Lindsey Alexander | Poet & Writer
Author of Rodeo in Reverse
Yesterday, I got the chance to speak with Ed Fowler, who survived the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, Normandy, and Nazi work camps as a POW. His wife grew up in a log cabin during the Depression with her mother and six younger siblings. She worked as a Rosie the Riveter, building C-47s during the war, and wrote him letters every night he was missing.
Long live the human spirit.
Read Ed’s full story here: http://www.legion.org/mytimeinuniform?id=863
It’s true. Editors like to harp on the importance of quality editing. And yes, this harping is one form of ensuring job security.
And yet!
David Ebershoff edited both The Orphan Master’s Son, plus Embers of War, both published in the same year, both Pulitzer winners. (Read the Q&A with Publishers Weekly here.) I don’t know his secret, but I’d suspect it has a lot to do with listening, close reading, and candor (and of course, experience, luck, and working as a novelist himself).
If you’re interested in starting your own magazine or seeing the sausage factory of magazines, click here to listen to the panel I got to participate in, “Trying on New Bootstraps: Self-Sustaining Models for Literary Magazines.”
I represented The Lumberyard Magazine, in with Versal Journal‘s Megan Garr (one of my favorite magazines and editors) and Electric Literature‘s Halimah Marcus (the groundbreaking online fiction outlet).
What’s the take-away here? Don’t give your work away for free. Think about what you add to the market, what you do differently, and market it.
What is The Lumberyard? Oh, I’m so glad you asked.
