and if so why?
A: Not necessarily. Fiction still sells really well.

Q: Can you explain what "creative non-fiction" is?
A: Well, I’ve written a whole book on the topic (Tell it Slant), but the nutshell version would be that creative nonfiction roots itself in fact, but uses imagination, memory, metaphor, scenes, and literary forms to enhance fact into literature.

Q: What is the biggest challenge in editing a literary journal?
A: $$$$$$$!

TCR Literary Journal Series: Blue Lake Review

The Committee Room continues its Literary Journal Series with a look at Blue Lake Review.  An independent, online publication based in Rochester, New York, Blue Lake Review offers powerful, straightforward fiction, poetry, and essays.


Blue Lake Review was founded in 2010 by Mitchell Waldman and Diana May-Waldman.  Mitchell Waldman is a widely published fiction writer whose work includes the short story collection Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart (Wind Publications, 2011) and the novel A Face in the Moon (Writers Club Press, 2000).  May-Waldman is a poet, essayist, and award-winning journalist. Her work includes the poetry volume A Woman's Song (Publish America, 2009). She is an editor at the independent news website Worldwide Hippies. Waldman and May-Waldman co-edited Wounds of War: Poets for Peace (Publish America, 2006) and Hip Poetry 2012 (Wind Publications, forthcoming).

Waldman and May-Waldman recently spoke with The Committee Room.

An Interview with the Editors of Blue Lake Review

Q: Why did you want to start a literary journal when there are already so many?
A: As writers ourselves we started Blue Lake Review to help discover new writers and bring more exposure to good writers both known and unknown.

Q: Why did you call it Blue Lake Review?
A: We live on Lake Ontario and love the water.

Diana May-Waldman

Q: How have you gone about publicizing Blue Lake Review in order to get readers and submissions?
A: We've gotten a lot of following from our Facebook page. We've also received notice from our listing at the Poets and Writers site, other literary review listing sites, Duotrope, other literary journals linking to us, as well as by word of mouth of our contributors and readers.

Q: How many submissions does Blue Lake Review receive in a typical month?
A: We get anywhere from sixty to one-hundred submissions per month.

"Authentic writing is believable, moving, whether based on autobiographical experiences or not. Authentic writing is real or very easily could be. It comes from the writer's heart."

Q: In the guidelines you state that Blue Lake Review is looking for both fiction and poetry that is "authentic." Could you elaborate on that?
A: We are looking for writing that is original, not contrived, not trying to copy the style of other writers. Authentic writing is believable, moving, whether based on autobiographical experiences or not. Authentic writing is real or very easily could be. It comes from the writer's heart.

Q: What happens when a submission is received?
A: We try to read the manuscripts as soon as we can, in the order received. Diana reads poetry submissions. Mitchell reads fiction and essay submissions. Promising submissions are either accepted or held for possible consideration for publication.

Q: How many submissions (fiction, poetry, essays) are rejected after one reading?
A: The majority of submissions are rejected after one reading. Others are held for further consideration.

Q: What are the main reasons why a submission is rejected?
A: Submissions are rejected for the most part because they are not moving. This is our ultimate consideration. Some submissions are rejected as not being well written, for their lack of originality, believability, or for their cliche approach to the subject. Also, a submission that contains a lot of typographical or grammatical errors or misspellings as they indicate that the writer doesn't take pride in his or her work.

"We are much more open, we think, to diverse viewpoints, writing styles, and subjects than are university writing programs."

Mitchell Waldman

Q: Do you have any idea how many people are reading Blue Lake Review?
A: In the past month we had approximately five-thousand unique readers look at our website, and the number appears to be increasing.

Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of being an independent journal unattached from a university writing program?
A: We are much more open, we think, to diverse viewpoints, writing styles, and subjects than are university writing programs. We are looking for writing from people from all backgrounds and, while not always true, writing from university programs may result in more conservative, cookie-cutter styles of writers. And, we are looking to find and promote unestablished and otherwise unknown but excellent writers who need a forum to display their work.

