May 11th, 2010 / 9:49 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Kristen Iskandrian—
Is anyone else sick of contests? I’m sick of contests. Why?
-
Archives
- January 2023
- February 2022
- September 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- August 2017
- July 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
-
Meta
I’m more sick of “themed issues.”
“We are accepting submissions for our special Spring issue about vomiting at state fairs. All stories and poems most somehow deal with the topic of kids–and adults–who end up sick at state fairs, whether on rickety ass rides or in the Porta-Potty after eating too many fried Zero bars.”
Too many “thematic” calls for submissions comes cross as heavy handed editing, like the editors don’t trust that enough good writers will send them work to form a solid issue.
*must
I like your example, and think some journal should take you up on that theme. But I question your logic. If editors declare themed issues, don’t they significantly narrow the pool of writers who are likely to have eligible work? Isn’t it more an act of faith that good writers will generate the work anyway?
I haven’t entered a contest yet. I guess someday I will. Mainly FC2’s.
“Don’t they significantly narrow the pool of writers who are likely to have eligible work?”
Yes, they significantly narrow the pool of writers who are likely to have eligible work that fits their prescriptions.
because they seem like desperate attempts by journals to draw attention to themselves.
Same here. I’m not really in a rush to publish.
Why?
I think it’s a great way to get a subscription and a good read (by the editors, and in theory). I submit to the ones I want to subscribe to anyway,
Also, and being lame but true, my college (I’m going practical now, but why not?) adores any contest win/place/show.
I’m just being real. Welcome to academia (or avoid?)
S
They also seem like desperate attempts to make money.
i wouldnt say that
I don’t think contests draw attention to journals. Almost all lit journals have contests. That is way diluted. The actual work is a better way to draw attention, I mean for readers of lit mags.
Make money is hardly in a lit mag’s vocab. Do you mean “sustain?” I assume so.
A contest is voluntary. I’ve never seen a gun-to-head driven literary contest.
Don’t they just ask? The same way a sun might ask you to watch it rise?
If not, no worries.
Just trying, For the betterment of…
S
I would point out that not all contests cost money to enter.
actually maybe i would say that. i can fathom it seeming that way.
it puts money front and center usually
Sean, you’re right, of course.
“I’m sick of”–it’s me, not the contests. The contests are fine. I’m enlisting the help of internet to try and figure out why I’ve been rifling/clicking through contest info wearing a face like a pissy emoticon.
Every attempt at getting published is, in some ways, a participation in a contest. Explicit “contests” are usually just more specific versions of what we’re doing all day long, or once in a while, or whatever.
Maybe what I’m sick of is trying to get published? And the contests put a finer point on it.
I don’t know. Sometimes it’s exhilarating. Sometimes it’s mind-numbing, but pleasantly so. But there are days, like lately, where I bookmark things, or jot them down, or create a master list of deadlines and info, and then I realize that I’ve missed deadlines, or mixed up themes, or that I don’t really have something viable and don’t feel like writing something according to someone else’s ideas, or I do want to but I can’t, or, ___________….and then I just want to walk away from the whole enterprise and watch Salad Fingers.
I’ve never won a contest. I’ve been a runner-up here and there. But the outcome seems less important than that feeling, at the very top: I could win this. I might win this. I am winning this *right now*, just by submitting.
The heart can only take so much.
Every single issue of LIES/ISLE other than the first has been/will be a themed issue. Our idea is more that if an author wants to submit and doesn’t have anything sitting around that fits the theme, they will write something new (since, you know, we operate under the assumption that writers like to write), and if they don’t want to submit, they don’t have to be bothered by the theme. There are a million journals that don’t have themes, ever. Why hate on the few that do?
They aren’t desperate but they are a fundraising strategy.
i lost. oh well.
No losers here. Except for me, when I don’t win contests. –>boom<–
It seems like more and more journals are going the theme route.
Trust me, I don’t bother submitting to journals that require that I write toward a specific theme, or pull a story from my magician’s hat that fits the editors’ theme template. Seems like a safe way to run a journal; from the outset, you, the editor, put your prints all over the publication, which becomes more about your clever theme than the writers’ work. Instead of trusting the editorial process to take its natural course and for an issue to create its own original “theme” that wasn’t even imaginable when the submission period opened, you instead prescribed the journal’s supposed unity before people could submit, and in many cases, before they could write their submission! Some might argue that editors do the same thing with aesthetic preferences and tastes, but the difference is that the aesthetic is what most writers begin with—it’s what leads them to any “themes” naturally.
So, if an editor is calling for themed submissions, the writer has two options: 1) He or she has to have a story that already fits the theme; or, 2) He or she has to write a story that responds somehow to the theme.
For 2), the editor is assigning prompts. I find this insulting. I don’t need an editor to give me prompts. I passed Creative Writing 101 when I was 18. Thanks.
Also, let’s be clear—there’s a big difference between the kinds of themes in a journal like Nimrod, whose last thematic issue (I think) was “Mexico/USA,” and journals that put out calls for stories that “tell a story about a character who does something really well, to be considered for our Spring themed journal, Things People Do Really Well.”
How do you describe these kinds thematic sub calls that seem to be growing in popularity? Finger painting for writers?
I back up MFBomb. As a reader I can kind of dig a journal that builds its identity on a themed issue, or that occasionally uses a theme to unify an issue into something more than a collection of shorts (although the one themed issue I can think of that I’ve bought, from a magazine in Minneapolis, wasn’t so fantastic as I’d hoped but really just like a sunday in which a variety of flavors had melted together into one sugary but unmemorable pool), but for me as a writer such journals or issues of journals usually just piss me off. as I know after seeing any call for subs that I’m going to sit around thinking up a story for an hour and then start writing it and 30% of the way through will realize that it will likely get RJed anyway and be unsuitable to another market due to being marked with copious references to lava lamps or ring worm or whatever the target theme was.
But i vow here that if any journals collect subs on either of those topics I will write a spectacular thing.
