I've been having a blast working on Hapax, and collaborating with the talented authors I've met and selected for publication.
Now I have to apply myself to the nuts and bolts of getting the magazine out into the world. I'm waiting on some final confirmations, but I've gone over every story and poem that will be in Hapax. I tried to treat my writers and submitters the way I would want to be treated. If a piece moved me despite its flaws, I sent a couple of lines about how I thought it could be improved, even, sometimes, inviting another submission with open arms. I believe strongly that a publication should never publish something that isn't in its best possible state, and that no lit mag should grow so large that its writers feel alienated, as though it's a cold transaction made for the purposes of one line on a resume. A lot of my authors are new to publishing or just starting out as writers--as were a lot of the submissions I received. As such, when I publish at the end of this month--stretch goal!--I will have, thanks to the talented writers I've met, created for the world a magazine that is 100% authentic and true to my beliefs. I did not have a quota or even an idea of how many submissions I might receive or accept. I accepted only work that I 100% believed should be published. In the future, I think I will keep Hapax small on purpose, not because I believe in being so selective as to bar any but the .000001% from publication, but because it helps create an intimacy in a magazine. A scene. I don't remember the characteristics of large, 100+ page magazines unless they stand out in other ways. I don't like feeling like just another name lost in a sea of names. I want to be able to work with and get to know, and yes, line edit the works Hapax selects. And that would be impossible beyond a certain scale, without a certain staff size. So here's to Hapax, a tiny glorious lit mag that will be active for years to come.
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After the news that my publication in the current issue of Grub Street went live, I didn't expect any follow-up. Although I learned at AWP that lit mags love to meet people, especially readers, donors, and authors/artists, I also heard a lot of stories of fear. The writing life seems to include a lot of anonymity, even after being published at a cripplingly low success rate. So I was pleasantly surprised when I received two contributor's copies and a lovely handwritten note in the mail. The copies were expected, but, a lot of the time, I receive those with no more aplomb than I would if I had simply bought the magazine and not been published in its pages. Although Hapax will not publish in print for now, I hope to treat our contributors and submitters with similar courtesy, respect, and humanity.
Two of my works came out recently, a poem in Route 7 Review and a flash fiction story in Grub Street.
The poem, 'To the Idea of War,' started in a poetry class that I am taking. When I edited it for form, I experimented with the idea of choosing a couplet format that heightened the contrast within the lines. The flash story, 'Flashlight,' also came out of a workshop. I wanted to experiment with voice and form. It's the first flash fiction story I have published, although I am working on several more. I have three publications pending--a painting in Mosaic Art and Literary Journal, a painting in Beechwood Review, and a photograph in A Literation. The photograph has interested me the most because it's long overdue for publication. Pretty soon, I think I will have to remove that particular credit from my list. A Literation is a Tumblr blog and lit mag that focused on connecting writers on Tumblr. I received an acceptance from them last October, with the idea that my work would be included in the Winter issue. Since then, A Literation announced that it would be closing and that the issue would be published in partnership with someone else, with no timeframe given. Since things move slowly in the publishing world and many lit mags operate on shoestring budgets with little financial reimbursement, it doesn't surprise me that A Literation shuttered. However, my work is now in limbo. I'll probably give it a couple more weeks and then ask around to see if I can figure out what's happening. The work isn't high priority, so if it doesn't get published here, I'll probably retire it and post it to my public portfolio. |
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