The Online Literary Magazine at Arizona State University
Concept by Christine Truong, Cartoon by boyfriend Jack Conway. Inspired by these comments on SR‘s Facebook page:
Caitlin Demo I trip over books all the time. I never have enough room for them all. Generally, my bed is 83% devoted to book storage and 17% devoted to sleeping….
February 16 at 1:45pmChristine Truong I’m going to draw a cartoon of books sleeping on a bed, and a person sleeping trying to sleep on a book shelf.
Friday at 9:42am
Writing is a lot of work. Even when they’re not actively writing, writers are often thinking – even obsessing — about what they’re writing. One of the best ways to give your brain a break without the guilt of straying too far from work is to think about what other people have been writing. The site www.goodreads.com is the perfect way to relax between chapters. It’s like a Facebook for bookworms, where you can rate and discuss the books you’ve read with your friends and see what they think of the books they’ve been reading. You can rate books anywhere from one to five stars, and then you can write your own New York Times-style review to accompany your rating. But don’t forget to include a spoiler alert if you’re going to write about how it ends.
Goodreads also has digital book clubs you can join and offers recommendations based on the books you’ve read and rated highly. They also sometimes put on special events, such as live video chats with authors. In August they interviewed Jennifer Egan, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, and the moderator pulled many of his questions from the Goodreads users participating in the live chat forum. It was a great way for readers to get insight on Egan’s writing process. They also have contest for free advance copy giveaways so a select few readers can review new releases for the Goodreads community. It’s an excellent website for bibliophiles of all kinds.
There has been a surge in the number of literary journals that request, review, and publish works online. Many of these have long existed in print form before moving onto the web, but some are recent organizations that take a modern approach to the representation of literature and artwork. We asked our interns for their favorite literary journals. This is the list we compiled, in no particular order.
Front Porch – “Front Porch just feels classy. I love the layout with the stationary background image with the scrolling text box.”
failbetter.com – “This magazine felt really well-suited to the online medium. Every story has a link to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, where you can ‘like’ what you’ve read. They have a mobile site, which I think will be increasingly important, and their forward thinking seems to be a strong point.”
Coal Hill Review – “This site has a very professional, sophisticated feel about it and features contests and contest winners in different genres.”
The Adirondack Review – “[This is] a beautiful online site, which is easy to navigate and chock full of great literature.”
The Cafe Irreal – “What I enjoy the most from this simple website is definitely the content. It has many issues and the simple design sets a good aura to the whole website.”
Exquisite Corpse – “I like that the website is not used as a prop to enhance the work – the work is simply good on its own and often in spite of its unprofessional presentation.”
Restless: An Arts Anthology – “They do incredible work formatting the ‘zine for the internet. They work art into the pages so that it’s not a large wall of text, which makes reading both easier and more interesting.”
Electric Literature – “I like that this site is using different media to get literature across to a wider audience than print alone can. The site is visually stimulating and you can read it on any medium – computer, smartphone, tablet.”
Blackbird – “I enjoy that Blackbird is so academic. There are a great many reviews and academic essays published in every issue that hardly ever fail to be interesting and educational.”
As most of you know, I started Superstition Review because I wanted my writing students to gain practical experience with a literary magazine before going off into the working world or on to graduate school. I wanted to teach students to correspond with authors, meet deadlines, make editorial decisions, design websites, organize events, and advertise through email, Facebook, Twitter and blogs.
This week marks the launch of Issue 7 of Superstition Review, which gives me occasion to look back on those goals I had when I first started the magazine. In seven semesters I have mentored 95 students, many of whom have gone on to jobs in publishing, or spots in grad school, or teaching careers.
Recently I had the opportunity to do one of my favorite things: act as a reference for a former intern. “Oh I’m going to make your job easy,” I said to the hiring manager. “Throw away all the other applications because you need to hire my student.” I backed that recommendation up with a story about a task the student accomplished despite my complete inability to tell her how to do it. My interns work hard. They earn their 3 credit hours. And they earn their glowing recommendations from me as well.
