Editor Interview: The Smoking Poet

Smokin' words

Our keenest competitors, although there really aren't any ... what we do is unique. That said, Drunken Boat, AGNI, Poets & Writers, Copper Canyon Press, Press 53, Her Circle Ezine, Poets Against War, Literary Traveler. More.

Usually the ones we feature in that particular issue, because that means we've just spent a couple months immersed in their work. For the current issue (Spring 2010), that means Marge Piercy - her fiction, nonfiction, poetry. Just previous, we interviewed Bonnie Jo Campbell, whose "American Salvage," story collection published by Wayne State University Press, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Upcoming issue (Summer 2010) will be David Small and his graphic memoir, "Stitches." Ever read a comic book that brought tears to your eyes and haunted you? Yeah. Our upcoming feature poet will be Derick Burleson, Alaskan poet, who makes language a new discovery.

Our approach. Think of what is said about stories: there are no new stories, they've all been told. Only the telling is new. Well, there are so many literary ezines. It is only the how of the 'zine that is new. How we approach literature, how we present it to you. Ours is something like walking into a cigar lounge ... without having to inhale. It's the word art you inhale. We have international reach and we pull the telescope back to focus like a microscope on our own area: yes, there really is a Kalamazoo. Watch for The Zoo page in the upcoming Summer 2010 issue. It's fiction, nonfiction, poetry, novel excerpts, interviews with artists, poets, writers. Annual short story contests. And that cigar lounge.

Forever amazed at how few stop to read the submission guidelines. Yes, we can tell. Read them. Take at least as long browsing the pages as it takes to smoke a stogie.

It makes me put my stogie down. And it goes to ash. See earlier note on no new stories to tell. Really, there aren't. But now and then someone sends an old story told so amazingly new that I am reborn.

As it says in our guidelines, please don't send attachments. Now and then, if we know you, we request a special attachment. Otherwise, don't. We return it unread, and we tend to remember you. And really, we are not antagonistic ... we are all writers, too. We all sit on both sides of the desk, just not, usually, at the same time.

I want to know no more than what you can say in about 100 words. I'm not impressed when your bio is longer than your submission. Don't make it cute; make it professional.

We all aim to read the entire submission ... almost always. Sometimes you are having a bad day, off to a bad start ... but if a lot of typos start showing up, evidence that no care has been taken in proofing your work, we may not make it to the end. They say you can tell a good relationship in the first few moments of meeting someone new. Same tends to hold for your literary face.

As we have grown (we are now in our fifth year) and the number of submissions has increased, we have more editors at work. Just hired our sixth, a nonfiction editor. My coeditor is also our first reader. She reads everything first, all genres, and if she deems it worthy of further consideration, the submission moves on to the appropriate editor. When it comes to our annual short story contest, that can get interesting. Those submissions can keep us in the cigar lounge for hours, discussing, taking apart, putting back together again, each championing our favorites. It can get really interesting. We do love our work.

It's not my paying job. I work days as a publications editor and writer for a large health care organization. That's very precise work. It keeps me sharp. I also freelance a great deal, and I am working on a novel. That means I can relate to those who submit to The Smoking Poet. Really relate. I do what you do. It's helpful knowing what it feels like to be the editor when I am the writer, and vice versa. I come home from work ... and I go to work reading submissions for TSP. I get no pay for this, but I put in hours ... and hours ... and you can't imagine the number of hours. It truly is a labor of love. I wonder somedays why I do this work, as if for nothing. Yet I love the connection, the finger on the pulse, the discovery. When a new issue goes live, it is pure and giddy exhiliration. Then it starts all over again. Being both editor and writer, I have immense respect for the relationship between the two. Behind every great writer is a great editor, and every great editor is drunk with love for the master of the literary art.