Q: Do you feel that fiction writers and poets have an obligation to address the social and political issues of their times?
A: No, not necessarily an obligation. We are certainly not focused on writing that addresses such issues but, in some instances, fiction writers and poets have these types of issues in mind or underlying their stories, and express them. We are not, however, looking for heavy-handed stories and poetry in which the words are merely thin vehicles for stories and poems that hit you across the head with "message." The story or poem is the key. If there is political or social issue addressed as an inherent part of the writing, that's fine, too.

Q: Would you agree that contemporary readers are more interested in non-fiction than in fiction and what is the place of an essay in a literary journal?
A: Yes, it's a sad fact that most readers these days are more interested in non-fiction than fiction. The essay sparks thinking among our readers and can more directly address current social and political concerns than say, fiction or poetry.

Q: Any advice for someone thinking of starting a literary journal?
A: It's going to be a lot of work and you have to be dedicated. Approach it like a job. And give the writers a chance. Make sure that your personal beliefs and prejudices are not coming into play in the reading of the work, as there are many viewpoints out there, all seeking to be heard.


Here's further information --

"Author Insides -- Mitchell Waldman." Vagabondage Press Blog. March 13, 2011.

TCR Literary Journal Series: The Notre Dame Review

The Committee Room is happy to begin its series on literary magazines with a profile of the Notre Dame Review, a journal of contemporary and international fiction, poetry, and criticism. Robert Pinsky, former Poet Laureate of the United States, called the Notre Dame Review "a lively, engaging, unpredictable literary journal."  Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame, the NDR is a print journal published twice a year.  There is also an online companion nd [re]view.  Founded in 1995, the NDR   publishes the work of renown literary figures such as Nobel laureates Seamus Heaney and Czeslaw Milosz along with that of emerging writers.

The NDR also sponsors the Sandeen Prize for Poetry and the Sullivan Prize for Short Fiction.

In 2009, The Notre Dame Review: The First Ten Years,  a "best of" volume featuring the work of Heaney, Milosz, Paul Muldoon, Denise Levertov, Richard Elman, and many others was published by the Notre Dame Press.

TCR recently interviewed the NDR's editor, William O'Rourke, a prolific, witty, and opinionated novelist, essayist, blogger, and former Chicago Sun-Times columnist, to get his take on running a literary journal and on the literary world generally.

A Brief Interview with William O'Rourke

Q: How long have you been at the NDR?
A: I have been at the NDR since its beginning in 1995 and at Notre Dame since 1981. I was the founding director of Notre Dame’s graduate creative writing program, which began in 1990.  My vision was to have three things happen, more or less, at once: create a program, start a national literary magazine, and begin a publishing series of both poetry and prose.  All three occurred.  Valerie Sayers started the magazine in 1995, after joining the faculty a year earlier (and she also took over the program’s directorship at that time). I began the Sandeen/Sullivan prize series with the Notre Dame Press.  Everything needed to be doable, since we were operating with limited resources.  Our program was very grass roots, having sprung out of the work of the interested people in the English Department. It was bottom up, not top down.

"The 60s and 70s were the last golden age of reading, before the onset of technology began to control everyone’s time and attention."

Q: How has the literary world changed, for good or bad, since you arrived on the scene forty years ago?
A: When I began as a writer, I went to Columbia University’s new graduate creative writing program in 1968.  There were only a handful back then in existence and Columbia provided me a port in the storm of New York City.  The growth period for graduate creative writing programs was the 70s-80s (ND got on the bandwagon after the wagon stopped moving in 1990.)    Bohemia was outsourced to college towns as the literary life in the big cities became too expensive for starving artists.  The starving was taken to the suburbs and the depopulating regions of the country.  But the biggest thing that has changed is the nature of reading.  The 60s and 70s were the last golden age of reading, before the onset of technology began to control everyone’s time and attention.  VCRs first, then the internet and all its spawn.  We invited Big Brother into our lives and now contemporary literature plays a far less significant role in the culture (though a larger one in English departments.)   In 2009, the Notre Dame Press published Notre Dame Review: The First Ten Years, a “best of” volume.   It has introductions by both myself and John Matthias, my coeditor, which go into the changes over time in the literary world.  And I have a book coming out in 2012, to be published by Indiana University Press, Confessions of a Guilty Freelancer, which covers some of  the same ground.

Q: What is the NDR's circulation?
A: 1,500.  Five hundred of which are subscriptions and the rest distributed one way or another. It’s about the same press run as novels or short stories published by most small presses. Or even a bit larger.

