Pairing Engaging Nonfiction with Thoughtful Art
Rose Blouin has been a faculty member in the Department of English, Columbia College Chicago, since 1986. Among the courses she teaches are Literature and Creative Nonfiction. She is also the Faculty Advisor/Editor for South Loop Review, Columbia’s anthology of Creative Nonfiction. She's published articles, book reviews and interviews as well as co-authored Experiencing Your Identity: Developmental Materials for Academic and Community Settings. In addition to her courses at Columbia, she also teaches meditation and journal writing workshops (based on thirty-eight years of practicing both disciplines) in a variety of settings. As a professional photographer, she specializes in fine art and documentary work, and her photography has been exhibited throughout the Chicago area. As a faculty member at Columbia, she enjoys teaching and facilitating student learning. Columbia’s students are the most important aspect of her job, she believes, and she has always had an appreciation for the unique students who choose to attend Columbia, and the vision and perspective they bring to the classroom.
Interview by Courtney Howell
I’ve been involved with SLR since its launch in 1997. I was among a small group of faculty members who, based on the merits of student nonfiction writing, decided to publish a nonfiction literary magazine. The first issue was collectively edited, and I served as Editor from 1998 until 2005 when ReLynn Hansen took over. Since her stepping down in 2011, I’ve again served as Editor.
Could you describe a typical day as an editor of a creative nonfiction and art magazine?
Since I teach a full course load in addition to serving as editor of SLR, there isn’t really a typical day. Many of the tasks associated with publishing a magazine are capably handled by SLR’s Managing Editor, Josalyn Knapic. Her activities include receiving and distributing submissions to readers, corresponding with writers and distributors, replying to inquiries, maintaining SLR’s web presence including web site, Facebook, Twitter and email accounts, coordinating interviews with visiting writers and placement of marketing and advertising materials.
As editor, I assist with the Managing Editor’s tasks, read submissions and convene the Editors Panel (which includes faculty, graduate and undergraduate readers) for discussion, communicate with writers and artists, handle budget and administrative tasks, meet and coordinate with Department of English Chair, undergraduate Nonfiction Program Director and Dean.
Is the selection process any different between choosing work for an issue or choosing a winner for the essay contest?
In choosing work for an issue, the selection process includes reading and reviewing all submissions and selection made by consensus. The winner of our essay contest is chosen by the contest judge from among twelve essays passed forward by faculty readers and SLR editors.
Would you discuss some of the advantages of presenting all of the photography in black and white? Disadvantages?
Printing in black and white is less expensive than printing color images, and we do have to work within a budget. Because we just like the aesthetic of black and white, we don’t consider there to be disadvantages.
With respect to the cover, we’ve printed both black and white and, more recently, color images. We’re especially proud of SLR’s Volume 14 cover; it’s a beautiful image by Marc Perlish, a Chicago photographer whose black and white work is featured within the magazine. We chose this image for the cover because it expresses the literary and artistic perspective of the magazine and suggests the delightful mystery of the written word and the art within.
What do you find most enjoyable about working as an editor for South Loop Review?
I get to read a lot of current nonfiction and participate in discovering wonderful essays by great writers. Reading a great essay is like seeing a great film for the first time—it just blows you away and you carry it within you for days. Of course, editors have to also slosh through the 80% of submissions that won’t make it into the publication, but it seems worth it to find and publish a really great essay.
It’s also especially pleasing to find and support young writers and artists. For example, we’ve just learned that “Field Notes on Hair” by Vicki Weiqi Yang (SLR Volume 14) has been selected for The Best American Essays 2013. Yang’s essay was also selected by plain china: Best Undergraduate Writing 2012. Vicki is an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, and this was her first published essay.
Describe the ideal reader of South Loop Review and how this person would appear out in the wilds of the real world.
The ideal reader of South Loop Review is much like the editors of SLR: we appreciate great nonfiction, work that demonstrates a fresh voice and perspective, work that sometimes bends the rules of traditional nonfiction, and work that invites the reader in for the experience. We imagine that our reader is also someone who appreciates the pairing of engaging nonfiction with thoughtful art.
Does the magazine have separate editors for the essays than for the art and photography? Could you tell us a little about the selection process for each?
