Tara Laskowski, MFA '05, Smokelong Quarterly Scott Garson, MFA '96, Wigleaf
A flash of inspiration—maybe. A flash of insight—definitely.
A flash in the pan? Don’t believe it.
“Flash fictions are stories 1000 words or less that often focus on a moment rather than an extended plot,” says Tara Laskowski, MFA ’05. “But those moments hint at so much more—the iceberg underneath, the roots spreading. Even in 150 words, even in 50, you should get a sense of an entire world.”
Laskowski has been the editor of SmokeLong Quarterly since 2010 and Scott Garson, MFA ’96, founded Wigleaf in 2008—two leading journals in today’s flash-fiction world. And their impact can be felt in the wider literary universe too: SmokeLong was mentioned in an Atlantic article on Stuart Dybek who has published stories in the journal; and Margaret Atwood has tweeted about Wigleaf—with Roxane Gay, in reply, calling it one of the best magazines around.
Below is the text of a question-and-answer exchange with Garson and Laskowski, conducted via email in advance of a cover story feature in the recent English Department newsletter—offering a glimpse at each alum’s work as a writer, an editor, and a reader.
What prompted you to found Wigleaf, Scott? What goals did you have at the time? How have those goals changed?
Scott Garson: Looking back, I’d say that I was on a tear. I’d been reading a lot of very short fiction and writing a lot of very short fiction. Some of the stuff I’d been reading—in places like SmokeLong, Hobart, Juked, and late greats elimae and Quick Fiction—struck me as so wild and innovative. The internet itself, as a medium for literature, was so fresh. I was kind of thinking, This is happening. This is now. I could do this.
At that time, there was really only one goal: page loads. And we met it fairly quickly: we acquired and grew a readership. Also we were quick to make a name for ourselves, to be recognized for our singularity. Which was really gratifying, of course.
Now? Well, eight years is a long time. As more of an established mag, Wigleaf itself has become a goal for a lot of writers, especially younger writers. I make it a real focus of mine to publish the stuff that I see as an answer to the question, What’s next?
You took charge of an existing publication, Tara. What were the challenges that you specifically faced there? What changes did you want to make? Which have you made, reconsidered, shelved? And what’s still ahead?
Tara: SmokeLong would've probably gone under if I hadn't taken over when I did. It was intimidating taking the reins of a publication that had been around for so long, but it was also great because the reputation was already there, so I didn't have to build an audience. That made my job so much easier.
For many years, I didn't necessarily make changes—SLQ was already a great publication, so it was more about learning how to do the job and keeping the issues constant and timely. I grew our staff over the years. When I took over, I think there were only about four or five active staff editors. Now there are 12. We've definitely increased our content. We have an active social media presence and a robust blog, so editors are needed to maintain those things. We also have a goal to respond to submissions in our queue within a month's time, so we try to get through those as quick as possible.
As for changes, I think my legacy will be the redesign of the web site. SmokeLong had previously been in a custom-built HTML-based site, and I had to hand code each story every week—which, as you can imagine, was extremely time-consuming. In 2013 we held a Kickstarter campaign and raised enough money to hire a designer to completely revamp the site and move it to a Word Press-based system, which makes it much easier to maintain. Plus, it looks beautiful on the front end as well.
Still ahead: we're currently working on a Global Flash series, where we publish flash fiction in other languages. Our guest editors, translators, read the stories in their original languages and then we publish the story in its original language and translated into English.
Wigleaf and SmokeLong are at the vanguard of the flash fiction world. What has contributed to your journal’s prominence here? What distinguishes you from other journals, either online or in print?
Scott: My instinct is to give a real Midwestern answer: Gosh! Who knows?
But I have in some ways been ambitious on behalf of the journal, and it’s probably helped. As an editor, I always end up feeling grateful to our contributors, and I take it as my duty to push their work in every way I can. Sometimes it pays off. This year, for example, we won our second Pushcart Prize. That’s big. When you win a Pushcart, you’re not going under anybody’s radar.
What distinguishes us? As I see it, our aesthetic is diverse. Still, readers might tell you that there’s a Wigleaf vibe—a tendency to veer from the expected, maybe. Another big factor: the Wigleaf Top 50. That’s the link-based award annual we put up every summer. In it, we recognize fifty flash fictions published in other online journals. At one time, Laura Ellen Scott (MFA, '93) was our Top 50 Series Editor. Now Marcelle Heath heads it up, and she and her team do a great job. Every year, the Top 50 occasions our biggest spike in readership.
Tara: For SmokeLong, it helps that we've been around since 2003. We treat our writers well. I mentioned the quick turnaround time on a submission, which I think helps. People know their stories won't be sitting around for six months. The sacrifice there is that we can't send personal rejections very often.
We also have little extra touches we do to make sure our writers know we care about their stories. We make their stories look good and share them widely. We can't pay our contributors, but we respect their work as much as possible, and I like to think that care shows through. We pair each story with original art. We interview each author. We also host a Kathy Fish Fellowship, a $500 award to an emerging writer, who becomes our writer-in-residence for one year and publishes in each of the quarterly issues for that year.
We also have guest editors who read submissions for a week and select a story from that slush pile. I think this gives us variety in styles and tones. We also have a large staff (12 right now), each with different tastes in flash fiction, so the result is that you have a potpourri of stories in each issue. If it was just me selecting stories, SmokeLong would be packed with narrative flash about women in disconnected relationships, because that's what I'm drawn to. But with our guest editors and our other staff members, stories that I wouldn't necessarily spot right away get pulled to the forefront—and I love that.
