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Closing to Submissions

On May 1, Third Coast will be closed to new submissions until August 1. So get those manuscripts in now!

If you've previously submitted to Third Coast and have not heard back, our editors will continue to reply over the summer. All manuscripts submitted before April 30, 2010 should have received a response by Labor Day of this year. If you have not received a response by that date, feel free to query the Managing Editor at editors@thirdcoastmagazine.com.

Note Bene: only submissions received through our online submission manager will be considered for publication. Any manuscripts received by snail mail, as email attachments, or in the body of an email, will be rejected without being read.

AWP Bookfair: Promotional Materials

If you've ever attended the AWP Conference Bookfair, you know that all tables, be they for journals, presses or writing programs, have fliers, postcards, bookmarks or other paper with their info on it.  Some even have pins or magnets.  Then there are the pen-giver-outers.  Next you have the candy tins or cookie trays.  The guy hocking his book of fire/arson/burning related poetry collection handed out customized matchbooks (which was great but I don't have any because I doubted the TSA was gonna be thrilled to have me bring them through security). 

Often you'll see a combination of several of the above.  But none of these people win my award for best at-table promotion.

One word: mimosas.

Early Saturday morning, right after I'd finished my giant coffee and still felt weak and sleep-deprived, someone offered me a mimosa at bookfair, and I was glad to take it. I bought her book of poetry, too.

Best. Promotion. Period.

Even if the guy that came after me thought it was just OJ and got a little upset to find the alcohol present.

I don't know if Third Coast will be going in for alcohol-related promotions at the next AWP bookfair, but our editors have absolutely no reservations about anyone else doing so -- just be sure to tell us when and where ahead of time.

Spring Issue 2010 / AWP Conference

This blog is moving soon! Check back for details!

The 2010 Spring Issue of Third Coast is hot off the press and already arriving in mailboxes everywhere -- as well as walking off in the hands of many an AWP Conference attendee!


Check out the table of contents and fabulous front/back cover art.

Thank you and congratulations to all our contributors!

Another great big thanks (and hello!) to everyone who stopped by the Third Coast table at the AWP Conference Bookfair. It was great to get to meet you and answer your questions, to chat about the magazine and the kind of writing you do -- and to everyone who gave me names of authors/blogs to read or traded tips about what anthologies you teach: I really appreciate the advice!

Keep an eye on the blog for more recap (and photos) from the conference.

TC @ AWP 2010!

Third Coast will be attending the AWP Conference and Bookfair April 8-10 in Denver.

Editorial staff will be on hand at the Bookfair to meet, greet, and answer your questions. Stop by our table and say hi as well as pick up a copy of the magazine!

Literary Fiction is Alive and Well Linkbucket

by guest blogger Erin Fitzgerald

There's much more to revolution and innovation in literature than the Kindle. To find some, all you have to do is open your browser.

Duotrope is the Google of online literary magazines. Print ones have listings as well. Over 2800 listings are here overall, all searchable, and each includes tons of writer-reported information. If you register with Duotrope, you can contribute to the data collection -- and take advantage of Duotrope's very robust Submissions Tracker. The "What's New" page is a great place to watch for new publications, and to see which publications are currently making decisions. Litlist is a newer kid on the litmag indexing block, and one where editors and writers both can participate.

NewPages is a great stop for more traditional browsing of new media. There's lots of other things going at NewPages, too -- reviews of print and online litmags and books, regularly updated calls for submission and contest entries, bookstore listings, and plenty more. If you only have time for a little bit each day, there's also the NewPages blog.

If you like the blog approach, Emerging Writers Network is definitely one to bookmark, as is PANKblog. Both have merit of their own -- the former is affiliated with Dzanc Books and the latter with PANK magazine. Both have strong fingers on the pulse of independent online literature.

If you appreciate awards, then visits to the Million Writers Award and the Wigleaf 50 are in order. Both projects celebrate online fiction in the previous calendar year, as does Dzanc Books' Best of the Web in a print edition. These are all great places to find exciting work.

Once you've read some of what's out there, it's time to read the commentary. HTMLGiant and BIG OTHER both offer it many times daily, each with their own aesthetic, priorities, and sets of contributors. Comments sections are always open, and often fascinating. Lurk a little, and decide which place is for you. (I like them both, for different reasons.)