I have now had seven semesters of managing students as we put together each issue in only 14 weeks, and it occurs to me that while I was training my students to run a magazine I was getting a crash course in mentoring. Trust me when I say for certain that putting together Issue 7 was 95% easier than putting together Issue 1. We’ve passed a learning curve. And I think you’ll agree that it shows in what we do.
I hope you enjoy the new work of 48 artists and authors in our Issue 7. And please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have a job waiting for one of my student interns.
It is time again to gather your works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art and ready them for submission to Superstition Review Issue 7. The submission period for Issue 7 is from February 1 to March 31. This marks the second issue that we will be using Submishmash, an online management tool that allows our staff to view and handle submissions. For information on submission guidelines go to http://superstitionreview.submishmash.com/Submit.
The staff at Superstition Review has just completed their second week of work on Issue 7. Our Section Editors for art, nonfiction, fiction and poetry will soon be receiving and reviewing submissions via Submishmash in the coming weeks during our submissions period beginning February 1 and ending March 31. Advertising Coordinators are busy researching new advertising opportunities, composing blogs and updating our Facebook and Twitter pages. With an eye towards later in the semester our Reading Series Coordinator is researching authors to feature.
As you can see, we are already making steady progress on Issue 7. Keep an eye on the blog in the coming weeks for updates on our progress.
It’s a new semester at ASU, which means a new team of student interns is gearing up to work on Superstition Review Issue 5. We have 18 interns this semester, and you’ll be getting to know us one at a time as the weeks progress.
As the person bringing you the interviews with our interns and keeping you up-to-date on everything happening with Superstition Review, I figure I should introduce myself first. I’m Carrie Grant, a sophomore majoring in English Literature and Sociology.
Superstition Review: What is your position with Superstition Review and what are your responsibilities?
Carrie Grant: I’m the Blogger, which means I post updates on the SR staff’s progress toward publication, interviews with our interns, and other Superstition Review topics of interest to our WordPress blog, Twitter account, and Facebook fan page.
SR: How did you hear about Superstition Review and what made you decide to get involved?
CG: I heard about Superstition Review through an email listserv last semester. I had been throwing around the idea of a future in publishing for a while, and this seemed like the perfect way to get a taste of how publishing works and to better determine whether I could actually see myself working in publishing.
SR: What are you hoping to take away from your Superstition Review experience?
CG: I want to gain an understanding of how the work done by each intern contributes to the overall process of publishing a literary magazine. I also want to become more confident in my ability to work independently.
SR: Describe one of your favorite literary or artistic works.
CG: I’m in love with The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. The recent film adaptation doesn’t do this intricate science fiction/love story justice at all. Actually, I think the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button conveys the feeling of The Time Traveler’s Wife much more accurately.
SR: What are you currently reading?
CG: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I’m enjoying so much that I can’t believe I haven’t read it before now. I started David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest at the end of winter break, and I’m trying to find time to get back to it.
SR: Who would be the Superstition Review contributor of your dreams?
CG: Margaret Atwood. She’s basically my literary idol of both poetry and fiction, and it would be amazing to be a part of publishing her work.
SR: What other position(s) for Superstition Review would you like to try out?
CG: I would like to be Content or Submissions Coordinator, or a Fiction Editor.
SR: Do you prefer reading literary magazines online or in print?
CG: Online. I don’t have much time to read for pleasure, so I like the ease with which I can take a break from, say, writing a Superstition Review blog post, and read a new poem or short story.
SR: Besides interning for Superstition Review, how do you spend your time?
CG: Day-to-day I can be found reading for classes in the Barrett study room, watching indie movies in bed or at the local indie theater, patrolling the halls of Hassayampa with my fellow Community Assistants (known as RAs basically everywhere but at ASU), and editing for the student-run Barrett Honors College magazine, The Barrett Chronicle.