For the journal I worked on in college it was, yes, desperate. And (financially) successful. And maybe it was just the low profile of that school’s magazine, but the turnout made me rethink whether I should sub to contests in pursuit of some publication credits. The pool from which the editors had to draw a piece was much smaller than the one climbing around the shelves in the regular reading room.
I agree with you, Sean. That kind of stuff is like shaved almonds on the sundae of your CV. Does that metaphor hold? Also you make a nice point about how contest entry fees usually are just subscription buys that also net you a chance at winning money. I don’t think I’ve ever entered a contest that didn’t include a couple issues. I get words in my mailbox and the magazine gets another number to tally into its circulation.
i didnt pass creative writing 101 until i was 26
^Yes. Also, it contradicts advice editors often give writers, like, “don’t send out work until it’s truly ready / Focus on the story first, then publication.”
Yet, you want me to write a story in a short period of time that is only being written because of a submissions call. Um.
Don’t submit to themed journals then? What exactly is the issue?
“If you don’t like it, turn the channel!”
Agree w/ Timmo that contest pools are usually weaker than slush pools (I read for a univ. journal). I think more writers should submit to contests. Many of the submissions are from hacks who are just submitting for the prize money.
Is the goal of a journal to get random writers to submit or to put out an interesting reading experience?
The issue here crops in two ways: 1) the writer either combs through calls for subs and is repulsed by the volume of theme-specific requests or 2) admires a journal and wants to sub but then pops open the page and finds that only writing on some certain variable is viable. So I mean, sure, the writer doesn’t have to submit, but it’s disheartening not to be able to send to 1) seemingly anything or 2) a magazine the writer really wants to contribute to.
I guess the third way the issue appears is when you’re reading a themed journal/cruising sub guidelines and realize you have a piece/would like to write a piece perfectly suited to that theme but that it will never again fit with that publication.
Sounds like sound advice to me.
Most of my most memorable journal reading experiences come form journals that did something unique with the issue, most frequently some kind of theme or concept.
To me, you display the common young writer mistake of thinking that journals exist not as places to read and experience art and literature, but as merely anonymous potential outlets for your work.
Saying issues will develop their own concept naturally sounds nice, but that doesn’t really ever happen beyond a journal just having a strong aesthetic, and even then that doesn’t distinguish one issue from another.
I don’t hate contests, but I hate magazines that over do them to the point that the magazine isn’t known for anything other than fund-raising contests (*cough* glimmer train *cough*)
They are a nice way to subscribe a journal while getting a chance to be published though.
L, I agree that a journal may want to organize an issue around a central unifying theme, but I think that the (average) journal then needs to either A) use such a strategy sparingly so as to avoid alienating potential contributors who are afraid of investing time in creating a particular themed piece that likely won’t be picked up anyway or B) solicit writing from creators who it feels exemplify or might exemplify writing in the desired flavor.
I can’t say I see the problem you guys/gals refer to. I don’t think theme’s are that prevelant. Most magazines don’t do them regularly and the ones that do (Conjunctions, McSweeneys, Tin House, etc.) either regularly have non-themed issues or else normally have such broad general themes it shouldn’t be hard to find something to send.
I also think that most magazines that do themes tend to solicit a large number of their writers. If you are soliciting the work anyway, it seems fine to me to guide it somewhat.
Sure, but most do. In fact, i think the only one I can remember coming free was one this site hosted.
L,
Thanks for your patronizing response, but I’ve worked as an editor for 3 national journals, so I feel confident in my understanding of the editorial process at journals that aren’t themed.
I’ve also published several stories in national journals and don’t consider myself a naive writer (though I might be young–I guess it depends on how old you are).
Man, I agree here. I had this brilliant writing prof in undergrad who’d had some minor success and deserved more and he mentioned one day in class that he just wanted to grab that train. Even then I was like, man, that journal might have a nice glossy cover but come on.
Occasional contests are good for both the magazine and the writer. I think journals should experiment with more non-monetary prizes, though. I’ve entered a decent amount of contests and the one I was (by far) most hungry to win had an original piece of art at the finish line. I didn’t even know the artist’s style or ability but imagine that thing hanging on the wall.
Sorry bro-dog, guess I just don’t agree with looking at lit mags from a purely submissions perspective.
“Saying issues will develop their own concept naturally sounds nice, but that doesn’t really ever happen beyond a journal just having a strong aesthetic, and even then that doesn’t distinguish one issue from another.”
Well, that’s why I’m saying that it’s stupid to prescribe a “concept” on an issue in the first place, because the threads in a themed issue often feel superficial.
Well, good luck finding people who read lit mags who aren’t writers.
To each his own I guess. The whole “here is best random crap we could pull from the submission pile coupled with random unrelated art we solicited” model of lit mags feels kinda silly and fleeting to me. How many of those lit mags feel like something you want to actually read much less keep on your shelf for years and years?
Having a theme, when done well, can tie the art and design into the issue in a unique way and even spurn writers to write things they might not have thought of.
Granted, most themes are pretty bland and general (“After our ‘death’ issue submit to our ‘love’ issue and then next year look out for our ‘family’ issue!”) but at the same time those themes are so vague it shouldn’t be hard to find a story to submit.
I’m more sick of “themed issues.”
“We are accepting submissions for our special Spring issue about vomiting at state fairs. All stories and poems most somehow deal with the topic of kids–and adults–who end up sick at state fairs, whether on rickety ass rides or in the Porta-Potty after eating too many fried Zero bars.”
Too many “thematic” calls for submissions comes cross as heavy handed editing, like the editors don’t trust that enough good writers will send them work to form a solid issue.
*must
I like your example, and think some journal should take you up on that theme. But I question your logic. If editors declare themed issues, don’t they significantly narrow the pool of writers who are likely to have eligible work? Isn’t it more an act of faith that good writers will generate the work anyway?
I haven’t entered a contest yet. I guess someday I will. Mainly FC2’s.
“Don’t they significantly narrow the pool of writers who are likely to have eligible work?”