Fictionaut is where the Internet does things for writers that the meatspace world really never could. Fictionaut users can post their work online -- privately, to groups, or publicly -- and receive feedback. The front page shows you the most recent additions, and the current favorites. It's a great place for writers to see or be seen. Everyone can read, and participation is by invitation from a member. Fictionaut also has its share of interviews and updates. That includes Luna Digest, a regular news feature put together by yet another favorite site, Luna Park.

Twitter and Facebook are as ubiquitous in the online literature world as they are everywhere else. Friending and following writers and publications is a great way to find out about the next big things, and to be part of a vibrant community.

These links are just the beginning. The Internet is full of hard-working, talented writers and readers who are changing the world. Jump in, and don't look back.

Guest blogger Erin Fitzgerald is a writer and the editor of the Northville Review. She blogs at Rarely Likable: a litblog for dilettantes the home of frequent literary linkbuckets -- a great source for those attempting to keep up with the conversation about literature and writing that is happening on the web. See recent posts for a brief review of some of her short fiction available online.

What We're Reading: Erin Fitzgerald

Review by Eileen Wiedbrauk

The short-short and flash fiction of Erin Fitzgerald, writer, editor and blogger, can be found among some of the most respected online journals (full listing here). And we -- the bloggers and editors of Third Coast -- have been reading it all.

Fitzgerald's stories are the kind of the little treasures I love to come across when reading on the web. She has a way of turning the common place, the frustrating, or the ubiquitous aspects of contemporary American life into interesting and surprising narratives. Picking the kids up from school, identity theft, and the teeny-bopper jewelry boutique become occasions for horror, humor, and the start of an interplanetary war respectively.

In spite of the brevity of much of her work -- or perhaps because of it -- Fitgerald is able to believably adopt the voices of wildly different characters. The mesmerizing voice of the narrator in "This Morning Will Be Different" tells us "I am ready," but not for what. The narrator lays out all the things she will do and in the end leaves us with only an echo -- a sense of yearning easily understood by many a daydreamer. The narrator of "There Are Always Children" speaks in a much more visceral manner: "A thought crawls into my skull through my sinuses." But for this unnamed narrator thoughts arrive too late. "That should be a warning," Fitzgerald tells the reader.

The hushed but workable terror that pervades "There Are Always Children" snakes through her other works, even those cloaked in the trappings of sensible suburban adulthood. It's there in a subtle way that leaves the reader unsettled but intrigued in "Where Did It All Go Wrong?" "Waiting Room" and even in "Trumpet Voluntary."

Perhaps that should be a warning is a good means of describe Erin Fitzgerald's stories -- not a warning to stay away, but to stick around for the twist.

Small Press Month

March is small press month. For more information see this website.

Third Coast Contest Winners Announced!

Congratulations to the 2010 contest winners in fiction and poetry! A listing of the winners, runners up and finalists can be viewed on the Third Coast website. The winning entries themselves will appear in the Fall 2010 issue of Third Coast.

Thank you to everyone who entered! The 2011 contest will open in September. More details to be posted this summer.

First Impression, Last Chance

by Nathan Norton

Certain things in life are kind-hearted enough to extend to you a second chance. Your story’s initial impact on editors is not one of those kind-hearted things.

You get one little lonesome chance. A chance. Not chances . . . chance. One. That’s it. One chance to hook the editor, assistant editor, reading intern, or whatever other English-savvy entity that might be holding your publishing future in the palm of their usually rather opinionated hand.

As a reader for Third Coast, I can say with a certain degree of experience that this is resoundingly and inescapably true. If you don’t believe me, talk to some editors or other lit mag readers. They’ll tell you the same thing. Page one—often sentence one—is where you need to start shining, or else you’ll be discarded like Hillary Duff’s musical relevance.

The first line of a story has a hefty workload. Raise questions, introduce conflict, establish tone and voice, and many times introduce your primary player(s). It doesn’t have to do them all, but it has to do a handful of them. Without most of these elements in the first one or two lines, your reader is already asking, “Why am I reading this?”

The hairy and entirely realistic nature of the beast is that editors don’t have time to sift through your story looking for potential. Fluff is for pillows. Fat is for Albert. Cut them both. Be interesting and direct immediately.

