I've got a couple of short stories out for submission, both to journals that publish mainly dramatic works. My stories tend to have a bit of humor in them. Have I a shot in hell? Perhaps not. But I've spent a few months reading these literary journals, trying to understand what they like, what they are willing to put on their pages, and I have to say, a little non-caustic humor might do wonders for their circulation.
Wide distribution isn't the point of a literary magazine. If it was, only the New Yorker would be left standing. These are art collections, little packages of print meant to capture a slice of emerging literary culture once a quarter or so. Many of them are dearly loved. Some are fading. Some relatively thrive.
I have another story to send out this week which is about the silliest thing I've written. But I like it; it has some of my best writing in it, though not in literary magazine style.
I have mixed feelings about it. The lit mag has to exist because there is nobody else to find literary fiction/nonfiction and poetry and sort it out so that there is at least some indicator of who actually knows what they're doing. But some of these magazines have grabbed on to trendiness, MFA dramatics, and a tendency to publish really depressing, obfuscated stuff. I met a fellow last year who was the walking version of a literary magazine - dressed like a character from Rent, spouting the inside baseball on various literary awards he will never win, scoffing at the life's work of better poets than himself. Sadly, he was too big to simply return to the library, though by the end of my encounter I was tempted to shove him through the book slot.
I have hope, though. I think lit mags publish what they get. And there are great writers out there - there have to be, as America has always had plenty - that they haven't gotten yet.
So we'll see. Here's a picture of another work of fiction, Las Vegas, from last week.
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