Yes, they significantly narrow the pool of writers who are likely to have eligible work that fits their prescriptions.
because they seem like desperate attempts by journals to draw attention to themselves.
Same here. I’m not really in a rush to publish.
Why?
I think it’s a great way to get a subscription and a good read (by the editors, and in theory). I submit to the ones I want to subscribe to anyway,
Also, and being lame but true, my college (I’m going practical now, but why not?) adores any contest win/place/show.
I’m just being real. Welcome to academia (or avoid?)
S
They also seem like desperate attempts to make money.
i wouldnt say that
I don’t think contests draw attention to journals. Almost all lit journals have contests. That is way diluted. The actual work is a better way to draw attention, I mean for readers of lit mags.
Make money is hardly in a lit mag’s vocab. Do you mean “sustain?” I assume so.
A contest is voluntary. I’ve never seen a gun-to-head driven literary contest.
Don’t they just ask? The same way a sun might ask you to watch it rise?
If not, no worries.
Just trying, For the betterment of…
S
I would point out that not all contests cost money to enter.
actually maybe i would say that. i can fathom it seeming that way.
it puts money front and center usually
Sean, you’re right, of course.
“I’m sick of”–it’s me, not the contests. The contests are fine. I’m enlisting the help of internet to try and figure out why I’ve been rifling/clicking through contest info wearing a face like a pissy emoticon.
Every attempt at getting published is, in some ways, a participation in a contest. Explicit “contests” are usually just more specific versions of what we’re doing all day long, or once in a while, or whatever.
Maybe what I’m sick of is trying to get published? And the contests put a finer point on it.
I don’t know. Sometimes it’s exhilarating. Sometimes it’s mind-numbing, but pleasantly so. But there are days, like lately, where I bookmark things, or jot them down, or create a master list of deadlines and info, and then I realize that I’ve missed deadlines, or mixed up themes, or that I don’t really have something viable and don’t feel like writing something according to someone else’s ideas, or I do want to but I can’t, or, ___________….and then I just want to walk away from the whole enterprise and watch Salad Fingers.
I’ve never won a contest. I’ve been a runner-up here and there. But the outcome seems less important than that feeling, at the very top: I could win this. I might win this. I am winning this *right now*, just by submitting.
The heart can only take so much.
Every single issue of LIES/ISLE other than the first has been/will be a themed issue. Our idea is more that if an author wants to submit and doesn’t have anything sitting around that fits the theme, they will write something new (since, you know, we operate under the assumption that writers like to write), and if they don’t want to submit, they don’t have to be bothered by the theme. There are a million journals that don’t have themes, ever. Why hate on the few that do?
They aren’t desperate but they are a fundraising strategy.
i lost. oh well.
No losers here. Except for me, when I don’t win contests. –>boom<–
It seems like more and more journals are going the theme route.
Trust me, I don’t bother submitting to journals that require that I write toward a specific theme, or pull a story from my magician’s hat that fits the editors’ theme template. Seems like a safe way to run a journal; from the outset, you, the editor, put your prints all over the publication, which becomes more about your clever theme than the writers’ work. Instead of trusting the editorial process to take its natural course and for an issue to create its own original “theme” that wasn’t even imaginable when the submission period opened, you instead prescribed the journal’s supposed unity before people could submit, and in many cases, before they could write their submission! Some might argue that editors do the same thing with aesthetic preferences and tastes, but the difference is that the aesthetic is what most writers begin with—it’s what leads them to any “themes” naturally.
So, if an editor is calling for themed submissions, the writer has two options: 1) He or she has to have a story that already fits the theme; or, 2) He or she has to write a story that responds somehow to the theme.
For 2), the editor is assigning prompts. I find this insulting. I don’t need an editor to give me prompts. I passed Creative Writing 101 when I was 18. Thanks.
Also, let’s be clear—there’s a big difference between the kinds of themes in a journal like Nimrod, whose last thematic issue (I think) was “Mexico/USA,” and journals that put out calls for stories that “tell a story about a character who does something really well, to be considered for our Spring themed journal, Things People Do Really Well.”
How do you describe these kinds thematic sub calls that seem to be growing in popularity? Finger painting for writers?
I back up MFBomb. As a reader I can kind of dig a journal that builds its identity on a themed issue, or that occasionally uses a theme to unify an issue into something more than a collection of shorts (although the one themed issue I can think of that I’ve bought, from a magazine in Minneapolis, wasn’t so fantastic as I’d hoped but really just like a sunday in which a variety of flavors had melted together into one sugary but unmemorable pool), but for me as a writer such journals or issues of journals usually just piss me off. as I know after seeing any call for subs that I’m going to sit around thinking up a story for an hour and then start writing it and 30% of the way through will realize that it will likely get RJed anyway and be unsuitable to another market due to being marked with copious references to lava lamps or ring worm or whatever the target theme was.
But i vow here that if any journals collect subs on either of those topics I will write a spectacular thing.
For the journal I worked on in college it was, yes, desperate. And (financially) successful. And maybe it was just the low profile of that school’s magazine, but the turnout made me rethink whether I should sub to contests in pursuit of some publication credits. The pool from which the editors had to draw a piece was much smaller than the one climbing around the shelves in the regular reading room.
I agree with you, Sean. That kind of stuff is like shaved almonds on the sundae of your CV. Does that metaphor hold? Also you make a nice point about how contest entry fees usually are just subscription buys that also net you a chance at winning money. I don’t think I’ve ever entered a contest that didn’t include a couple issues. I get words in my mailbox and the magazine gets another number to tally into its circulation.
i didnt pass creative writing 101 until i was 26
^Yes. Also, it contradicts advice editors often give writers, like, “don’t send out work until it’s truly ready / Focus on the story first, then publication.”
Yet, you want me to write a story in a short period of time that is only being written because of a submissions call. Um.
Don’t submit to themed journals then? What exactly is the issue?
“If you don’t like it, turn the channel!”