Most editors I’ve spoken with and read advice columns from will give a short story one page to get them interested. The most generous among them ventured as far as three. The cruelest among them said if the first sentence isn’t unique and intriguing, they toss the piece immediately. That means that no matter how amazing your story might get on page twelve when your ninja-wizard detective launches a Montana-shaped fireball out of his Mysterious Trench Coat of Mystery and disintegrates the Dreaded Duck of Doom, the editor didn’t get that far. There wasn’t enough spice in the first page to keep him wanting more.

It really is quite a tall order. And if it crushes your soul just a little to know that many editors may be reading nothing more than a few paragraphs of that masterpiece you’ve been working on . . . well, it should. You have to be at the top of your craft at the top of your product. Evocative language, original voice, conflictive first sentences, they’re all early attention grabbers that seize readers by their easily distracted haunches and demand “I’M WORTH READING!”

Consider some of the following first sentences:

The Zamboni had to go around Joey Cooper, the man thinking about omelets. – Misha Angrist, “So Much the Better”

It was half-past love on New Day in Zenith and the clocks were striking Heaven. – J.G. Ballard, “Passport to Eternity”

A man without hands came to the door to sell me a photograph of my house. – Raymond Carver, “Viewfinder”

During these last decades the interest in professional fasting has markedly diminished. – Franz Kafka, “A Hunger Artist”

I stood in my filthy overalls and boots serving deviled eggs to a woman who had lost her rabbit. – Peyton Marshall, “Bunnymoon”

I know, right? Don’t you just want to read all of those stories right this very moment to find out what in G. Gordon Liddy’s name is going on? These are great examples of mere sentences—not paragraphs, but sentences—that capture attention quicker than Tiger Woods’ personal infidelity captured frenzied media coverage. This is the kind of effect you want to have on your readers. You want a reader to say, “Tell me more, Master Storyteller!” not “Who cares, ya hack?”

Polish that first page. Read it over and over again. If you don’t find yourself grinning just a little at your accomplishments in the preliminary sentences every time the words pass your eyeballs, re-write them until you do. Then re-write them again until your friends and family do. Then re-write them again until complete strangers do. Be sure to make it sparkle. Your first impression could be your last chance.

Nathan Norton serves as intern to the Third Coast fiction editors.

What is your process of creating a poem?

Big Think has a series of videos available online from an interview with Edward Hirsch, Poet and President Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

The one above discusses the process of creating a poem. Other videos discuss the space and survival of poetry, whether the MFA hurts of helps poetry, if we are generating more poets than the system can absorb, as well as Hirsch's emphatic belief that what you really need to be a poet is to read poetry and read deeply. That you need not read everything but that you find that which you care about.

What the Editors Are Reading

We read all the time. When it comes to submissions to the magazine, we only read certain months of the year (see website), but on a day to day basis, the editors are constantly reading published work. Some of it's new, some of it's classic, some fiction, some theory, some poetry and some of it blogs.

Here's what we're reading in this month:

• Emily Hamilton and other writings by Sukey Vickery, with an introduction and notes by Scott Slawinski -- a recovered 1803 epistolary novel by an early American author
  
• Werewolves in Their Youth, short stories by Michael Chabon
• Patricia Hampl's memoir The Florist's Daughter
  
• Wallace Stegner's collection of essays Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
  

Blogs of note:

• Ward Six -- always thoughtful; the February 1 post "Throwing in the Towel" approaches an issue similar to intern Nathan Norton's blog post here about revisions and knowing when you're done, only on Ward Six, we approach the discussion of when to give up.
• Rarely Likable -- a particular favorite are the "linkbucket" posts on this blog. The linkbuckets provide readers with direct access to more interesting material than could possibly be read in one sitting ... but that won't stop you from wanting to try.

Fanatical Fans: The Novel as a Franchise

by Candace Pine

It’s no secret that recently many novels or (even more popular) series, are being made into films. With books like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Twilight becoming their own cultural phenomenons, it’s sometimes hard to believe kids are all sitting at home staring at the TV or playing video games all day. Seeing massive crowds of fans dressed up and screaming to see their favorite stars from the movies that bring their beloved books to life is quite a fascinating sight. Some people disparage fanaticism in readers, especially since these books seem to attract younger and teen audiences, but there are also older readers (for example “Twilight Moms”) who can be just as obsessed.

So what is it about such novels that make readers fall in love with them?

Perhaps it feels like an escape from regular life. After all, many of these popular novels fall into the realm of fantasy. Or maybe readers like to imagine what it would be like to go on such adventures since nothing like that would happen in their own lives. Or it could be that people just find them exciting.

