Cosmonauts Avenue and the importance of literary magazines having a purpose

[strannik01]

Earlier this week, Chicago magazine associate editor Whet Moser retweeted a tweet about a new literary magazine looking for submissions

Look out: We're accepting submissions at the badass new literary journal @CosmoAvenue, where I am Nonfiction Editor: http://t.co/8TXwj79yUY
- Nathan Deuel (@nathandeuel) November 7, 2014

Whet and I have been

Comments

[ladysisyphus]

Following trackbacks, I wanted to step in and thank you for confirming a lot of these things, because they're things I've suspected about running a lit mag -- especially when, as you pointed out, we don't pay.

One of the things I think that has been good for s2b2 is what I call the 'All Skate' philosophy: We have a few rock-solid requirements, but beyond those, we won't reject a story for quality. I find this works well both for first-timers who are terrified about getting their work into the world and for practiced authors who don't want to feel bad about writing something that's just happy feel-good fluff. While it means we've run some stories that were (in my opinion) utter melodramatic dreck, a) there's almost always been someone who's liked them, and b) those same authors often return for future issues with better and better stories.

And despite the occasionally disheartening lack of feedback (especially as internet commenting culture has fallen by the wayside), we've got plenty of readers. Original fiction can be a hell of a thing to get someone to read, which is why the project came around in the first place. It's a little easier now, in the age of e-publishing, but even so, fanfic's built-in audience means original fiction has a comparatively tough time getting noticed, especially when it's short fun instead of the Great American Novel.

Anyway! Apologies for the tangent. And if you've ever got any particular questions about the submission process, don't hesitate to ask!

[strannik01]

Thank you. At the moment, I got a lot on my plate, so there's only so much writing I can do (and I wind up responding to some stuff weeks after the fact :) ). But things should *knocks on wood* get less busy by the beginning of next year, at which point I plan to take a closer look at s2b2 guidelines and see what I can submit (or what I can write from scratch). If I have any questions, I would, of course, be happy to ask.