SR: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
CG: I hope to be working in publishing, possibly as a literary agent or an editor. Ideally, 10 years from now I’ll be married, living in a well-decorated Manhattan apartment, and the owner of a dream library and wardrobe.
Heidi Nielson is pursuing concurrent degrees in English (Creative Writing) and Journalism (Digital Journalism), as well as a minor in Music.
Superstition Review: What do you do for SR?
Heidi Nielson: As a fiction editor, I send solicitations to authors for work, as well as for interviews, read, discuss, and decide on submissions along with Riki, and conduct at least one interview with an author.
SR: How did you hear about SR?
HN: I first heard about the internship while I was interning at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, working with Hayden’s Ferry Review. Shortly thereafter, I volunteered at the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers’ Conference at ASU and was able to attend a class on literary journals that Patricia Murphy was teaching, and met with her after the class ended. During the last issue, I helped with the blog, though I wasn’t officially an intern. I’m very excited to be an intern this semester.
SR: What is your favorite section of SR and why?
HN: As a fiction writer, I tend to gravitate toward the fiction section of any journal first. I am an avid reader, as well as a writer. I feel like I learn the most about writing fiction from reading the work of more experienced and talented writers, like those in Superstition Review.
SR: Who is your dream contributor to the journal?
HN: My dream contributor would probably be Jhumpa Lahiri. Her prose is beautiful, and I admire the way that she is able to immerse her readers in Bengali culture.
SR: What job would you like to try out?
HN: Probably blogger. I really enjoy social media and had a lot of fun when I helped with the blog during the last issue.
SR: What are you most excited for?
HN: I would say that I am most excited to just read submissions. We are writing to so many amazing writers this semester to request work.
SR: What is the first book you remember falling in love with?
HN: I think the first book I fell in love with was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. What made that book so compelling to me as a child, I think, was that their family felt so similar to my own. I come from a family of six girls, and one boy, and the personalities of myself and the three sisters closest to me in age, always seemed so similar to the four sisters in Little Women.
SR: What are you currently reading?
HN: I’m currently reading a compilation of T.C. Boyle’s short stories, entitled simply, Stories.
SR: What are your favorite websites to distract you from homework?
HN: I noticed that most people were saying Facebook, and I can’t deny that I do check it more than once a day, but I think the website that usually distracts me from homework the most is etsy.com. It’s a website of handmade or vintage items, and I can just spend hours browsing through the thousands of items. I also get distracted by my Google Reader. I subscribe to about 50 blogs, and so I’m almost constantly reading posts.
SR: Do you write? Tell us about a project you are working on.
HN: I write fiction, mainly short stories. I have been working on revisions of two stories I wrote for my fiction class last year since the last ended, and I’m on my sixth drafts of both.
Mariah Beckman is an English Literature Senior at Arizona State University and is pursuing a Technical Writing Certificate.
Superstition Review: What do you do for SR?
Mariah Beckman: I review current solicitation list and update contacts, and maintain this list so that the following issues have a solicitations list to build off of. I also work with Editors to add names to list and constantly update the Solicitation List with author responses. My job consists largely of helping to garner submissions and organize the responses to those submissions to provide clear and updated list of works to be featured in Superstition Review.
SR: How did you hear about or get involved with Superstition Review?
MB: I was fortunate enough to take a class taught by one of the managing editors/founders, and was thusly recruited.
SR: What is your favorite section of SR? Why?
MB: I think that poetry is going to be my favorite section of SR. When I was in high school I dated this boy, and his brother was featured in Hayden’s Ferry Review, another Arizona State University literary magazine, and I remember thinking how awesome it was that he was valued enough to be represented. His submission was poetry. I really love to read poetry–no matter how busy I am, I can pick up a copy of my Cummings or Hughes or Frost collection and browse through a finished project, and that is what I love about poetry. If literature is the Christmas Tree, poetry are the Ornaments that make it dazzle even without the lights. I’m so excited to read the submissions and have an opportunity to read some up-and-comers and professionals, side-by-side, and compare the changing face of poetry today.