Agree w/ Timmo that contest pools are usually weaker than slush pools (I read for a univ. journal). I think more writers should submit to contests. Many of the submissions are from hacks who are just submitting for the prize money.
Is the goal of a journal to get random writers to submit or to put out an interesting reading experience?
The issue here crops in two ways: 1) the writer either combs through calls for subs and is repulsed by the volume of theme-specific requests or 2) admires a journal and wants to sub but then pops open the page and finds that only writing on some certain variable is viable. So I mean, sure, the writer doesn’t have to submit, but it’s disheartening not to be able to send to 1) seemingly anything or 2) a magazine the writer really wants to contribute to.
I guess the third way the issue appears is when you’re reading a themed journal/cruising sub guidelines and realize you have a piece/would like to write a piece perfectly suited to that theme but that it will never again fit with that publication.
Sounds like sound advice to me.
Most of my most memorable journal reading experiences come form journals that did something unique with the issue, most frequently some kind of theme or concept.
To me, you display the common young writer mistake of thinking that journals exist not as places to read and experience art and literature, but as merely anonymous potential outlets for your work.
Saying issues will develop their own concept naturally sounds nice, but that doesn’t really ever happen beyond a journal just having a strong aesthetic, and even then that doesn’t distinguish one issue from another.
I don’t hate contests, but I hate magazines that over do them to the point that the magazine isn’t known for anything other than fund-raising contests (*cough* glimmer train *cough*)
They are a nice way to subscribe a journal while getting a chance to be published though.
L, I agree that a journal may want to organize an issue around a central unifying theme, but I think that the (average) journal then needs to either A) use such a strategy sparingly so as to avoid alienating potential contributors who are afraid of investing time in creating a particular themed piece that likely won’t be picked up anyway or B) solicit writing from creators who it feels exemplify or might exemplify writing in the desired flavor.
I can’t say I see the problem you guys/gals refer to. I don’t think theme’s are that prevelant. Most magazines don’t do them regularly and the ones that do (Conjunctions, McSweeneys, Tin House, etc.) either regularly have non-themed issues or else normally have such broad general themes it shouldn’t be hard to find something to send.
I also think that most magazines that do themes tend to solicit a large number of their writers. If you are soliciting the work anyway, it seems fine to me to guide it somewhat.
Sure, but most do. In fact, i think the only one I can remember coming free was one this site hosted.
L,
Thanks for your patronizing response, but I’ve worked as an editor for 3 national journals, so I feel confident in my understanding of the editorial process at journals that aren’t themed.
I’ve also published several stories in national journals and don’t consider myself a naive writer (though I might be young–I guess it depends on how old you are).
Man, I agree here. I had this brilliant writing prof in undergrad who’d had some minor success and deserved more and he mentioned one day in class that he just wanted to grab that train. Even then I was like, man, that journal might have a nice glossy cover but come on.
Occasional contests are good for both the magazine and the writer. I think journals should experiment with more non-monetary prizes, though. I’ve entered a decent amount of contests and the one I was (by far) most hungry to win had an original piece of art at the finish line. I didn’t even know the artist’s style or ability but imagine that thing hanging on the wall.
Sorry bro-dog, guess I just don’t agree with looking at lit mags from a purely submissions perspective.
“Saying issues will develop their own concept naturally sounds nice, but that doesn’t really ever happen beyond a journal just having a strong aesthetic, and even then that doesn’t distinguish one issue from another.”
Well, that’s why I’m saying that it’s stupid to prescribe a “concept” on an issue in the first place, because the threads in a themed issue often feel superficial.
Well, good luck finding people who read lit mags who aren’t writers.
To each his own I guess. The whole “here is best random crap we could pull from the submission pile coupled with random unrelated art we solicited” model of lit mags feels kinda silly and fleeting to me. How many of those lit mags feel like something you want to actually read much less keep on your shelf for years and years?
Having a theme, when done well, can tie the art and design into the issue in a unique way and even spurn writers to write things they might not have thought of.
Granted, most themes are pretty bland and general (“After our ‘death’ issue submit to our ‘love’ issue and then next year look out for our ‘family’ issue!”) but at the same time those themes are so vague it shouldn’t be hard to find a story to submit.
*flexnuts*
I don’t write anything themed unless there is a high probability of me recieving a reasonable amount of money for it. Most of these theme-zines also don’t pay anything or next to nothing. Why bother.
L- MF Bomb is right. Have you ever read McSweeney’s? All of their issues seem themed. But they just take what they can get and form it into something cool. And they also actually have a readership, unlike 99 percent of the other lit journals. And they pay real American money. Incredible.
Yep, Glimmer Train has never thought my writing was to their taste to publish, but for years now they seem ready to accept my money for some contest. Not that I have ever given them any.
this is lame. who cares. go write.
Quite true.
I am much more likely to enter a contest that is free
What? McSweeney’s doesn’t just take whatever they can randomly get and then form it into an issue. They plan the theme and solicit the work to make it an issue. Their recent newspaper issue didn’t’ happen because they randomly got sent a bunch of journalism, comics and sports articles. Their icelandic issue didn’t happen because they got a sudden influx of icelandic issues. All of their themed issues are planned.
I don’t really get your comments here and earlier about paying money or readerships for themed issues. You are of course right that most literary magazines don’t pay or have big readerships, but that has nothing to do with themes or no themes. Some of the biggest lit mags (Tin House, McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, etc.) regularly do themes.
Thanks anon, very insightful.
Mean Week will be a great time to unmask contest mills that masquerade as magazines.
When McSweeney’s published my stuff they did not do any soliciting. At least in their normal issues. They did solicit some tiny thing from me for another book. I actually think a lot of the stuff in those issues they did randomly get sent. This is from my experience at least of randomly sending them stuff and getting published in what seemed like a “themed” issue. As for paying money: I have had editors say “Could you write this. I’ll give you 200 dollars for a couple of pages.” In which case I do it, because chances are they will publish what I write and pay me if they are going to the trouble to ask me specifically.