In addition to being editors, each of you also write flash fiction. Two questions: First, what have you learned about your own writing from your editing? Second, do you think that your own writing preferences have influenced your work as editors, what you choose to publish maybe or how you guide submitters in revision/editing?
Scott: It’s probably the case that being a writer has done more to determine the kind of editor I am than vice versa. Most writers have had at least some experience with the kind of editor who will advocate for stuff without seeming to understand how the fiction works as a whole. It’s a drag, that experience—because you really want to like and respect the people who like your writing. I probably go overboard not to be that kind of editor. I’ll admit, before I go on (thinking of the three or four writers who might be gaping at what I just said), that I have done a few hardcore Gordon-Lish-type edits over the years, in cases where I saw some possibility in a story that was nowhere near publishable (by us). But again, I try to intervene as little as possible as an editor. I see Wigleaf as a home court for writers.
How do writing preferences connect to the editorial work? I was going to say that my tastes as an editor are wider than my tastes as a writer. There’s some obvious truth to that: we’ve run stories that some might describe as fabulism, or as prose poetry, and I don’t really do either of these things as a writer. That whole way of thinking seems a little off to me, though—because I tend not to categorize when I’m reading for Wigleaf. Every Wigleaf story ends up seeming unique to me, in a kind of helpless way. (This is close to something I like to say in fiction class, in lecture: every great story is alike in the sense that it’s perfectly inimitable.)
Tara: First—I don't know. I still find it much easier to edit someone else's work than my own. It's so hard when you're very close to a piece to see it objectively. I think, though, that it's valuable to read a slush pile because you get a sense of the spectrum. You get to read a whole bunch of styles and types of flash and see the way other writers approach the form, which can't help but help you in your own writing.
I also think that my preferences do influence the way I edit and read stories, which is why I like our guest editing system. However, I'm constantly surprised at what I'm drawn to in our slush pile. I don't have any deal-breakers anymore, because every time I think I'm done with a certain kind of story or a topic, someone comes along and proves me wrong. I think one thing I've learned in editing a literary magazine is that there's always a fresh and original way to write a story.
Focus on your work as writers: What’s out recently or coming out soon for you?
Scott: I seem to be on a full-length short story kick lately. I’ve got one story coming out in New Madrid. And I have a flash fiction in the queue at Gulf Coast online.
Tara: I have (had) a flash out in the Fall issue of People Holding (Nov. 15), a flash fiction journal that uses old photos as writing prompts. It's a great idea and it was really fun to work with them. Morgan Beatty is an excellent editor. My story was based on a photo of a car crash, and the piece turned into a made-up urban legend. Beyond that, I have a flash fiction story due out in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine sometime over the next year, and my short story collection Modern Manners for Your Inner Demons is being re-released in February with Santa Fe Writers Project.
What’s been a highlight of your career as an editor?
Scott: I’m out with my wife, Becky. We’re having dinner somewhere. I peek at my phone. I put the phone down on the table. I say, “Margaret Atwood just tweeted about Wigleaf.”
Tara: Getting to meet all the amazing writers and editors I get to work with every day. It's been such a treat to be in this community. People are so generous with their time and their art.
What generally do you enjoy most about your work as an editor?
Scott: The discoveries! The inbox as quest narrative.
I also like meeting writers I admire—and sometimes getting to know them.
Tara: Finding a story that I have to accept right away for fear that someone else will get it first. I love making writers happy. I love publishing someone for the first time. It's an adrenaline rush for me.
The other thing I really enjoy doing is going to a conference like AWP and being able to meet some of our contributors in person. It's always fun to put a face with a story you've fallen in love with. So much of our job is done alone in front of a computer, so when there are those chances to go to conferences or host readings with our contributors, it's such a blast.
How did you time as an MFA student prepare you for and/or influence your work in the flash fiction world?
Scott: It’s funny, but the only time I ever took any flash fiction into the classroom at GMU was for one of those out-of-genre 699s. I had it masquerading as poetry, in other words. I would say this: I had been educating myself in fiction before I began my MFA (and continued that education afterwards). On the other hand, I got pretty much all of my education in poetry when I was at Mason. In my years, the fiction writers and the poets were tight. I read lots of their stuff, and I read some of what they were reading. It was a big influence on me, and probably helped point me toward flash fiction as writer—although I couldn’t have seen that at the time.
Tara: I took a prose poem class with Eric Pankey. It was my 'out-of-genre' requirement. That was probably my first real exposure to the form. I so loved that class. I loved everything we read. I loved the play that was encouraged in our writing. I thought I was writing poems for that class, but later I went on to publish several of those pieces as flash fiction. I think a lot of the reason I enjoyed it so much was because it wasn't a fiction class, so I didn't feel that pressure to 'do something great,' like I felt in my other classes. I had this freedom to just mess around, try something new, which is how I feel whenever I write flash. That said, I don't mean it to sound like flash ISN'T serious work, because it is….I actually think some of the best writing I've done is flash. But there's something about the form, for me, that gets me excited about writing again. I think some of it is that I don't feel like I have to spend a ton of time with a certain cast of characters. I think some of it is that I love the play and concentration on language and form. I think some of it is that the editing process is easier for me because I can see it all on one or two pages. All those things combined just make it a magical form for me.
January 10, 2017