By Kim Rooney
When I stepped up as editor in chief of Collision Literary Magazine, I was part of the problem that undergraduate literary magazines face. It was the December in 2016, and I didn’t even know enough about literary magazines to know what the problem was.
Within the first month, it hit me—rapid staff turnover makes it hard to maintain not just consistency, but the magazine itself. My predecessor left me little information about the magazine and how to run it. I didn’t have a production schedule, and the printer listed on the five-page guidebook he gave me never got back to me. I found out we had a faculty advisor.
Then there were the submissions. Many magazine editors ask for patience from their readers and submitters—they’re only human, and most of them are doing this in their unpaid “free” time. That’s especially true on the undergraduate level. At first, I struggled when wrangling the inbox, trying to strike a balance between my staff’s time and the growing inbox. But that came with a couple of weeks of trial and error—send out too few one week, see the inbox swell, and correct in the next week. Then I realized I had to send out rejection and acceptance letters.
It was a steep learning curve. Little logistical things, from sending weekly staff emails to corresponding with writers whose work we accepted, took time I didn’t realize I’d have to spend. When production time came around, no one told me I’d be the last eyes on the proofs we sent to the printer, and I combed through the magazine four times, four hours each, while writing two term papers and a philosophy essay.
I was in charge of the magazine’s budget, and I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to keep out of the red. Funding tends to be the overwhelming question behind literary magazines, and, full disclosure, Collision is lucky enough to receive funding through the University of Pittsburgh’s Honors College. That gave us the funds to host events, to explore other printing options, to start updating our website, to organize a public art display in conjunction with the magazine release. But it also meant bureaucracy at every step—something I didn’t know I’d have to deal with until the Honors College was asking me for forms and signatures. But it became part of the learning curve.
And that’s all well and good. I learned a lot in my first year, and it changed how I approach the magazine this year. But I also know that in a year I’ll be gone (graduated, not deceased—hopefully).
So that leaves the question—how do I avoid the turnover tempest? I have a little over a year left, and I want to leave my successor with a solid foundation. Looking back, I know how I want to move forward.
I attribute much of Collision’s continued survival, at least during my tenure, to our faculty advisor, Jen Lee, and to Geeta Kothari, who teaches a class on publishing. Her class made me realize the importance of institutional knowledge—an understanding of the magazine and its aesthetic that can be passed down through generations of staff members. Our advisor helped me find it. She’s a writing professor and has been with the magazine since its start, and conversations with her always yield grounding insights and ambitious new plans. I hope to offer a similar voice of guidance and support to my successor in a transparent semester of training. No self-aggrandizing, but no undervaluing the time and energy necessary either.
When I hand over the key to the meeting room, I’ll also hand over a revised guidebook, expanded to thirty-three pages that includes updated information about printers, production schedules, balancing the budget, emailing submitters, the history of the magazine, and more. I’ll encourage them to reach out to our advisor and other writing professors, whose careers, patience, and support allow them to be points of stability in the storm. I don’t pretend to look forward to it—I’ve loved my time at Collision, and I’ll miss it when I’m gone. But I’ll do everything I can to leave a strong foundation, and I hope Collision will only grow from there.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to learn from my colleagues and professors who are involved in writing, editing, and publishing. Are you an editor of an undergraduate literary magazine? What do you do about high turnover? Or, if you’ve worked on one in the past, what advice would you give to current editors?