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Highlights Taken From the Video
Why don’t you tell us about LitMag News? What is it all about?
So LitMag News is an offshoot of a site called The Review Review that I started in 2008 which was dedicated to basically guiding writers through literary magazines because if you’ve been submitting to literary magazines you know that that world is pretty opaque and it can be overwhelming there are a lot of magazines out there there isn’t a lot of information specifically about who does what. So in 2008 I started The Review Review which was a resource that provided a lot of different kinds of specific information about literary magazines and one feature of that site was a newsletter in 2019 I shut that site down and then most recently in 2020 I decided to revive the newsletter and that has taken the form of LitMag News.
So LitMag News now is basically a one-stop shop if you want to learn about literary magazines.
(On giving your writers a voice)
I’m glad you mentioned that because that’s something that’s been really important to me from the start of creating this site is that, just because people aren’t published yet, it doesn’t mean that they’re not having opinions and thoughts about literary magazines.
It doesn’t mean that they don’t have a critical view of what’s happening in our literary culture.
I don’t care if you’ve never published in a literary magazine, I don’t care if you’ve published 20 stories in the most elite prestigious magazines, you are very welcome to leave comments and share your views and ask questions and sort of be part of the conversation.
Because the person who is being constantly rejected by these different magazines and the person that’s being constantly accepted, both of their views are equally valid, no matter what you’re going through because that rejection is a huge part of being a writer.
And it’s nice for people to have a place to talk about that and vent that.
What is it about the literary magazine format that has inspired such dedication to it?
Because I feel like the literary magazine format is a really undervalued form, you know? Some of it might just be that there’s not really any space for newer writers. So if you publish a novel, you can try to get it traditionally published and have a book out. But if you’re publishing poems, what do you do with those poems? Or if you’re publishing short personal essays or flash fiction or more experimental writing, there really isn’t any place to send it you know you can put it together in a book and send it to small presses, but literary magazines are really the only place that are providing writers with that platform and that validation.
I’ve always championed literary magazines because they’re an alternative to what you see in Barnes and Noble. You know, like corporate publishing.
I love a good mystery. I love a good page turner but literary magazines are offering something really different and really valuable. [They] champion the underdog.
What sort of trends are going on right now that writers or people interested in submitting their work should keep in mind when they’re looking at these different magazines?
I think right now the question on everyone’s mind is AI. You’re just hearing about it everywhere. Editors are trying to figure out how do we guard against AI submissions while also not excessively discriminating against people because that’s also a concern that you’re going to falsely accuse people of using AI or make mistakes, you know, overlook human work.
So I think that is like the biggest concern right now.
What are the Substacks you enjoy reading?
For literary magazine stuff most people probably know Chill Subs. They have a Substack component called SubClub and they send out like a lot of information about literary magazines and literary agents and publishing and stuff like that.
In the video interview, Becky and I go into a lot more detail about how AI is affecting the world of literary magazines, as well as literary magazine scams, lessons learned from interviewing magazine editors, and a whole lot more! So make sure to watch the full video above!
~Drew
Author Bio:
Becky Tuch is the Founder of Lit Mag News, a best-selling Substack dedicated to demystifying literary magazines. Her short fiction has been honored with a MacDowell Fellowship and First Place in Moment Magazine’s Karma Foundation Fiction Prize. Other stories have appeared or are forthcoming in STORY, Chicago Quarterly Review, Gulf Coast, Best of the Net, and elsewhere. She lives with her family in Philadelphia, PA.
