Write, Publish, and Shine

“We’re excited if the forms that come in are not an arc. We’re not just looking for one direction of the piece, it doesn’t have to use linear time or linear form.” —Katelyn Keating, CRAFT. Host Rachel Thompson speaks with Katelyn Keating of CRAFT. Listen to their conversation on the mechanics of story openings and the emotions in their endings, reckonings still to be had in the literary discussion of the canon and what qualifies as short stories, and for behind-the-scenes details on how CRAFT editors read, accept, and work with writing submissions.

“I’m interested in asking different questions and in the vulnerability of language that allows for an honest attempt at expression and a way to investigate complex questions.” —Janice Lee, Entropy Magazine Host Rachel Thompson speaks with Janice Lee, Executive Editor of ENTROPY, in this interview from 2017. Listen for conversation about writing when language fails you and the community-first approach to ENTROPY magazine. This episode is brought to you by The Nasiona. Find all the show notes and a full transcript of the interview at [rachelthompson.co/podcast/08](http://rachelthompson.co/podcast/08) Sign up for my Writerly Love Letters sent every-other Thursday and filled with support for your writing practice at [rachelthompson.co/letters](http://rachelthompson.co/letters)

“You’re kinda playing with fire when you delve into trauma writing. It’s possible to push yourself past your own limits and touch on things that are more tender than you thought.” —Josh Brandon of Black Warrior Review Host Rachel Thompson speaks with Josh Brandon, Editor of Black Warrior Review, about taking a break when writing is difficult and about submitting and publishing your writing with their journal. This episode is brought to you by The Nasiona. Find all the show notes and a full transcript of the interview at rachelthompson.co/podcast/47 Sign up for my Writerly Love Letters sent every-other Thursday and filled with support for your writing practice at rachelthompson.co/letters

Host Rachel Thompson speaks with editors from Qwerty magazine, based at the University of New Brunswick, about sumptuous food writing and, of course, everything you need to know if you want to submit and publish your writing with Qwerty.

Host Rachel Thompson speaks with three editors from the online journal Okay Donkey about weird poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Téa Franco, Genevieve Kersten, and Elizabeth Upshur discuss weird writing's significance and purpose in these weird times, how social media has helped us find our weird community and created all the extra weirdness available, and, of course, everything you need to know if you want to submit and publish your writing with Okay Donkey.

“I think that when a writer doesn’t have a good understanding of who they are and what their beliefs are...they are going to necessarily lack the conviction in their writing to go daring places, and ask daring questions.” —Alicia Elliott Alicia Elliott is a Tuscarora writer and the new Creative Non-Fiction editor at The Fiddlehead magazine. She is also someone both daring in her writing, and solid in her beliefs. She talks to host Rachel Thompson about the craft of creative nonfiction, editing your own work, and how to write about trauma without having to really write about a traumatic event. She also shared what happened when she took a year off to write. (The answer may surprise you!) For an episode transcript and links to articles and works mentioned in the podcast, go to rachelthompson.co/podcast/11-replay

In this episode, Ploi Pirapokin and Rachel Thompson start deep, jumping right into discussing estrangement for writers. Ploi shares about writing through immigration statuses and her Genius Visa. There is A LOT of laughter in this episode. (Rachel edited the big bursts of them, so they don't blast your eardrums.) You will find Ploi's joy as infectious—in the best way—as Rachel did during the interview. Ploi Pirapokin also reads from her award-winning lyric essay, “How to be Extraordinary in America.” This episode is brought to you by Lit Mag News Roundup: Stay up to date on all the latest news in the lit mag world by subscribing at litmagnews.substack.com, and by the Lit Mag Love, the five-week course that helps you get a big “YES” from a journal you love, and then another and another, taught by your podcast host Rachel Thompson. Learn more and sign up at rachelthompson.co/litmaglove Find all the show notes and a full transcript of the interview at rachelthompson.co/podcast/44

The biggest epiphany I had about my writing in the last year is that there is nothing special about my story. This sounds like a terrible epiphany, I realize! But it was so liberating. Let me explain. Full episode transcript available in the show notes on rachelthompson.co/podcast/43

Emerging author, Rowan McCandless shares how she built her writing community. She and Rachel discuss the four different forms of writing groups she engages with and she shares a racist experience she had in a writing course. Hear Rowan read from Persephone's Children, her forthcoming book of essays, out from Dundurn Press in September 2021.