Despite the reasons for why these books are so loved, it’s the way they’re turned into full-blown franchises that really fascinates me.

Marketing types find a series that has a large fan base and exploit it, drawing in these fans first to the movies and then to the other large range of products that go along with it. There are the books and movies, of course, then the games, toys, trading cards, calendars, CDs, posters, backpacks, clothes, and anything else under the sun advertisers can think of to sell. The fact is, these books are turned into vast money making franchises.

In my opinion, that is the negative side of a really appealing book: The franchise takes something people love and vamps it up into a fanatic level because fans will pay money to surround themselves with commercial objects that go beyond reading. Plus, it draws negative opinions from outsiders who distrust it on the basis of popularity. The way people buy into these franchises just makes the opinion outsiders have about fanatical fans, and the books they read, sink even lower.

There is a tendency to look down on franchised books such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight, and claim that they’re not good literature and therefore people shouldn’t waste their time on them. However, the love of reading fostered by such series could led to more advanced levels of reading and a taste for higher literature. What some people may consider "meager beginnings" could turn into a greater love for literature and a higher standard of quality.

What people should be careful of is being too negative about criticizing readers for being devoted fans because we don’t want to chase them off from reading. As long as people are reading and enjoying it and that feeling stays with them for the rest of their lives, then what does it matter what they’re reading?

Not everyone is going to agree on what’s “good.” The classic canon of literature has been in constant flux over the past three decades as scholars rediscover minority and women writers and fight against New Criticism’s notion of “aesthetics only.” No one should be discouraged from reading something they like, and if they want to buy into the franchise side of it too, that’s their decision. As long as they’re still able to make the distinction between fantasy and reality in their own lives, then people should just be able to read whatever they want without being judged for it. The world needs as many readers as it can get, not other condescending readers passing judgment on their choices.

Candace Pine serves as intern for Third Coast's managing editors.

Just a few more revisions and it’ll be finished…

by Nathan Norton

Yeah, all us writers have said it once or twice or thrice or umpteen million times about one piece or another. Who can blame you, though? You want it to be good. You want it to be moving, to inspire, to make readers set your story down afterwards and say, “My dear sweet God. I’m so very glad I consumed that nugget of literary brilliance.”

So the rest of us can’t blame you. Mostly because we’ve all been there. We revise, revise, revise, revise, only to look up from the computer screen to realize a year’s worth of suns has set on a fourteen page story. This is not the fast track to the writerly production train. In fact, it’s just downright unproductive. Don’t get me wrong, revision is important. Ridiculous amounts of important. But the danger of the revision process is that it’s comfortable. Nestled safely under the awning of the “finishing touches,” a writer never has to hear criticism not his own, never has to experience rejection, and never has to settle into the reality that yes, the story is done and it’s not getting any better. But what if that’s not good enough? Well, then your story is about as useful as mustard-flavored ketchup and you ought to try your hand at writing up another.

A finished story is a scary thing. Is it good enough? Is it, like the Army man, all that it can be? Annoyingly, a writer’s work is never finished in his own eyes. In every read through there’s something sticking out, be it a humdrum verb, a particularly and especially redundant adverb choice, a character name you suddenly wish was Jake instead of Jack, whatever. There’s always something. The rub of it is that there will never not be something. You, as your story’s creator, will never be finished. Get over it.

There comes a time when you have to let go of your story. A time when you have to say, “I suppose I’m pleased with this” and just set the thing down. Many times, a story is actually pretty good, but the author may think quite the opposite. This is an excellent, effective way of becoming completely obsessed with your piece. Don’t turn into the mentally creative equivalent of a petrified birchwood tree trying to make a single story your Magnum Opus. You’ll stalemate yourself and more than likely end up churning out pounds of useless verbiage because you want so very very bad for your piece to doted upon by literature buffs everywhere.

Revisions are absolutely necessary. Fill in those plot holes, make clear those blurry sentences, tighten loose paragraphs. But if you strive too hard for perfection, you may find that revision has become a crutch.

Writers can’t rely on revision. Many do, but they shouldn’t. Let trusted peer critics read your piece. Let your mom read it, let your significant other read it, let your mentally unstable Grandpa Jack read it and mention how “back in his day, revisions were done with some white paint and a piece of charcoal” and take their advice to heart. Make the necessary changes, but know this: run away if you find yourself continually revising. Beating the dead horse will just get you covered in flies, so freshen yourself up a bit by exercising your head on a new story. When you’re creative slate is clean, go ahead and read through that first story and see if you still feel the same about it.