On the other hand, when I see a “call for submissions” for some themed issue, then check it out, and see they want some story that, if they don’t accept, I could probably never publish elsewhere, and they don’t pay or pay some tiny sum, I think the editors are jerks. Because it is just some vanity ego thing both for them and the writers they accept. Not only would I be writing about something that doesn’t come from my interior, but also I wouldn’t be getting paid for it.
If I am going to be a whore, I want to at least be a high priced whore.
I’m sure that McSweeney’s takes random submissions for its themed issues, but I’m also sure they solicit much of it. I don’t think you could compile an issue of all icelandic authors by chance submissions or an issue like the one where they got famous literary authors to write genre stories.
Of course, as you note, McSweneey’s also does a bunch of non-themed issues and then issues that are somewhere in between.
I understand the frustration of writing something you can’t use elsewhere. But I still think most themes are so open to interpretation that shouldn’t be an issue. I also don’t get what you mean by a themed issue being a “vanity ego thing” for the editors and the writers who submit?
For one thing: All Icelandic authors is not a theme. Stories “about Iceland” would be.
Vanity Ego:
For editors: because they want to leave their mark on the production. It seems often times that it is more about an editor creating their “brand” then about the writing being written. Sometimes I can completely understand this, in the case of certain editors who do anthologies and are able to sell over 10k copies of each. Because then it is about making a living. But for some magazine that is lucky to have a few hundred readers, or maybe 1,000, it is no longer about making a living, but about “Look at me!”
For authors: The only time an author should write on demand is for money, friendship or camaraderie. If you have not been specifically asked to write something that is not coming from your heart, why bust your ass to do it? The only reason: Publication. Just being published for the sake of being published is surely ego driven.
*flexnuts*
You are missing the other option, I think, which is that its about gaining readers and getting the magazine more noticed. Perhaps you will disagree, but I think almost all of the magazines that get noticed really quickly and get buzz in the lit world either have a very strong aesthetic (say, New York Tyrant), a strong concept (say, One Story or Quick Fiction) or do unique issues, often employing concepts or themes (say, McSweeney’s).
All of those I guess could be said to be just ways for editors to put their stamp on something, but its also a way to make the magazine unique and worth reading. your average lit mag is kind of indistinguishable from all the other ones sitting around it on the shelf, don’t you think?
I don’t write anything themed unless there is a high probability of me recieving a reasonable amount of money for it. Most of these theme-zines also don’t pay anything or next to nothing. Why bother.
L- MF Bomb is right. Have you ever read McSweeney’s? All of their issues seem themed. But they just take what they can get and form it into something cool. And they also actually have a readership, unlike 99 percent of the other lit journals. And they pay real American money. Incredible.
Yep, Glimmer Train has never thought my writing was to their taste to publish, but for years now they seem ready to accept my money for some contest. Not that I have ever given them any.
Can’t say I agree with any of this either:
For authors: The only time an author should write on demand is for money, friendship or camaraderie. If you have not been specifically asked to write something that is not coming from your heart, why bust your ass to do it? The only reason: Publication. Just being published for the sake of being published is surely ego driven.
For one thing, most literary writers don’t get paid for their magazine publications. Most magazines don’t pay and even most of the ones that do don’t pay much more than a kind of token amount. So unless you think writers should only submit to The New Yorker, Harper’s or a few other mags, that really isn’t here nor there. And non-fiction writers write all of the time “on demand.”
To get back to the topic, saying you have to write from the heart seems like kind of a meaningless statement to me. Even if I agreed with it, I completely fail to see why writing from a prompt is incompatible with writing from the heart? Some of my best work has come from prompts I was given or gave myself and some of the best stories I’ve read in magazines were clearly solicited and written for a specific theme. Some writers work well from prompts or ideas, nothing wrong with that.
Lastly, as has been said, most themes are very general like “love” or “death.” Surely those kinds of themes aren’t so constraining you could never write “from the heart.” In fact, most likely you have a dozen stories that would fit either theme already written.
L,
I think Brendan’s point about “writing that comes from the interior” hits the nail on the head. Unless the writer already has a story that fits the theme, he or she has to write a story that somehow fits an editor’s “theme.” This is not how most writers work and is counter-intuitive to the most fundamental aspects of the writing process. It’s amazing that editors who are writers would suggest that the writing process be approached like a literature student. “Themes” are abstract products to be analyzed after the text has been written. Even writers who write “idea” novels or stories are writing those works because they have to write them for themselves.
Again, I want to be clear that there’s a difference between “theme” sub calls like “baseball” (recent Southern Review issue) and reductive “theme” calls like “write a story about a character who likes to steal socks from Dollar General and soak them in peroxide in his Grandmother’s sink.” For one, there are probably tons of writers out there already writing about baseball; two, the editors aren’t dictating character traits and attributes. These reductive “theme” sub calls seem to encourage gimmicky work that comes from the writer’s head, rather than his or her gut; they also seem to be desperate calls for attention. You argue that the intent is to give the journal a “concept,” but if the concept becomes self-serving, what’s the point?
this is lame. who cares. go write.
I don’t! but I already said as much.
“Again, I want to be clear that there’s a difference between “theme” sub calls like “baseball” (recent Southern Review issue) and reductive “theme” calls like “write a story about a character who likes to steal socks from Dollar General and soak them in peroxide in his Grandmother’s sink.””
Yes, the first is the type of theme that editors actual do and the second is the kind they don’t. I dunno, maybe you read a bunch of magazines with uber-specific things like your quote, but I’ve never seen that ever and it certainly isn’t the norm.
I’ve already said many of my most memorable journal reading experiences were for themed issues, so I don’t see it as self-serving, I see it as serving the readership.
Or to put it another way, my comments have all been about the first type of theme, the type I actually see employed, and not about the second type which I’ve never heard of. I agree that sounds pretty dumb.
Well, I’m not sure what to tell you; I’ve seen these sorts of reductive “theme” sub calls quite a bit lately. Obviously, my “examples” are exaggerated.