` In this first solo episode after the Write, Publish, and Shine podcast reboot, I talk about the five things editors want in your writing submissions to journals. This is all based on my experience reading submissions, publishing work in a lit mag, and talking to dozens of editors from other literary journals who do the same. If you'd like to find assignments to help you get more of each of the five items in your writing, check out my article here: https://rachelthompson.co/w-r-i-t-e/

I have an announcement about this podcast, but before we get to it, I want to thank you for continuing to listen in this almost year since I released new podcast episodes. I feel you out there, I see the numbers, too, so I know you’re still out there listening and waiting for new episodes. So, thank you, thank you, thank you for your patience. Find the full transcript of this episode here: https://rachelthompson.co/podcast/reboot/

“We’re not a writing class, we’re a magazine.”

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal founded in 2005 by Leah Browning. Published in the spring and fall, each issue features a collection of poetry, short fiction, and personal essays. Apple Valley Review editor, Leah Browning, has worked as a freelance writer and editor since 1995. She is the author of three short nonfiction books for teens and pre-teens and six chapbooks of poetry and fiction.

Mom Egg Review is a literary journal about motherhood. It promotes and celebrates the creative force of mother writers and artists. Mom Egg Review is about being a mother, in its many varieties. It is also about being a daughter, worker, partner, artist, a member of cultures and communities, and explores how these identities can collide and coexist.

Writing may be the only pursuit that M. Paramita Lin hasn't accidentally stumbled into. In between hanging out with triad members and living in a succession of haunted flats in Hong Kong, she's also been a paid companion to the third wife of a tycoon, toured the world with musicians, and apprenticed as a goldsmith in Italy. Lin's stories are mostly set in Asian cities, and they are often funny, occasionally strange, sometimes scary, but always true. She is represented by the hardworking Kelvin Kong at K2 Literary.

“Editing is a position of power that I take seriously. I’m a writer, author, creative in different ways and I experienced the negativity of being a victim of systems of oppression,” Julián Esteban Torres López. Julián Esteban Torres López is a Colombian-born journalist, publisher, podcaster, and editor. Before founding the nonfiction storytelling organization The Nasiona, he ran several cultural and arts organizations, edited journals and books, was a social justice and public history researcher, wrote a column for Colombia Reports, taught university courses, and managed a history museum. He’s a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions nominee and has written two books on social justice. Torres López holds a bachelor’s in philosophy and in communication and a master’s in justice studies from the University of New Hampshire and was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, where he focused on political science and Latin American studies. The Nasiona is a nonfiction storytelling organization that amplifies the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, and forgotten voices and experiences of our communities. Guided by a social justice compass, they cultivate the seeds of nonfiction through a podcast, publishing house, and creative nonfiction magazine, as well as by offering editing services and an internship program. They are currently focusing on the following story topics: being mixed-race, LGBTQIAA+, diaspora and immigration, and womanhood and trauma. In an age when telling the difference between reality and delusion is frighteningly labyrinthine, they focus on creative works based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch.

This is a journal "more interested in the world than the self"—it's a little bit more on the political and social justice side. Managing Editor, Emily Wojcik, shares the best analogy for writing that takes a while to get started. (You might have the theme music to a beloved cartoon from the 80s running through your head after this.) She shares her wisdom on trusting your own writing and trusting that the reader is okay with endings that don't necessarily "satisfy." But she also empathizes with writers who try on different things (what they hear in workshops, from outside advisers) because they get nervous and really want to be published. One thoughtful question she has for writers is: Where are you getting in your own way? This comes from her experience of seeing a lot of writing that is almost there in the MR slush pile. And she advises writers to learn to distinguish between what is sharp and almost there and what is not quite there.

