Last week, I wrote about tips I'd learned at AWP on starting a lit mag. I distilled what I considered universal knowledge from the panelists in the sessions I'd attended. Today, I'm going to talk about some of the binary choices they made, and some decisions that were not unanimous.
0 Comments
I received some fantastic advice from the AWP panels I attended on starting a literary magazine, which inspired me to found Hapax. Because panel talks lend well to sharing experiences, the lit mag founders that spoke at the panel had some contradictory opinions. But there were some common threads:
The bottom line is to deliver a great experience to everyone: the submitter, the reader, the sponsor, the partners. If you can do that, you can stand out and get to a critical growth point in order to become the lit mag of your dreams. I don't think it's quite worth spending the conference fee just to go to the bookfair, but it's close. I had a fantastic time walking around and talking to some great people about their presses, lit mags, and schools. I took home some great resources and books as well:
It's gotten to the point where I'm familiar with a lot of lit mags because of submission guideline research. Buying one-offs is always fun, and I'd like to leave some room in the budget for that, but I like having some special markets, not necessarily the big names either, that I can support with pride. I'll be posting more on AWP and on my reading list in the next few days. I've just been, well, reading... |
Archives
June 2020
Topics
All
|