Since I am also a professional photographer, I serve as Photography and Art Editor in addition to serving as Editor; however, the Editors Panel makes selections of photography and artwork to be included in SLR. We try to cultivate a unique aesthetic for the magazine and our considerations of the artwork and photography are as rigorous as our review of written work. As Photography and Art Editor, I also Photoshop selected images and do conversions of color to black and white.
In the description of your blog, you urge writers to “Acknowledge the use of language and structure.” Thinking about this, how far is too far? How much is too much? For creative nonfiction in particular, where do you draw the line between the craft and the content? Is it skewed more toward one or the other?
In our editorial meetings, we frequently use the expression “writing that jumps off the page.” This is our response to writing that leaves us breathless, writing of the sort I mentioned earlier, the kind that stays with us for days. It’s writing that succeeds in the marriage of language and structure, craft and content. Our contest winning essay, “Belongings Of” by Shawn Fawson is one of our favorites. Since we invite and publish essays and memoir, lyric and experimental forms, non-linear narratives and blended genre work, we receive a wide range of submissions. Of course, we get a lot of submissions that seem to be written just for the sake of experimentation and don’t work on either a craft or a content level.
Our view is that no matter the form, the writing has to work on several levels. We look for work that is engaging and well written. We like surprises, the kind of work whose merits aren’t, perhaps, immediately apparent and may require a couple of readings to figure out and appreciate. Good examples from the current issue are “Excerpt from All The Ways I Imagine You” by Steven Teref, or “Thank You For Writing” by Theo Greenblatt or “Compulsion Without Recourse” by Jessica McCaughey. These essays invite readers to engage them differently from the way we engage a traditional narrative; it’s like there’s a mystery the reader has to solve in order for things to click, and then the writing makes sense, and then the idea of the writing delights as much as the writing itself. We like a good read and we like a good mystery.
Although your issues are not themed, there is a certain cohesion to the pieces selected for each one. When choosing the work you will publish, do you have quotas in mind for the prose-to-visual ratio? Or is the selection more organic, allowing the cohesion to come as you move through submissions?
We don’t have quotas, though we do tend to receive far more prose submissions than art. I believe the cohesion you mention is very much organic and stems from the shared aesthetic of our Editors. I don’t want to suggest that the Editors never disagree in the selection process, but we all agree to disagree and we very thoughtfully debate the merits of all submissions and respect each other’s point of view. We’re fortunate that, at the end of the process, we’re collectively pleased with the selections we’ve made. There’s a Zen-like flow to creating a literary magazine, but if you dance it just right, everything works, and it can’t be done without writers, editors and staff who are respectful of each other and who just want to create a magazine we’re all proud of.
What are some trends you see in the submissions you receive?
We’re seeing more experimental work and more essays dealing with death and loss, and that’s probably true for many literary magazines. One challenge with so many death and loss essays is that we don’t want to overload the magazine with such essays, so we welcome the more lighthearted and fresh-in-subject essays.
South Loop Review has a twitter, facebook, blog, etc. What are the benefits of social media for a magazine like yours? And could you talk a little bit about the decision to discontinue the online magazine?
Social media is the marketing tool of the times, and these platforms enable us to spread the word about SLR to broader audiences. In addition, these platforms allow and encourage discussion, feedback and a kind of interactive engagement with our readers. The decision to discontinue South Loop Review online was made as part of our review of our web platform and the reality that SLR online required a lot more work to maintain. We are in the process of upgrading the SLR home page instead, and will include excerpts from the current issue and interviews with contemporary nonfiction writers. We’d also like to feature some artwork from the current issue and we’re exploring additional ideas for creating more lively content which better conveys the aesthetic and excellence of the magazine.
What's the craziest thing that's happened to you as an editor...so far?
I can’t tell you about the craziest thing, but I’ll share the next craziest: we accepted a submission, one of those that “jumped off the page,” and when we contacted the author for permission, she sent us a “revision” which we felt wasn’t as successful. Fortunately, we negotiated printing the original submission. I guess it’s an example of when writers don’t know when to leave the work alone.
Finally, what advice would you give to someone submitting work to your magazine, whether it’s prose or art?
Foremost, we suggest that potential submitters read a previous issue of the magazine to get an idea of what we publish. I’d say a good 20-25% of submissions we receive aren’t what we’re interested in. Reviewing previous issues also gives submitters an idea of the quality of writing and artwork we publish. Finally, I recommend all writers and artists actually read and follow the submission guidelines published on our web site, in our magazine and on Tell It Slant (tellitslant.com), our submission service.