This episode focuses on working in close relationship with writers, and thinking through all your relationships as you navigate choices for your writing and in your writing community. Jessica Johns is a nehiyaw aunty and member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta and is currently living, working, and learning on the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. She is the new Managing Editor at Room and the former poetry editor for PRISM international, and is a co-organizer of the Indigenous Brilliance reading series in Vancouver. Room is Canada’s oldest feminist literary journal, and has published fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, interviews, and book reviews for forty years. Published quarterly by the West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society, also known as the Growing Room Collective, Room showcases writing and art by women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We believe in publishing emerging writers alongside established authors, and because of this, approximately 90% of the work we publish comes from unsolicited submissions or contest entries. Jessica Johns is a nehiyaw aunty and member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta and is currently living, working, and learning on the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. She is the new Managing Editor at Room and the former poetry editor for PRISM international, and is a co-organizer of the Indigenous Brilliance reading series in Vancouver. Room is Canada’s oldest feminist literary journal, and has published fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, interviews, and book reviews for forty years. Published quarterly by the West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society, also known as the Growing Room Collective, Room showcases writing and art by women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We believe in publishing emerging writers alongside established authors, and because of this, approximately 90% of the work we publish comes from unsolicited submissions or contest entries.

The Swamp publishes work that evokes a sense of place, which, for The Swamp, is broadly defined. “We look forward to reading work that we can inhabit, no matter its geography. We do give preference to the southern gothic, to poems and stories wrapped in a heavy coat of humidity. With that said, we seek to publish all work that surprises us with new territory, with characters and landscapes we don't get the chance often enough to read about.” It is an annual print magazine that welcomes art, poetry, essay, and short fiction submissions. Send them place-based work that grounds them and with something to say that moves them.

Atticus Review publishes writing that is unashamed, unadorned, and unafraid, and is a daily online journal that publishes fiction, poems, and creative nonfiction, as well as graphic art, mixed media, music essays, and, on occasion, blog posts, interviews, and non-traditional book reviews. They have been publishing great work since 2011 and have had over 1200 contributors.

Literary Mama believes that all mothers have a story worth sharing and honors the many faces of motherhood by publishing work that celebrates the journey as well as the job. Felicity Landa earned her Bachelor’s in Creative Writing and Literature from CSU Long Beach in 2013, where she was awarded the Horn scholarship for her novel. She is currently an MFA student in Fiction and Screenwriting at UC Riverside Palm Desert. She serves as fiction editor for Literary Mama and nonfiction editor for The Coachella Review. She spends her time reading, writing, editing, and raising her daughter, in Santa Barbara, California, where she lives with her family.

Founded at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2005, the award-winning magazine features writing and art that reimagine place, and our authors interpret this charge expansively. An ecotone is a transition zone between two adjacent ecological communities, containing the characteristic species of each. It is, therefore, a place of danger or opportunity, a testing ground. The magazine explores the ecotones between landscapes, literary genres, scientific and artistic disciplines, modes of thought. They are particularly interested in hearing from writers historically underrepresented in literary publishing and in place-based contexts: people of color, Indigenous people, people with disabilities, gender-nonconforming people, LGBTQIA+, women, and others. And they welcome the work of emerging writers. Rachel Taube is an MFA candidate in Fiction at UNC-Wilmington, and Managing Editor at Ecotone. Anna Lena Phillips Bell is the author of Ornament (University of North Texas Press, 2017), winner of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize. The recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship in literature, she teaches at University of North Carolina—Wilmington, where she is the editor of Ecotone and Lookout Books. She lives near the Cape Fear River. Hear how these editors work to publish voices missing from lit mags and confront the liminal space we are all in as our environment changes.

Blanket Sea features work created by people living with chronic illness, mental illness, and disability. “There aren’t many places where writers and artists with illness and disabilities can express themselves in a safe, open, and welcoming space. We want Blanket Sea to be that space.”

"A rejection letter doesn't mean it's not working." —Caroline Knecht of Whiskey Island Founded in 1977, Whiskey Island is a nonprofit literary journal published by Cleveland State University. They accept submissions of original poetry, fiction, and creative essays during two reading periods: August 15th through November 15th, and January 15th through April 15th.

"Our impulse is to trust writers and follow their lights. In cases where we’re editing and working closely with them, it’s to help them get to that place that they’re wanting to get to, but might want some structure or help getting there."

"I think intersectional community asks us to be open and mindful of difference. It asks us to have a posture of listening that requires a lot of effort, it requires a lot of heart, it requires a lot of humility in many ways. Because we are being asked to really give attention to another person’s experience that we might not have any relationship with. This is a crucial point of connection for me because if we are artists or writers, what we really want is to connect with people."

Room Magazine’s Turtle Island Responds, is creating an online library of lived experience, offered in verse.