Q: What are the NDR's distribution channels?
A: Over the years we have been distributed by Ubiquity, Media Solutions, and Ingram, and others,though distributors have been harder to keep, given the general decline in bookstore sales.

Q: Who are the NDR's readers?
A: The same folk who read other literary journals. The young (and old) who hang out at bookstores and all those who are interested in the literary world in general.

Q: What separates the NDR from countless other American literary journals?
A: The taste of the editors.

Q: NDR's submission guidelines state that the journal seeks material that takes on “big issues.” Could you give some examples of stories or poems that take on such issues especially well
A: See the poems and prose in the last issue, No. 31 (or any issue.)  Start with David Matlin’s story “California City,” and John Wilkinson’s poem “Terre Haute”. For those who wouldn’t know, Terre Haute is the city in Indiana which houses the prison which executes prisoners.  And the home of Eugene V. Debs.

Q: What are the NDR's sources of funding?
A: We are subsidized by the College of Arts & Letters of the University of Notre Dame and by “Sustainers” listed in the magazine, as well as by subscribers and purchasers of the magazine.

"We intend to shock the bourgeois only by the merit of what we publish."

Q: Does the NDR's connection a Catholic university (probably the most prominent Catholic university in the US) influence its content in any way?
A: We are firmly set in a global literary tradition, humanistic in its values, aware of the mission of the University.  We haven’t had any censorship issues (though that isn’t to say we couldn’t have encountered them).  We intend to shock the bourgeois only by the merit of what we publish.  

Q: How does the NDR or any university-based, MFA program connected, literary journal keep from becoming an academic publication read only by people in the “field” of creative writing?
A: By getting out into the public and being recommended by those in the field to those who are not in the field. And we have had short stories and poems republished in the Best American and Pushcart series.  Those anthologies, especially the Best American, have wider circulations.  And, of course, there is the internet, and who knows who is looking through that keyhole?

Q: How many submissions does the NDR receive in a typical month?
A: Over a hundred a month. We take submissions from September to March and nearly a thousand -- roughly half prose, half poetry -- arrive.

Q: What is the NDR's editorial process?
A: Everything gets read.  Often more than once by more than one person.  Graduate students do the first reading but a faculty editor looks at everything they read, so at least two people have read everything. The poetry side is very efficient; the prose side not as good.  The fiction editor champions multiple submission, in order to feel less guilty.

Q: What percentage of submissions don't get past an initial reading?
A: About eighty percent doesn’t go to the upper editors.

Q: What are some common reasons why manuscripts are rejected?
A: It’s the usual mix of reasons: subject, execution, reach, level of accomplishment, general literacy and effect.

Q: What is the role of the NDR's online element nd [re]view?
A: It is an extension of the magazine, extra material that would make any issue too long (we now average around two-hundred fifty pages per issue) -- photographs, other pieces of poetry and prose, more interviews and the endless links. I believe that the internet is “free”, only insofar that one can fill it up with material and not sacrifice any trees or printing budgets.

Q: In a 2010 interview with the Huffington Post you said – “It's an aural-visual world today, not a literate one...Poetry  might well profit over time, given its usual length, size, but not, alas, I think, fiction.” Could you elaborate on that?
A: The paradox of the internet is, though, as mentioned above, it can print endless reams of work, it is a medium that seems to entertain short attention spans and is most suitable for short lengths of both poetry and prose.  As Chekov didn’t say, brevity is the sister of the web site.   And the search engine makes the part greater than the whole.

Q: What are the biggest challenges one faces in running a literary journal?
A: Other than answering interview questions?  Doing what matters and making it matter, while not deepening one’s own cynicism.  In other words, staying generous.
 
 Additional Reading

"17 Literary Journals That Might Survive the Internet," Huffington Post, August 14, 2010.

TCR Literary Journal Series Begins Soon

The Committee Room is pleased to announce its Literary Journal Series will begin soon.  The series will offer fresh, original interviews with editors and staff members of literary journals -- both print and online -- to get their first-hand views on finding and presenting quality prose and poetry in the 21st century.

Each entry in the series will focus on a particular journal.

Turn to The Committee Room to help expand your world.