Skip to Content

Editor Interview: InDigest

This interview is provided for archival purposes. The listing is not currently active.

Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.

A: work creating dialogue.

Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?

A: There are a lot of publications that I think are doing a really fantastic job right now. Some of the bigger publishers would include Froklift OH, H_NGM_N, McSweeneys, Zoetrope: All Story, Jubilat, Wholphin, 6x6 (and everything else Ugly Duckling Presse does) - I really like those publishers that care about aesthetic as well as content. Outside of Jubilat all of these publishers are doing something so unique. In that same way I like publishers like Cinematheque Press, Hell Yes Press, Dancing Girl often has some good titles, Lightful seems to be a very promising press. This is getting random, but the aesthetic aspect from these publishers is important. It sets them apart....but I also really love a lot of the online magazines that feel really vital and of the moment in ways that print no longer can (for a number of reasons, including our shifting mindset). Diagram is fantastic, Anti-, FOU, Exquisite Corpse (for something a little more sprawling), Opium, Sous Rature, Sub-Lit. These are all great and there are a lot more that are equally is good. But this is getting a little absurd.

Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?

A: Well we publish both and I don't make all the decisions on what we publish. David Luke Doody founded the magazine with me and we both kind of act as managing editors. Then we've also got poets Jess Grover and Brad Liening editing our poetry, and Ashleigh Lambert, who edits our "narratives" section (which is anything in a creative format like fiction, personal essay, scripts, plays, flash fiction, audio story-telling, anything really).
But, personally, I really enjoy Charles Baudelaire, Pablo Neruda, Alex Lemon, Matt Hart, Nate Pritts, Dorothea Lasky, Bill Holm, Bob Hicok, Joshua Beckman, Rachel Zucker, Ronaldo V. Wilson, too many to name, and those just might be the most recent books I've read or re-read. Narrative stuff I've been reading Ander Monson, JC Hallman, George Saunders, Marlon James, Ryunosuke Akutagawa...but the great thing about having a few editors and working together is that my tastes are irrelevant to what we publish. We like things that feel vital and fresh, and we all have different tastes, and I think that is part of what will keep InDigest interesting.

Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?

A: InDigest is interested, as our mission statement says, in creating a dialogue between and about the arts. As well as selecting diverse writing we take a writer beyond jut their presented work. We have writers participate in our InDialogue section, which places two artists, working in different mediums (poetry and music say) and has them discuss art and craft. We make an effort to showcase selected writers in a new light, whether it's with our upcoming video series, the InDigest broadsides, our audio narratives which premiere in Issue 17, or the InDialogue series (which has been going since day one in 2007). I think the willingness to give writers and artists a little more space than they get in other literary magazines is what really sets InDigest apart.

Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?

A: If you aren't sure whether it's our thing, or if we'll like it, send it anyways. We love new ideas and formats that challenge us to create the right space for different kinds of writing.

Q: Describe the ideal submission.

A: It's always great when a submission hits you right away and there is no doubt that this is daring writing and that it deserves to published. We are always honored when someone gives us writing that is that good. The other great submission is when someone sends us something really challenging and the editors have to sit down to figure out how we handle this piece and we all kind of say "I hadn't thought of that before."

Q: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?

A: They will either send submissions to the wrong place or they will send us 80 poems. Please do not send us 80 poems.

Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?

A: We don't really care about cover letters. We like a little note that says, "Thanks for reading my work." And we need bios eventually. But it's always a fear that reading someone's bio affects the way you read and makes you consider someone who has published a few books more seriously than someone who has never published before, and that shouldn't be the case. Everyone should be getting a fair shot otherwise you just end of being a magazine like everyone else who publishes the same 20 or 30 poets over and over.

Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?

A: We read every piece all the way through. It's worth it as an editor (despite it being time consuming). I've been surprised by a piece before half way through when the beginning was taking the wind out of me (in a bad way). It's worth giving people a shot, even if you don't publish. Sometimes you find a piece that is almost there, the intro is just four pages long.

Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?

A: A number of us read it and discuss it. That's about it.

Q: What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?

A: Too boring to write about. We use a spreadsheet and take notes, and read every submission.

Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?

A: It's where things are going. We're embracing that. We do online submissions, we've got our digital broadsides, we're doing videos, we're doing audio recordings. That's what can help reinvigorate writing for some people, new vantage points from which to see writing. It's good to have physical space too (we do a reading series in NYC and are starting a new one in Minneapolis). But the lit mags that don't embrace these technologies will die off.