How about Esquire’s recent contest where they require you to use a predetermined opening sentence? This is the same publication that patted itself on the back for “recommitting itself to contemporary fiction.” They have such contempt for contempoary fiction writers that they want to write the first sentence for slush submitters and publish mediocre stories by Hollywood actors like James Franco.
I can’t really think of any magazines that do that. Even the Esquire example was just giving you three choices for a title and then letting you write whatever story you wanted inspired by the title. Maybe a bit reductive, but also just a contest not a theme issue.
Looking through the back issues of Tin House and Conjunctions all the themes seem pretty broad to me.
Quite true.
I am much more likely to enter a contest that is free
L-
Well, One Story, obviously can’t do them issues. I haven’t really followed New York Tyrant or Quick Story enough to know about their theme calls.
As for this idea that magazines need to stand on their heads to get noticed, it sounds a bit silly to me. I have been seeing magazines doing this for years, and none of the ones that started going that route years ago, that I can think of, are still around any more.
It is true: maybe this is sort of fun for beginning writers. But I don’t think I know of one person who makes their living off their writing who submit to these sort of things. The thing that will attract good writers is simple: money. Good writing will get readers.
Are there really a lot of readers who will get excited because they see Hip Young Magazine Y come out with a “Introverted Concepts that go with Milk” issue?
I don’t really see how this turns the editor on either. But it must.
What? McSweeney’s doesn’t just take whatever they can randomly get and then form it into an issue. They plan the theme and solicit the work to make it an issue. Their recent newspaper issue didn’t’ happen because they randomly got sent a bunch of journalism, comics and sports articles. Their icelandic issue didn’t happen because they got a sudden influx of icelandic issues. All of their themed issues are planned.
I don’t really get your comments here and earlier about paying money or readerships for themed issues. You are of course right that most literary magazines don’t pay or have big readerships, but that has nothing to do with themes or no themes. Some of the biggest lit mags (Tin House, McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, etc.) regularly do themes.
Thanks anon, very insightful.
Mean Week will be a great time to unmask contest mills that masquerade as magazines.
When McSweeney’s published my stuff they did not do any soliciting. At least in their normal issues. They did solicit some tiny thing from me for another book. I actually think a lot of the stuff in those issues they did randomly get sent. This is from my experience at least of randomly sending them stuff and getting published in what seemed like a “themed” issue. As for paying money: I have had editors say “Could you write this. I’ll give you 200 dollars for a couple of pages.” In which case I do it, because chances are they will publish what I write and pay me if they are going to the trouble to ask me specifically.
On the other hand, when I see a “call for submissions” for some themed issue, then check it out, and see they want some story that, if they don’t accept, I could probably never publish elsewhere, and they don’t pay or pay some tiny sum, I think the editors are jerks. Because it is just some vanity ego thing both for them and the writers they accept. Not only would I be writing about something that doesn’t come from my interior, but also I wouldn’t be getting paid for it.
If I am going to be a whore, I want to at least be a high priced whore.
L,
You’re right–I think I confused the most reason Esquire contest with an older contest. However, here are the guidelines from their most recent contest:
“We encourage you to enter, but you have to follow the rules. The first and most important rule — besides, of course, that the story has to be original — is that the story must be based on one of three titles that we have provided.
The titles are:
1. “Twenty-Ten”
2. “An Insurrection”
3. “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again”
A date, a thing, and a statement. No exceptions. Make of them what you will, do with them something great. But no taking an old story and slapping one of our new titles on it. We’ll know, and we won’t be happy.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/fiction/fiction-contest#ixzz0nkaHSUW2”
In other words, they wanted writers to write a story specifically for their contest. How in the world is this not “reductive”?
*most recent
+1
I’m sure that McSweeney’s takes random submissions for its themed issues, but I’m also sure they solicit much of it. I don’t think you could compile an issue of all icelandic authors by chance submissions or an issue like the one where they got famous literary authors to write genre stories.
Of course, as you note, McSweneey’s also does a bunch of non-themed issues and then issues that are somewhere in between.
I understand the frustration of writing something you can’t use elsewhere. But I still think most themes are so open to interpretation that shouldn’t be an issue. I also don’t get what you mean by a themed issue being a “vanity ego thing” for the editors and the writers who submit?
For one thing: All Icelandic authors is not a theme. Stories “about Iceland” would be.
Vanity Ego:
For editors: because they want to leave their mark on the production. It seems often times that it is more about an editor creating their “brand” then about the writing being written. Sometimes I can completely understand this, in the case of certain editors who do anthologies and are able to sell over 10k copies of each. Because then it is about making a living. But for some magazine that is lucky to have a few hundred readers, or maybe 1,000, it is no longer about making a living, but about “Look at me!”
For authors: The only time an author should write on demand is for money, friendship or camaraderie. If you have not been specifically asked to write something that is not coming from your heart, why bust your ass to do it? The only reason: Publication. Just being published for the sake of being published is surely ego driven.
Brendan: Again, magazines like Conjunctions and McSweeney’s get famous established writers to do themes and the results are often fantastic.
MFBomb I’m not a big fan of that contest for the same reasons you don’t like it, but a contest giving you specific titles to use and picking one winner is miles away from a magazine doing a theme issue like “hope” or “stories about birds” or whatever, which is I thought what we were discussing?
You are missing the other option, I think, which is that its about gaining readers and getting the magazine more noticed. Perhaps you will disagree, but I think almost all of the magazines that get noticed really quickly and get buzz in the lit world either have a very strong aesthetic (say, New York Tyrant), a strong concept (say, One Story or Quick Fiction) or do unique issues, often employing concepts or themes (say, McSweeney’s).
All of those I guess could be said to be just ways for editors to put their stamp on something, but its also a way to make the magazine unique and worth reading. your average lit mag is kind of indistinguishable from all the other ones sitting around it on the shelf, don’t you think?