In this episode of Lit Mag Love: A podcast for creative writers who want to publish, host Rachel Thompson interviews Doyali Islam from Arc magazine. Their conversation covers offering an emotional truth and creating some kind of intimacy with the readers. They also discuss how poets and readers of poetry feel a sense of belonging through poem. Doyali is someone who recites her favourite poems to keep herself company as she moves invisibly about the city. If you spot her in her cat-print dress, though, she would love to connect with you. (She describes just how to do so in the episode.)

In this episode of the Lit Mag Love Podcast, host Rachel Thompson talks with Alexandria Petrassi from So to Speak journal. Their discussion covers how the “canonical” writer has changed. “When I started reading poetry, I didn’t read anybody living,” says Alexandria, adding “The fantastic part about this moment, is who people are reading now and who people will remember are so much different now. The quality of the voices, speaking their own truths, their experiences moving through the world.” So to Speak Journal seeks poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art for one online issue and one print/contest issue a year—the contest issue has $8 entry fees, and they do not charge for submissions to the online issue and blog. (Check their Submittable page to see what they are reading before you submit.) They are looking for work that matches their intersectional feminist viewpoint, and for work by writers, poets, and artists who want to challenge and change the identity of the “canonical” writer. Alexandria Petrassi studies poetry in the MFA program at George Mason University. She is the Editor in Chief at So to Speak Journal. She is the winner of the 2018 Mary Roberts Rhinehart Award in Poetry, and her work has appeared in CALAMITY, Crab Fat Magazine, and Sweet Tree Review, among others. You can find her on Instagram @alexandriapetra.

In this episode of the Lit Mag Love Podcast, host Rachel Thompson talks with Sakina Fakhri and Diana McClure, founders of Azure magazine. Azure accepts literary fiction, creative non-fiction, excerpts, screenplays, stageplays, fragments, meanderings, philosophy and poetry, in submissions of up to 50 pages. They don’t charge fees for submissions, and here’s something interesting—if your submission is part of a novel-length work or feature-length screenplay, there exists the possibility of publishing it in installments in future issues. They talk about the connection of interiority to empathy—how writers give readers that inner experience of something they don’t understand. Listen to this conversation with Sakina Fakhri & Diana McClure to learn more about the unique, cerebral and empathetic writing they love to publish in Azure.

We talk about how their collaboration works and extends to the writers who submit to the journal. We cover jealousy in art and how the poems and stories they publish need to be ready for their solo appearance. We also get pretty specific about the lengths of work in both flash and longer fiction. And the interview turns even more collaborative when they turn the mic on me to discuss our writing practices—they have lots to say about what has worked and what hasn’t when it comes to writing consistently.

In this episode, Rachel Thompson interviews Rebecca Salazar, poetry editor with Plenitude magazine, a publication that aims to promote the growth and development of LGBTTQI literature. We talk about how she’s turning to her peers for mentoring in light of the abusive culture of mentoring unearthed in CanLit (Canadian Literature) in the past few years, how two-spirited writers in Canada are having a sort of coming into one's own, and there's this community that's basically springing out of places we neglected to look, with so much power in their words and their writing—the fire that editors like Rebecca appreciate in submissions! And she shares much more love about queer and trans writing. (Spoiler alert: RuPaul’s Drag Race comes up!)

In this episode, Rachel Thompson talks with Robin Richardson, founder of the Minola Review. She discusses how she overcame early critiques of her writing by men—critiques she internalized. And they talk about getting men to listen. Minola Review is named after the protagonist in The Taming of the Shrew after all. One theme of their conversation is taking control of your narrative. "[Negative] voices like that aren't allowed in my life anymore and they were before and it has something to do with me. And I'm interested in women who can see those things about themselves and talk about them as well." Writing from Minola Review Discussed in the Episode: PALM TREES, POST­-RAPE by Cade Leebron BLITZED OUT by Lauren Turner ON TENDERNESS by Shannon Bramer LULLABY by T. Kira Madden (author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls) COLD HANDS by Paola Ferrante Host: Rachel Thompson Sound Editor: Mica Lemiski Transcript Editing: Rachel Thompson Presented by Room magazine and the Lit Mag Love Course

In this episode, Rachel Thompson talks with Lilly Dancyger of Narratively, about the responsibility of editors to elevate voices left out the conversation, why you should know what conversations have already been had about the subjects of your writing, her experiences with memoir writing both deep and shallow with ideas on how to find the deep stories that resonate with readers and editors. Lilly Dancyger's essays and journalism on sex, politics, and culture have appeared in Rolling Stone, The Rumpus, The Washington Post, Psychology Today and more. She is the editor of Burn it Down, an anthology of women and nonbinary writers on anger and it's forthcoming from Seal Press. Lilly is also at work on a memoir about her father's art and heroin addiction and the legacy of both in her life.

