The last thing that anyone wants to read is a piece by an editor of an online literary magazine telling their readers how tough their job is.
First, because in most cases it isn’t an actual paying job, and second, because it’s only ever going to get one hard but fair answer: you chose to do this, nobody forced you. If you don’t like it, stop doing it. Go offline and catch up on all those episodes of Lost you missed instead. (It wasn’t a real island, you know. It was purgatory. If you never saw it, just thank us for saving you five and a half years of your life.)
Issue Seven, then. It’s been a difficult one to put together. Or maybe we just got lucky with the previous six, which all seemed to fall into place so smoothly, whereas the collection of fiction and poetry in front of you now has only been kicked, punched and generally beaten into its final form in the last couple of weeks.
This time out, we found ourselves turning down lots of excellent work that really was—in the words of the rejection email cliché—“not a good fit” (and our apologies if that phrase slipped its way into a few of our replies, because we promise that we try avoiding it if at all possible). It’s not a great feeling when you read pieces that consistently hit a high standard, have lots going for them, but just aren’t right for the journal you’re putting together. But we wouldn’t have it any other way, because we do have very definite ideas in mind for > kill author, and in turn we’re inspired by, we read and we admire those publications that also seem to have their own unique personality. Is that approach limiting? Is it a bad thing for literature on the web? We don’t think so. Obviously not. The number of literary magazines continues to grow, and while your epic fifty-eight stanza poem about a gang of crime-fighting kung fu dolphins in the Hong Kong underworld might not be a good fit for us, we’re sure you’ll find a home for it somewhere out there.
We’re not going to cling rigidly to our manifesto though, and there are some subtle changes in our character in this issue. We’re not opposed to conventionally told, well-structured stories, even if some people might occasionally get that impression. So there’s Garrett Socol’s Island Envy — a story, yes, but one that’s definitely very us. Following the change to our submissions guidelines to allow for longer pieces of fiction, there’s Roxane Gay’s story (yep, another one) Used People. What about humor? You should read Misti Rainwater-Lites’ Circus Cunt for some of that. And that’s just three of the twenty-one writers in Issue Seven. We’ll leave you to discover the rest.
Dzanc Books’ long-awaited Best of the Web 2010, edited by Kathy Fish and Matt Bell—who is also featured in this issue of > kill author with Xarles, Xavier, Xenos—will be published on June 15, but is already available for pre-order. We were thrilled when we heard back in February that two stories from this journal were going to be included in the collection, and after looking down the full list of contributors we’re sure that it’s going to be a treat to read. Get yours today.
Finally, thanks to all those who responded to our blog post, plus our messages on Facebook and Twitter, about the lack of work being submitted by women. As we said at the time, the debate about the imbalance between the numbers of male and female writers in literary magazines and journals has been a very lively one in recent weeks, but aside from that we were (and are) genuinely concerned that each issue of > kill author should feature a split between men and women that’s as equal as possible. We didn’t quite make it to fifty-fifty for this issue, but we’ll keep working on it (with your help).
Remember: we’re not what you think we are.
Except when we are.
Best,
> kill author