SR: Who is your dream contributor to the journal? Talk about him/her.
MB: I think that I would love to feature Mark Danielewski (author of House of Leaves) or Chuck Palahniuk (author of the novels Fight Club, Snuff, Choke, etc). While each of these authors feature often mature content, their wit and eloquence are excellent artistic representations of Americans ever-changing and subversive culture. These authors publish challenging and exciting, often funny and always memorable works that have stuck with me and that I can relate to, and it would be amazing to feature one of their interviews or short stories to see what insights they could offer about writing in the 21st century.
SR: What job, other than your own, would you like to try out in the journal?
MB: I would like to work with contributors whose works are chosen to fine-tune and polish their work for submission. I would love to be the person who not only delivers the great news that an individual’s work is publication-worthy, but also work with them to craft their writing and to make them the best vehicles for their art form, because written word is truly a timeless and powerful art.
SR: What are you most excited for in the upcoming issue?
MB: The finished product and readings are the milestones that I most look forward to for this upcoming issue. To see all of our efforts come to fruition will be amazing, and I just can’t wait.
SR: What was the first book you remember falling in love with and what made it so special?
MB: As a reader, there are so many books that I really appreciated and grew up with. The first book, however, that I can remember finishing and then reading all over again was Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. The characters in this novel were so vibrant–who doesn’t know and love a Captain Yossarian, tragic and clever anti-hero of life’s red tape? Or a Milo Minderbinder, enterprising get-rich-quick businessman with great demeanor and no conscience? Major Major, the Chaplain, Hungry Joe–there was a piece of all of America in every character, even the most despicable.
SR: What artist have you really connected with, either in subject matter, work, or motto?
MB: “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”–Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde in his The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of the most prosaic and devilish books I’ve ever read. I’ve always considered myself a fan of Sylvia Plath, but never of her methods–her poetry is divine, but her short works and her life fell short of what I thought her work expressed her capable of. Oscar Wilde, however, was as much a modern philosopher as he ever was a writer. Everything he said or wrote is quotable–I don’t think the man ever had a mundane thought.
“Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.”–Wilde
SR: What are some of your favorite websites to waste time on or distract you from homework?
MB: I am loathe to say Facebook, but there it is. I think that I blow more of my time on Facebook then I do checking my email. I Can Has Cheeseburger.com used to be high on the list, not because I’m a freak but because I have a lot of pets and every one of them seems to be represented in adorable photo form. don’t judge me. T-Shirt Hell.com–it’s awful and wrong, but I love it. I only wish I could buy up the site. If you’ve never been, you should check it out–it’s the most offensive and off-color t-shirts you would ever not want to see.
SR: What would be your dream class to take at ASU? What would the title be and what would it cover?
MB: YOU: A Montage
I would like to take a class that allows a person to gather together their most favorite and expressive mediums of expression–photos, written work, audio, video, links and things and ideas and beliefs–and turn it into something tangible…like a collage that one would be graded on. The final project would be in explanation and defense of not only the project, but the personality and individual it represents. My final would be a life-size mannequin, decked out to look like me but in clothing made of my favorite works, eyes that you could look into and press my nose to see a slideshow, a button on my mouth to hear me recite something of my choosing, and spaces cut out of my arms, legs, back, whatever, to put (assuming money isn’t the issue) clips of movies like “Vanilla Sky” or “Harold and Maude” and other favorites to show viewers, in a snapshot, me. This would be like the ultimate self-exploration, and it would involve a lot of actual project work, which isn’t something that I’ve really done since high school.