In this episode, Rachel talks with Maya Marshall, a self-described demanding and productive writer and editor with [PANK] magazine—yes, the magazine founded by Roxane Gay. Among much glorious and affirming advice she shares for writers, she is clearly someone who delights in language and craft, and cheers this enchantment—a word that comes up often in our interview—when she sees it in her submission inbox. They talk about mentoring and modelling, and about the risque words she does not want you to send into [PANK]—at least, not until you have a more mature revision practice. From the transcript: Maya Marshall: [00:10:39] That's that's the advice: read a lot, write a lot. Nikky Finni has been really helpful in saying "be specific." So she taught me to write revision narratives and to go down the sort of checklist, like have I paid attention to the sequence here? Why is it this line-length? How is imagery working? Am I using associative language? If I mention it at the beginning of the poem or the essay or story, has it come back by the end? And if no, why not? There is a language of talking about writing that I think writers should learn.

“I’ve just become better at noticing those little mechanical things,” says the guest for this episode, Donna Talarico, the founder and publisher of Hippocampus Magazine. Hippocampus makes memorable creative nonfiction. It is an online journal, a conference, and most recently a publishing house.  Hippocampus Magazine is an exclusively online publication set out to entertain, educate and engage writers and readers of creative nonfiction. Each issue features memoir excerpts, personal essays, reviews, interviews and craft articles.

In this episode, we break outside the Lit Mag Love bubble we’ve been in—both in terms of region, The Threepenny Review is an established American lit mag, but also in terms of the approach to writers—a well-lauded, establishment figure in US literary scene, she says she can always tell when a writer has her or his own voice and that’s the thing they need to bring when they submit to the review. Also in the approach to being a gatekeeper, while she has published work that came from “under the slush pile” as she put it, and is aware that perhaps she has certain tastes when it comes to the writing, TPR is not a journal with a deliberate practice of finding voices from the margins of writing.

Of course, it is easier to say don’t give up than to do it, as my guest for this episode, Amanda Leduc admits. She’s the nonfiction Little Fiction: Big Truths, so, of course, we continue the trend from the last several episodes of Lit Mag Love and talk about truth-telling in creative nonfiction. Amanda is a writer with Cerebral Palsy, who grew up with scant examples of disability in literature. We talk about how the literary culture in general in North America, but in Canada particularly, has not made a place for writers with disabilities, while also taking stock of the really exciting times we are in, with many writers, Amanda among them, blazing a trail for younger disabled writers. Amanda Leduc is from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She has published essays and short stories across Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia, and currently serves as the Communications and Development Coordinator for the Festival of Literary Diversity, Canada's first festival for diverse authors and stories. Her first novel, The Miracles of Ordinary Men, was published in 2013 by Toronto's ECW Press. Her new novel, The Centaur's Wife, is forthcoming from Random House Canada. Little Fiction is a mostly digital publisher of short fiction and nonfiction singles. They are not officially a lit mag, though but do publish on a monthly basis.

advice for writers of creative nonfiction (CNF) and for writers who are trying to decide if a piece is suitable to enter contests. More About Sierra Skye Gemma Sierra Skye Gemma On Publishing in Lit Mags (Rowan McCandless, Room) “The Wrong Way” (PDF of Sierra's  National Magazine Award-winning story from The New Quarterly) Finding a Voice in Creative Non-fiction, with Sierra Skye Gemma (Plenitude) Background on Sexual-Harassment in CanLit CanLit Has a Sexual-Harassment Problem (Zoe Whittall, The Walrus) Under a cloud: How UBC's Steven Galloway affair has haunted a campus and changed lives (Globe & Mail) CanLit is a Raging Dumpster Fire (Alicia Elliott, Open Book) Credits Host: Rachel Thompson Sound Editor: Mica Lemiski Produced by Room magazine and Rachel Thompson