L- I sort of feel like I am knocking my head against a wall. Can you provide any evidence that McSweeney’s has ever solicited a specific “type” of story from any author? As I said, from having been published in one of there famous “theme” issues, I can tell you it did not work that way.
Have you ever seen them advertise a special submission period for any sort of theme? I think you are using your imagination here, and saying how you think they put together issues, without any grounds for this aside from having read the magazine.
Can’t say I agree with any of this either:
For authors: The only time an author should write on demand is for money, friendship or camaraderie. If you have not been specifically asked to write something that is not coming from your heart, why bust your ass to do it? The only reason: Publication. Just being published for the sake of being published is surely ego driven.
For one thing, most literary writers don’t get paid for their magazine publications. Most magazines don’t pay and even most of the ones that do don’t pay much more than a kind of token amount. So unless you think writers should only submit to The New Yorker, Harper’s or a few other mags, that really isn’t here nor there. And non-fiction writers write all of the time “on demand.”
To get back to the topic, saying you have to write from the heart seems like kind of a meaningless statement to me. Even if I agreed with it, I completely fail to see why writing from a prompt is incompatible with writing from the heart? Some of my best work has come from prompts I was given or gave myself and some of the best stories I’ve read in magazines were clearly solicited and written for a specific theme. Some writers work well from prompts or ideas, nothing wrong with that.
Lastly, as has been said, most themes are very general like “love” or “death.” Surely those kinds of themes aren’t so constraining you could never write “from the heart.” In fact, most likely you have a dozen stories that would fit either theme already written.
Um, sure. Take, for example maybe their most famous issue, the Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales. Michael Chabon solicited famous “non-genre” (his term) writers to try writing stories in a more classic pulp vein. This was pretty explicit. Certainly it wasn’t coincidence that these famous short story authors all wrote pulpy stories and sent them to McSweeney’s at the same time and then Eggars was like “Oh, i’ll call this a theme and put Chabon’s name on the cover.”
Do you want more examples?
McSweeney’s probably isn’t the best magazine to talk about here as they are more likely to do “concepts” than “themes”, such as an all icelandic issue or their issue on odd poetic forms or their recent newspaper issue (which was certainly mostly solicited). But if that bothers you, you can insert Tin House next to Conjunctions in my statement.
I certainly never claimed all of the work McSweeney’s, or any of these other magazines, gets is solicited and obviously McSweeney’s doesn’t always do themes or concepts.
L,
I think Brendan’s point about “writing that comes from the interior” hits the nail on the head. Unless the writer already has a story that fits the theme, he or she has to write a story that somehow fits an editor’s “theme.” This is not how most writers work and is counter-intuitive to the most fundamental aspects of the writing process. It’s amazing that editors who are writers would suggest that the writing process be approached like a literature student. “Themes” are abstract products to be analyzed after the text has been written. Even writers who write “idea” novels or stories are writing those works because they have to write them for themselves.
Again, I want to be clear that there’s a difference between “theme” sub calls like “baseball” (recent Southern Review issue) and reductive “theme” calls like “write a story about a character who likes to steal socks from Dollar General and soak them in peroxide in his Grandmother’s sink.” For one, there are probably tons of writers out there already writing about baseball; two, the editors aren’t dictating character traits and attributes. These reductive “theme” sub calls seem to encourage gimmicky work that comes from the writer’s head, rather than his or her gut; they also seem to be desperate calls for attention. You argue that the intent is to give the journal a “concept,” but if the concept becomes self-serving, what’s the point?
I don’t! but I already said as much.
“Again, I want to be clear that there’s a difference between “theme” sub calls like “baseball” (recent Southern Review issue) and reductive “theme” calls like “write a story about a character who likes to steal socks from Dollar General and soak them in peroxide in his Grandmother’s sink.””
Yes, the first is the type of theme that editors actual do and the second is the kind they don’t. I dunno, maybe you read a bunch of magazines with uber-specific things like your quote, but I’ve never seen that ever and it certainly isn’t the norm.
I’ve already said many of my most memorable journal reading experiences were for themed issues, so I don’t see it as self-serving, I see it as serving the readership.
Or to put it another way, my comments have all been about the first type of theme, the type I actually see employed, and not about the second type which I’ve never heard of. I agree that sounds pretty dumb.
Well, I’m not sure what to tell you; I’ve seen these sorts of reductive “theme” sub calls quite a bit lately. Obviously, my “examples” are exaggerated.
How about Esquire’s recent contest where they require you to use a predetermined opening sentence? This is the same publication that patted itself on the back for “recommitting itself to contemporary fiction.” They have such contempt for contempoary fiction writers that they want to write the first sentence for slush submitters and publish mediocre stories by Hollywood actors like James Franco.
I can’t really think of any magazines that do that. Even the Esquire example was just giving you three choices for a title and then letting you write whatever story you wanted inspired by the title. Maybe a bit reductive, but also just a contest not a theme issue.
Looking through the back issues of Tin House and Conjunctions all the themes seem pretty broad to me.
Yes, Sean. When is the next Mean Week?
Speaking of contests, why enter when you know Jacob Appel will win? Or place?
L-
Well, One Story, obviously can’t do them issues. I haven’t really followed New York Tyrant or Quick Story enough to know about their theme calls.
As for this idea that magazines need to stand on their heads to get noticed, it sounds a bit silly to me. I have been seeing magazines doing this for years, and none of the ones that started going that route years ago, that I can think of, are still around any more.
It is true: maybe this is sort of fun for beginning writers. But I don’t think I know of one person who makes their living off their writing who submit to these sort of things. The thing that will attract good writers is simple: money. Good writing will get readers.
Are there really a lot of readers who will get excited because they see Hip Young Magazine Y come out with a “Introverted Concepts that go with Milk” issue?
I don’t really see how this turns the editor on either. But it must.
Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales is an anthology, it is not an issue of the magazine.
I already said that getting Icelandic authors is not a “theme”.