It’s important that writers realize that revision ought to be done only as much as it needs and precisely no further. Fixating yourself on a story will often do it more harm than good. So after your first few revisions, stop and take a brain break. Remove yourself from a piece, and see what it looks like with fresh eyes.

Nathan Norton serves as intern to the Third Coast fiction editors.

Blogging Series: From the T.C. Interns

Every fall, Third Coast takes on a handful of talented interns to aid in the production of the magazine. These interns learn valuable skills for working both in publishing and other real world occupations. Our interns are culled from the general undergraduate population here at Western Michigan University through a two stage process of both application and interview before the work even begins. They may have wrapped up the majority of their internship projects, but we are pleased to say they are still around and still working hard through the spring.

And so we are pleased to bring you thoughts directly from several of our talented interns. Their posts on topics such as revision, and the novel as a franchise will grace our blog in the days and weeks to come.

WMU students interested in the opportunity to intern should look for information to be posted in September of each year.

Horrocks and the O'Henry

Congratulations from all of us at Third Coast to Caitlin Horrocks, whose short story, "This is Not Your City," originally published in our Fall 2007 issue, has won a 2009 PEN/O'Henry Prize. You can read more about the O'Henry Prizes and this year's other winners here.

Visiting with Alicia Ostriker

Western Michigan University was fortunate to have poet, critic and midrashist Alicia Suskin Ostriker visit our campus this past week. On Tuesday she gave a lecture on contemporary midrash, and on Wednesday a reading which featured poems from her new volume The Book of Seventy, published just last month.



Poetry Editors Natalie Giarratano and Beth Marzoni will be conducting an interview with Ms. Ostriker, which we're excited to have slated for an upcoming issue of the journal.

Stuart Dybek Reading at WMU Tonight

Thursday, November 19 at 8:00 p.m., award winning writing Stuart Dybek will read on Western Michigan University's campus.

Stuart Dybek is the author of numerous books, including I Sailed With Magellan,The Coast of Chicago, and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods. Among Dybek’s numerous awards are a $500,000 2007 MacArthur Fellowship, a PEN/Malamud Prize, a Lannan Award, aWhiting Writers Award, an Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, several O.Henry Prizes, and fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is Distinguished Writer in Residence at Northwestern University and a member of the permanent faculty for Western Michigan University’s Prague Summer Program.

Dybek was also the judge for Third Coast's 2009 fiction contest. Stu's selection "Winter-Over," by Ashley Shelbey, can be found in the Fall 2009 issue out now. Remember there's still time to enter this year's fiction and poetry contests!

Two Weeks Till Contest Deadline

Just a reminder that Third Coast's Poetry and Fiction Contest deadline is fast approaching! Our December 1 deadline is now a postmark deadline, which means you've got exactly two weeks left to polish your poems and stories and send them our way.

Contest winners receive $1000 and publication in Third Coast's 15th anniversary issue (which is already looking sharp, we must say).

The illustrious Ann Beattie will be judging our fiction contest, with David Wojahn judging poetry. Check out the full contest guidelines here.

What the Editors Are Reading

This month our editors are reading:

• Interview with a Ghost, Tom Sleigh
• Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road
• Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup
• Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory
• A Fans Notes - Frederick Exley
• Losing Season, by Jack Ridl (poems)
• Without End: New and Selected Poems by Adam Zagajewski
• Stupid Hope by Jason Shinder
• Versed by Rae Armantrout
• Special Orders by Ed Hirsch
• Black Sabbatical by Brett Eugene Ralph
• Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa
• Oranges and Peanuts for Sale by Eliot Weinberger
• The Book of Seventy by Alicia Ostriker
• Hard Times by Charles Dickens
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• It is Daylight by Arda Collins
• All-American Poem by Matthew Dickman
• Derek Walcott's "Omeros"
• "Ali & Nino"
• Kiterunner
• This is Not a Book, Keri Smith
• Alice Hoffman, "The Witch of Turo"
  
• Plays: David Ives's Sure Thing
• Shakespeare's Othello
• A Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds, adapted by Tony Kushner, originally by S. Ansky
• The Tenth Man, Paddy Chayefsky
• plus an assortment of Arthur Miller and Tony Kushner plays.