“Write rhymes with fight for a reason. We’re not all meant to be at the frontline...I’m way more comfortable sitting down and trying to figure out how to write back against something that I really dislike.” Let’s let these words from Eufemia Fantetti, bridge the connection between what has been a theme in the past few LML episodes around the abuse of mentors and #MeToo in Canadian Literary circles, and learning how to write difficult stories in a writing community with mentors who support you. As Eufemia put it, “You can’t always know who is really gunning for you to succeed, and who is just sitting there, rubber-stamping and like, I don’t care if it doesn’t look like me and it doesn’t sound like me, I don’t want to have anything to do with it.” (Though, as she also points out, we know more now thanks to social media!) Humber Literary Review is the creation of Humber College’s Department of English, and its collective includes writers, academics, critics, visual artists, and linguists. Their goal is to share their enthusiasm for work that provokes, excites, and entertains—writing that makes you want to read more. Links Related to the Episode You can read Sheung-King’s Memory Piece: Macau in the print edition of the Humber Literary Review (Spring/Summer 2017) A Recipe for Disaster & Other Unlikely Tales of Love by Eufemia Fantetti Credits Host: Rachel Thompson Sound Editor: Mica Lemiski Transcript Editor: Yolande House Produced by Room magazine and Rachel Thompson

As always this episode truly takes you behind the scenes of a literary journal—in this case, it’s a University-based journal in the centre of controversy. (Below, we link to articles that will provide some background, though you don’t need to know all the minutiae of this story to listen to the episode.) We also talk about Shazia’s really laudable efforts to make sure underrepresented writers are welcome with open arms into the pages of PRISM, and my sixth-grade self jumped in glee when she talked about how being a writer is a lot like being a spy-explorer. We also discuss emotional urgency in poetry, literary criticism, and you’ll come away with a better sense of what working with a dream editor is like and what kind of poems you should never submit to Shazia. PRISM is the oldest literary magazine in western Canada. Published quarterly in Vancouver, British Columbia, its mandate is to publish the best in contemporary writing and translation from Canada and around the world.  Writing from PRISM has been featured in Best American Stories, Best American Essays and The Journey Prize Stories, amongst other noted publications. It is edited by MFA students in the Creative Writing Program, UBC. Shazia Hafiz Ramji received the 2017 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and was a finalist for the 2018 Alberta Magazine Awards and the 2016 National Magazine Awards. Her writing has been longlisted for The Fiddlehead’s Short Fiction contest and has recently appeared in Quill & Quire, Metatron’s ALPHA, and Hamilton Arts & Letters. Her first chapbook is Prosopopoeia (Anstruther Press, 2017) and her debut book of poetry, Port of Being, is forthcoming from Invisible Press in fall 2018. Credits Host: Rachel Thompson Sound Editor: Mica Lemiski Produced by Room magazine and Rachel Thompson

Rachel interviews Carleigh Baker, an editor with Joyland, who talks about the difference between her first and future books, “You can only gaze at your navel for so long. If that’s what you needed to heal, great, but I’m really looking forward to turning my gaze outward.” And about the positive changes and communities that have grown out of dark times in CanLit: “I’m hopeful because I see a lot of women and some men speak up about sexual assault.” Carleigh Baker is a Cree-Métis/ Icelandic writer living on unceded Coast Salish territory. She is the Vancouver editor of Joyland and also editing an upcoming issue of Poetry is Dead. Carleigh’s work has appeared in subTerrain, PRISM International, Joyland, and Matrix. She won the Lush Triumphant award for short fiction in 2012 and is a two-time Journey Prize nominee. In submissions to her, she says she likes bees, spawning salmon, and apocalyptic romance, and tight economical prose with a ton of subtext, a sense of humour (the darker the better) and a deep appreciation of how flawed and confusing humans are. Notes On Problems in the CanLit Community This episode is the first of a few coming up, where Rachel interviews writers and editors closely affected by what’s been happening in CanLit culture, specifically with the University of British Columbia firing of a prof and the fall out when literary heavyweights signed a letter calling for “due process” of the accused. As Carleigh put it in our interview, “Last winter was a dark winter in CanLit.” It’s basically CanLit’s #MeToo moment, but it hasn’t played out the way it has in Hollywood. In this movement, it has been the less powerful people in CanLit speaking up and demanding true accountability from our community. In the show notes on litmaglovepodcast.com, are links to articles that will provide some background on this, though you don’t need to know all the minutiae of this story to listen to the episode. For one, there’s a really familiar pattern here, unfortunately, and for another, we talk about other things, like Carleigh’s enthusiastic interest in heavy metal music, the difference between her first and second book, where she can now look outward, and her activism on Twitter. And we also talk about what makes her hopeful for the future, including the foundation of the UBC Indigenous reading group. And as always it’s full of behind the scenes insights from a literary journal, and tips for you on submitting to lit mags.