This week our editors, in all genres, began to send out their solicitations under the advisement of their team managers. The managers, responsible for keeping track of who we have asked to submit work to us and gathering contact information of the artists and writers we’re asking to submit, have been busy helping their editors prepare for the responses that will begin filtering in.
Our Content Team has been busy keeping track of what’s going in and out of our editors’ hands still. As work comes in and is accepted or rejected by our editors, this team lists the status, and, if accepted, is responsible for readying it for publishing, including tracking down bios and formatting contributor headshots. The advertising side of this team has also been busy preparing fliers and announcements for local bookstores and literary communities to announce future SR events, whether it be our Reading Series (first one in little over a week–September 21!) or the actual launch of the journal.
The interns working with the administrative efforts of the journal have had a lot on their plate between organizing our first-ever writing contest and making the move to Kindle. Don’t worry, we’ll still be completely accessible online, but we want to give our readers the option to enjoy SR on the go, and this is an exciting new way to do this. The logistics of the upcoming SR reading began falling into place, too, with the booking of the site and acquisition of a photographer for the event to capture the excitement of Stella Pope Duarte’s reading.
Finally, the Web Design Team has simply been continuing to work on the site overhaul, behind the scenes. The interns have been getting staff bios and headshots ready and throwing out design ideas to make the new look something lasting and aesthetically appealing for everyone. And, of course, we’ve been keeping you updated here, on the blog, as well as our Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Next week, when responses start rolling in, we’ll all feel the pressure–and excitement–a bit more. As for now, things are running pretty smoothly and we’re glad for it.
Amber Mosure is serving on the Poetry and Art Team as one of our two Poetry Editors. She is a senior this semester, and is a student of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, majoring in English Literature.
Superstition Review: What do you do for SR?
Amber Mosure: I send out solicitations for poetry contributors to SR. I read submissions and make a decision on who will be published in the poetry section of the magazine. I send out acceptance and rejection emails. I write interview questions to ask potential interviewees.
SR: How did you hear about or get involved with Superstition Review?
AM: I am a returning staff member. Last semester was my first issue with SR. It was the 3rd issue. I did funding and development last semester. I heard about the opportunity to come back on board as poetry editor. I thought that would be fun and exciting, so I accepted.
SR: What is your favorite section of SR?
AM: I like poetry. It’s mainly what I write so I’m partial to it.
SR: Who is your dream contributor to the journal?
AM: It’s a tie between Lydia Lunch and musician/writer/songwriter, Nick Cave, but I’d have to say Lydia. She is a musician, actress, writer, photographer, performance artist. She is internationally known. She’s released numerous musical, as well as, spoken word albums. I love the art of spoken word and she is very candid, captivating, and intense with it. She’s well-known in the underground. She got her career start as lead singer for the late 1970s nu-wave band Teenage Jesus and The Jerks.
SR: What job, other than your own, would you like to try out in the journal?
AM: Art Editor.
SR: What are you most excited for in the upcoming issue?
AM: Picking contributors.
SR: What artist have you really connected with, either in subject matter, work, or motto?
AM: Kathy Acker. Her writing is very post-modern in style, almost poetically schizophrenic but eerily makes sense when directly applied to one’s own personal experiences with people and the world. I have connected with her works in the last couple years. Of her works, I’ve read: Don Quixote, Empire of the Senseless, In Memoriam to Identity, Great Expectations, and Pussy King of the Pirates.
SR: What are some of your favorite websites to waste time on or distract you from homework?
AM: Facebook, band websites.
SR: What would be your dream class to take at ASU? What would the title be and what would it cover?
AM: John Waters: A Study in the Art of Bad Taste. It would cover his life, his art, his movies, his writings. It would include other notables in the art of bad taste.
SR: Do you write? Tell us about a project you’re working on.
AM: I am in the process of pitching a synopsis for a co-authored screenplay entitled “Celebrity Matters.” It’s pretty raunchy, but looking at the films being released by major production companies gives me great hope.
Get to know more staff next week!