I am just not sure what you are trying to prove here. My original statement that you have so adamantly been arguing against was about McS. Period. And I pretty well guarantee you that they outsell both Conjuntions and Tin House. But I never mentioned these latter in my original post here anyhow, so…what?
Theme submission periods suck. That is all I am saying.
I have submitted to themes, but only when personally asked to by the editor, or knowing already that the editor liked my work and would likely buy it. And never for magazines, only for anthologies. And my stories did, in fact, always sell. But I think this is a different scenario from what you are advocating.
Theme submission suck…..No periods.
No, Mammoth Treasury was issue 10 of the magazine.
It was later re-released as a paperback by Vintage, perhaps that’s what’s confusing you? McSweeney’s has re-released a few issues as books later.
L,
You’re right–I think I confused the most reason Esquire contest with an older contest. However, here are the guidelines from their most recent contest:
“We encourage you to enter, but you have to follow the rules. The first and most important rule — besides, of course, that the story has to be original — is that the story must be based on one of three titles that we have provided.
The titles are:
1. “Twenty-Ten”
2. “An Insurrection”
3. “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again”
A date, a thing, and a statement. No exceptions. Make of them what you will, do with them something great. But no taking an old story and slapping one of our new titles on it. We’ll know, and we won’t be happy.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/fiction/fiction-contest#ixzz0nkaHSUW2”
In other words, they wanted writers to write a story specifically for their contest. How in the world is this not “reductive”?
*most recent
What i’m saying is pretty simple, whether you agree with it or not: as a reader, I enjoy magazines that make their journals stand out. Sometimes that can be accomplished through a rigorous aesthetic or concept for the magazine, other times it can be accomplished through interesting concepts for issues or themes. You are correct that McSweeney’s doesn’t do themes as regularly as Conjunctions and others (they do “concepts” more often or at least unique layout ideas), but that isn’t the only thing we were talking about.
MFBomb and others were saying they don’t like editors doing these things because it is egotistical or pointless. I disagree, I think they make for more memorable issues much of the time. Often themes are pretty lazy, but even then no lazier than a normal “Well, here is some random stuff from the slush pile!” issue.
Do theme submission periods suck? That’s a separate question from whether the issues suck to read or whether it is stupid for editors to have concepts for issues. I don’t mind themes as a submitter, but I can see why they would be annoying. Most of the time they are so general you can find something to send. I find issues like the “all icelandic authors” or “all first time writers” to be more limiting as a submitter.
+1
Brendan: Again, magazines like Conjunctions and McSweeney’s get famous established writers to do themes and the results are often fantastic.
MFBomb I’m not a big fan of that contest for the same reasons you don’t like it, but a contest giving you specific titles to use and picking one winner is miles away from a magazine doing a theme issue like “hope” or “stories about birds” or whatever, which is I thought what we were discussing?
L- I sort of feel like I am knocking my head against a wall. Can you provide any evidence that McSweeney’s has ever solicited a specific “type” of story from any author? As I said, from having been published in one of there famous “theme” issues, I can tell you it did not work that way.
Have you ever seen them advertise a special submission period for any sort of theme? I think you are using your imagination here, and saying how you think they put together issues, without any grounds for this aside from having read the magazine.
Um, sure. Take, for example maybe their most famous issue, the Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales. Michael Chabon solicited famous “non-genre” (his term) writers to try writing stories in a more classic pulp vein. This was pretty explicit. Certainly it wasn’t coincidence that these famous short story authors all wrote pulpy stories and sent them to McSweeney’s at the same time and then Eggars was like “Oh, i’ll call this a theme and put Chabon’s name on the cover.”
Do you want more examples?
McSweeney’s probably isn’t the best magazine to talk about here as they are more likely to do “concepts” than “themes”, such as an all icelandic issue or their issue on odd poetic forms or their recent newspaper issue (which was certainly mostly solicited). But if that bothers you, you can insert Tin House next to Conjunctions in my statement.
I certainly never claimed all of the work McSweeney’s, or any of these other magazines, gets is solicited and obviously McSweeney’s doesn’t always do themes or concepts.
Yes, Sean. When is the next Mean Week?
Speaking of contests, why enter when you know Jacob Appel will win? Or place?
Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales is an anthology, it is not an issue of the magazine.
I already said that getting Icelandic authors is not a “theme”.
I am just not sure what you are trying to prove here. My original statement that you have so adamantly been arguing against was about McS. Period. And I pretty well guarantee you that they outsell both Conjuntions and Tin House. But I never mentioned these latter in my original post here anyhow, so…what?
Theme submission periods suck. That is all I am saying.
I have submitted to themes, but only when personally asked to by the editor, or knowing already that the editor liked my work and would likely buy it. And never for magazines, only for anthologies. And my stories did, in fact, always sell. But I think this is a different scenario from what you are advocating.
Theme submission suck…..No periods.
No, Mammoth Treasury was issue 10 of the magazine.
It was later re-released as a paperback by Vintage, perhaps that’s what’s confusing you? McSweeney’s has re-released a few issues as books later.
What i’m saying is pretty simple, whether you agree with it or not: as a reader, I enjoy magazines that make their journals stand out. Sometimes that can be accomplished through a rigorous aesthetic or concept for the magazine, other times it can be accomplished through interesting concepts for issues or themes. You are correct that McSweeney’s doesn’t do themes as regularly as Conjunctions and others (they do “concepts” more often or at least unique layout ideas), but that isn’t the only thing we were talking about.
MFBomb and others were saying they don’t like editors doing these things because it is egotistical or pointless. I disagree, I think they make for more memorable issues much of the time. Often themes are pretty lazy, but even then no lazier than a normal “Well, here is some random stuff from the slush pile!” issue.
Do theme submission periods suck? That’s a separate question from whether the issues suck to read or whether it is stupid for editors to have concepts for issues. I don’t mind themes as a submitter, but I can see why they would be annoying. Most of the time they are so general you can find something to send. I find issues like the “all icelandic authors” or “all first time writers” to be more limiting as a submitter.