Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.
A: Creative, outside the box
Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?
A: Exquisite Corpse, Dogzplot, Ducts, The Sun, The New Yorker
Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?
A: Fiction: Franz Kafka, Chekhov, Maupassant, Martha Gellhorn, Richard Yates, Richard Ford
Poetry: Wallace Stevens, Bob Dylan, Robert Frost, Alexander Pope
Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?
A: We publish stuff that gets to the core of things and is hard to forget. And we try to present it in a visually appealling format. Some of the writing we publish may have been overlooked by other publications. We have no guidelines because we think it is not fair to tell a person how or what to write.
Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?
A: Write passionately, edit ruthlessly, proofread carefully.
Q: Describe the ideal submission.
A: Days after I read it, as I go about my daily business, I can't stop thinking about it.
Q: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?
A: They don't understand that we want original, inventive material written from the heart. It's okay to be different! Please, no attachments.
Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?
A: The main thing is the writing! We have published many new writers with no publication credits at all. Cover letters are welcome for regular submissions, but in our fiction contests we ask for no biographical information or publication credits, and that is very refreshing because we get to focus on the work itself.
Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?
A: Even if I know early on that a piece isn't right for us, I often read it right through to the end. Everyone has a story to tell, and I like to listen. However, if the first paragraph or two are riddled with typos and nonsense, there is no point in continuing.
Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?
A: Sometimes we ask for revisions which may push the writer a little further.
Q: What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?
A: I sometimes read submissions while going though the car wash. I stay up too late reading submissions or doing other magazine-related things. I get up in the middle of the night to read submissions or talk to Yahoo tech support. Every minute is precious. There is never enough time.
Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?
A: We will consider any technology that helps us reach more potential readers and makes tasks like reviewing and responding to submissions more efficient. It's so exciting to get submissions from places like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Prague, Hong Kong. The main thing, though, is the writing, so if it's a choice between reviewing submissions or setting up Twitter or an RSS feed, the submissions must prevail.