The Sun is an independent, ad-free magazine that for more than forty years has used words and photographs to evoke the splendour and heartache of being human. Each monthly issue features personal essays, short stories, interviews, poetry, and photographs that explore the challenges we face and the moments when we rise to meet them. Writing from The Sun has won the Pushcart Prize and been selected for numerous anthologies, including Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays.

The New Quarterly—TNQ, for short—is a Canadian literary journal known for wit, warmth, and literary innovation. Our style is celebratory, and we’re well known for finding, as well as nurturing, distinctive voices, and for continuing to support writers throughout their career. We publish short fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction that explores both the craft and the writing life. Watch for TNQ writers among those cited for National Magazine Awards, the Man Booker Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Journey Prize, and the Writers Trust Fiction Prize. Each issue brings our readers work by both emerging and established writers, and, while TNQ has always been an inclusive publication, we have renewed our commitment to encouraging writers who may be experiencing barriers regarding race, gender, ability, sexual orientation, or age to consider TNQ when they’re ready to submit their finest work. Pamela Mulloy has edited TNQ since 2011. She has a master of arts in studies in fiction from the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom; has had short fiction published in the United Kingdom and Canada; and has been awarded the Waterloo Regional Arts Council award for fiction. Her novel, The Deserters, is due out in Spring of 2018 with Véhicule Press. She currently resides in Kitchener, Ontario, with her husband and daughter Quotes from the Episode “I confess to being a slow thinker, a ruminator. I’m the one who thinks about it and has the idea after everybody has left the table. Social media is a challenge.” “I think that I understand that writing is a process and it sometimes requires a great deal of patience, and revisiting, and rethinking, things we’re not used to doing to be productive.“ “One of the things that we consider with the writers is that it’s a relationship with the writers. We’re actually investing in a writer when we choose to publish them. We hope that they will continue to submit to us and it becomes an ongoing relationship. That human element of the publishing process is really important. I’m always curious what the writer is doing in their wider writing life.“ “Quiet stories are the ones I’m often drawn to.” “In order to become a successful writer, you have to submit your work. It kinda raises the bar for your writing. It pushes you to get the best you can get.“ Episode Credits Host: Rachel Thompson Audio Editor: Meghan Bell Music: https://musicformakers.com/songs/the-return/ Production & Research Assistant: Gulnaz Saiyed Produced by Room magazine and Rachel Thompson

Room is Canada’s oldest feminist literary journal, and has published fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, interviews, and book reviews for forty years. Published quarterly by the West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society, also known as the Growing Room Collective, Room showcases writing and art by women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people.Room believes in publishing emerging writers alongside established authors, and because of this, approximately 90% of the work the magazine publishes comes from unsolicited submissions or contest entries. Work that originally appeared in Room has been anthologized in The Journey Prize Anthology, Best Canadian Poetry, Best Canadian Stories, and Best Canadian Essays, and has been nominated for a National Magazine Award. About Chelene Knight Chelene Knight lives in Vancouver, BC and is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio in multiple genres. Chelene is a Library Assistant at the Vancouver Public Library, and Managing Editor at Room. Chelene has worked as a Manuscript Consultant through SFU and has been published in various literary magazines and anthologies. Her second book, Dear Current Occupant, a memoir, is forthcoming with BookThug in 2018. Chelene is now working on a novel set in the 1940's in Vancouver's Hogan's Alley. Her first book, Braided Skin, was published by Mother Tongue Publishing in Spring 2015. Find out more about Chelene at cheleneknight.com and @poetchelene. Quotes from the Episode “I don't have a favourite genre. I have a favourite mindset: I have the power to change the world however I see fit.” “Listen to the writing and follow it.” “[At Room we are] #transparency. I don’t see many other magazines doing that right now.” “You have a small window to do something amazing. You gotta drive it home really quick.” Episode Credits Host: Rachel Thompson Audio Editor: Meghan Bell Music: https://musicformakers.com/songs/the-return/ Production & Research Assistant: Gulnaz Saiyed Produced by Room magazine and Rachel Thompson

