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the trouble with litmags
Why are most literary magazines so bad?
[Note: I speak here as a former litmag editor and as a person who's investigated (I can't legitimately say "read") at least a hundred different litmags.]
1. Lack of editorial focus or stance
1a. Obeying the oft-issued edict to "read a few issues of our magazine to familiarize yourself with the kind of writing we publish" more often than not reveals no information greater than "this litmag publishes the same kind of writing that all the other litmags publish"
1b. Submissions guidelines that say things like "we are committed to publishing the best contemporary fiction and poetry being produced today" in practice tend to really be saying something like "we will publish 1% of whatever comes in through the mailslot, although what those pieces share by way of similarity is anybody's guess"
1c. More magazines need to produce guidelines which function as statments of genuine editorial purpose, like this one, courtesy of Diagram: "We value the insides of things, vivisection, urgency, risk, elegance, flamboyance, work that moves us, language that does something new, or does something old--well. We like iteration and reiteration. Ruins and ghosts. Mechanical, moving parts, balloons, and frenzy."
1d. Even half of that suffers from vagueness: "work that moves us" is especially onerous in this regard
1e. Part of the problem: university-associated litmags afflicted with revolving-door editors. Even those who have an editorial 'vision' (a comparatively small percent) have little time to build it into the magazine before they, too, move on
2. Preference for "safe" stories / poems
2a. "Safe" can also be read as "tasteful," "bourgeoise," "liberal" or etc.
2b. Most litmags want to publish the same sort of New Yorker / Iowa-Writer's-Workshop-type lit that MFA programs tend to want their students to reproduce. This system works harmoniously insofar as each half of it answers a need of the other half, but the end result is a madenning blandness and predictability
2c. Fiendish corrolary: literary material that makes a point of being quote-unquote "risky" runs an equal danger of falling into bland and predictable patterns: you can only read so many heroin stories, "dirty realism," neo-noir pieces or intentionally shocking or squalid pieces before they, too, begin to seem like they're "safe" in their own way. Same goes for pieces that express "risk" through the means of formal experimentation
2d. Questions for further consideration: here at the outset of the 21st century, what constitutes genuine literary "risk"? Who is a genuinely "risky" poet working today? A genuinely risky novelist? [Note: First person to answer Will Self or Bret Easton Ellis gets punched.]
2e. More questions: Is "safe" / "risky" even the right question? Is it the same as "predictable" / "unpredictable?" Is an "unpredictable" literary magazine something the world really wants? Is it something I want? Is it compatible with my desire for a magazine with a coherent editorial focus, or is this a paradox? What happens if you try to exert a consistent desire for unpredictability? (See also: Novelty and Habit.) Labels: writing |
