Okla Elliott: What is the process by which your journal’s staff selects a piece for publication? Jodee Stanley: At Ninth Letter we have a fairly large editorial staff, with three faculty editors for fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, as well as several graduate students who work as readers and assistant editors. The selection process is pretty much the same […]
Nonfiction
GNOMIC SAVIORS: EDITORS ON EDITING – HOW DO AN INCREASING NUMBER OF LIT MAGS DEFEND THEIR RELEVANCE?
Okla Elliott: The United States is unique in that we have literally thousands of literary journals, whereas countries like England or Germany have only a few dozen, and some countries have fewer than ten. Now, the circulation on some of these tend to beat ours, but not always. So, what is the effect of the massive […]
GNOMIC SAVIORS: EDITORS ON EDITING – WHY DO EDITORS EDIT?
Okla Elliott: I feel most editors get into the editing business at least in part to correct certain wrongs they see in contemporary literature. There is of course the love of literature in general that brings us to this work, but what kinds of literature do you see as needing more airtime and how do you […]
GNOMIC SAVIORS: EDITORS ON EDITING – WHAT HAPPENS TO LIT MAGS IN A RECESSION?
Okla Elliott: Everyone is talking about the current economic situation in the US. How is this affecting literary journals, and what are the solutions you’ve found? Jodee Stanley (Ninth Letter): I think the economy has got us all biting our nails, looking over our shoulders. I’m interested to hear what independent journals have to say about the […]
THE SECOND SISTER NEVER ESCAPES DEATH by Jajah Wu
The Second presses the petals of the dog eye flower to Bei Bei’s lips. The Second loves this: picture baby, sleeping, not sick, just sleeping. She can grow old in this moment, with Bei Bei sleeping (not sick: sleeping). As soon as she thinks it, Bei Bei whimpers and opens her eyes. Bei Bei sees […]
GNOMIC SAVIORS: EDITORS ON EDITING (full roundtable discussion)
GNOMIC SAVIORS: EDITORS ON EDITING What happens to lit mags in a recession? moderated by Okla Elliott responses by Jacob Knabb, Ben George, Aaron Burch, Raymond Hammond, Anne McPeak, and Jodee Stanley Okla Elliott: Everyone is talking about the current economic situation in the US. How is this affecting literary journals, and what are the […]
GNOMIC SAVIORS: Editors on Editing, a roundtable discussion with Jacob Knabb, Ben George, Anne McPeak, Raymond Hammond, Jodee Stanley, Aaron Burch, and Okla Elliott
Read the roundtable discussion in its entirety, or read individual sections below. WHAT HAPPENS TO LIT MAGS IN A RECESSION? WHY DO EDITORS EDIT? HOW DO AN INCREASING NUMBER OF LIT MAGS DEFEND THEIR RELEVANCE? HOW DO EDITORS SELECT WORK FOR PUBLICATION? WHAT IS THE PLACE OF POLITICS IN LIT MAGS? HOW CAN LIT MAGS INCREASE […]
REQUIEM by Cindy M. Carter
The first bullet makes a brand new hole in a history vermilion. Potholes, bullet holes, dark stains upon the paving stones. Months from now, all this will be replaced. Heads, arms, legs, trunks, tanks, guns, bitumen and bicycles. One long row of cycles crashes to the ground. It will be some time before the corpses […]
HEGEL SPOKEN HERE or Why Germans Just Love to Tell You How Bad They’ve Been: a travel essay by David Kirby, with photos by Barbara Hamby
A New York friend was yanked to the ground not long ago by her Cairn terrier Henry and broke her wrist. That wouldn’t happen here in Berlin—well, it might, but it seems less likely, given the exemplary behavior of that city’s canines. Can a culture really be judged by the comportment of its dogs? On […]
LAID OPEN BETWEEN DESIRE AND DISGUST: Mithu Sen’s Threshold Poetics a critical introduction to Mithu Sen’s Half Full: Part II by Alexander Keefe
The she-ghouls have made bracelets from intestines and red lotus ornaments of women’s hands; have woven necklaces of human hearts and rouged themselves with blood in place of saffron. – Bhavabhuti Mithu Sen’s gallery show, Half Full: Part II, reads like a dance of the half dead, a cremation ground lyric, a glasshouse of […]