About Maisonneuve Maisonneuve literally means "new house" and suggests the spirit of collective enterprise the magazine gathers under one roof. The magazine takes its name from Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, the man who founded Montreal in 1642. A teenage soldier who experienced something of a religious conversion in his twenties, de Maisonneuve came from Champagne, where his last remains can be found today. About Andrea Bennett andrea bennett's writing has been published by the Atlantic, the Globe and Mail, the Walrus, Maisonneuve, Hazlitt, Vice, Geist, Reader's Digest and others. Her essay, "Water Upon the Earth," received gold in the essays category at the 2015 National Magazine Awards; in 2013, her piece "Unmasked: Searching for lessons in Toronto's 2010 G20 debacle" received an NMA honourable mention in the politics and public interest category. andrea's first book of poetry, Canoodlers, came out with Nightwood Editions in 2014. She is currently working on travel guides to Montreal and Quebec City for Moon Travel. andrea is the Editor-in-Chief of Maisonneuve, a researcher for Reader's Digest, a columnist at This magazine and the designer for PRISM. Originally from Hamilton, she currently lives in Montreal. She holds a BA in English and French from the University of Guelph, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She is represented by Stephanie Sinclair at Transatlantic. Quotes from the Episode “As an editor, it’s really important to cultivate a couple of things. One is an awareness of what’s been published elsewhere.” “So poetry and prose are a little bit like running and cycling, in that there are some things that cross over and other things that don’t.” “General interest magazines are looking for scenes, like action unfolding in time as opposed to anything too-too exposition heavy.” Story Discussed Andrea discussed Adam Elliott Segal's "Black Market Babies," non-fiction (longform magazine journalism). Read it here: https://maisonneuve.org/article/2017/07/18/black-market-babies. Episode Credits Host: Rachel Thompson Audio Editor: Meghan Bell Music: https://musicformakers.com/songs/the-return/ Production & Research Assistant: Gulnaz Saiyed Produced by Room magazine and Rachel Thompson

An online independent literary magazine dedicated to the publication of new and innovative writing, The Gravity of theThing has been named one of thirty best online magazines in 2016 (Bookfox) and one of fifteen best literary journals of 2015 (Authors Publish Magazine). We publish work that is aware of its literary form, writing that defamiliarizes in craft or content for an enhanced rendering of reality. Since 2006, Thea Prieto has edited for Counterpoint Press, the Berkeley Fiction Review, the Portland Review, and The Chiron Journal: Anthology of Interdisciplinary Media. She teaches creative writing at Portland State University, including the courses Creative Writing Through Guided Meditation and Introduction to Horror Fiction. Quotes from the Episode “The song functions as a prompt, and then I kind of leave it behind as the story starts to realize itself.” “I definitely… was interested in defamiliarizing not just characterization, but also the way readers engage with writing in general.” “Just because a piece is published doesn’t mean it becomes stationary or stagnant.” “It could be overwhelming sometimes how many ways a story can be correct and different at the same time.” “It’s really revealing what the form, how that constraint of just six words… how it sometimes forces writers into a similar spot.” “I would encourage writers to think about the ways that their story is constructed and how that might complement or clash with or in any way enlighten the contents of their piece.” Episode Credits Host: Rachel Thompson Audio Editor: Meghan Bell Music: https://musicformakers.com/songs/the-return/ Production & Research Assistant: Gulnaz Saiyed Produced by Room magazine and Rachel Thompson

The Forge Literary Magazine was founded by volunteers from the Fiction Forge, an international online writers’ forum, which counts amongst its members and alumni winners of numerous literary awards, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the Bridport Prize, the Bristol Short Story Prize and the Pinch Literary Award in Fiction. Former members’ novels have been published by Bloomsbury, Chatto & Windus, Sceptre, Headline and Little, Brown. The Forge staff share editorial duties equally and pay their contributors. Their taste is wide-ranging and eclectic. The Forge Literary Magazine is a project of Forge Literary Press, a non-profit organization incorporated in the state of California.

01 // No Subject is Off Limits with Shashi Bhat from Event Magazine