Lit World Spotlight: Lockjaw Magazine

Lockjaw Magazine’s inaugural issue will be coming out in late 2014/early 2015. General submissions are currently open. For more information, visit lockjawmagazine.com. Here’s an introduction to who they are.

Christina Collins, Poetry Editor: I was sitting in my brand-new apartment in Minneapolis a few days after I’d moved here from Seattle more or less on a whim, feeling the first pangs of deep loneliness that come from realizing you’ve left nearly everything you knew behind, when I thought “no, you didn’t, your writing life is infinitely portable and means nothing in terms of physical location.” So I started doing a lot of reading, and a lot of writing, and really trying to connect with that community. I graduated with my MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop in 2010 and since then had sort of dropped away from that life, only to realize, years later, that it was something that had always brought me happiness. That, coupled with my deep love of crafting mixtapes, was what brought me around to the idea of starting up a journal. Well, loneliness, mixtapes, and the realization that nobody was publishing exactly what I wanted to be reading. So loneliness, mixtapes, and ego, which I (naturally) think is perfectly valid.  I mentioned it here and there, and then Dave, who I knew from working in the nonprofit arts where everyone’s a working artist in their real life, sent me a message along the lines of “so you’re starting a litmag, huh?” Which was fantastic, because he and I have a really consonant taste when it comes to literature—one of my favorite memories is of him staying at my house in Seattle for a week waiting for a visa, when we’d sit up late making stacks of books on the dining-room table that we each really needed to read right now, and more often than not (read: every time) he was dead accurate in his recommendations. So I trusted his taste, and was delighted that he was interested. I’d also been thinking about asking our friend Alex—who has a fantastic track record for knowing the weirdest, best music I’ve never heard and also makes art that I’ve always liked—to be the music and art editor, since I really wanted to make sure those things had a focus in the journal.

Dave Thomas, Fiction Editor: I grew up in Philadelphia, which is a perenially forgotten city. You’ll be driving north from D.C. and the signs on the interstate just tell you how far it is to NYC. You’ll definitely have to drive through Philly, but that’ll happen when it happens. No hype. That informs the mindset of the kind of art that comes from there, I think. And the mindsets of artists who have spent time there, even if they head elsewhere after a while. There’s a real sense that the work is trying like hell to participate in a common dialogue but just getting it subtly, profoundly, and (sometimes) beautifully wrong. Punk through the filter of The Dead Milkmen; Alice Neel doggedly doing representational work even as abstract expressionism was ascendant; The Roots; Man Man; etc. I live in Australia now, and there’s a similar sort of freeing marginality that informs Australian art, I think. If you’re not under the constant scrutiny of public opinion, it frees you up to not let that stuff clutter your head. I’ve always been drawn to work that has that energy. And you pretty quickly develop a sixth sense for finding other people who have the same sort of affinity. I remember that’s how it was with Christina.

Alex Rhue, Visual Art/Music Editor: When I initially signed on as art and music editor, I had no idea as to what I was really getting into. There was no question, however, that working alongside Christina and Dave would lead to some very good, very weird places. Lockjaw, I think, has the potential to bridge the gap between the netflix generation and the sometimes more patient, erudite lit-heads. I’ve always been fascinated by youth culture and the concept of cool. Growing up unschooled in rural northern Michigan, curiosity and close observation of my peers were the tools most often used to curb the inevitable ennui. It’s that sense, again, of being outside, but of wrenching what you can out of that experience.

Dave: It’s a commonplace idea that writers start writing because they haven’t yet found—in all their reading—quite what they’ve been searching for. But the other solution to that conundrum is to just keep reading. It’s just as likely that the as-yet-unfound work is already out there, just looking for a home. The idea behind Lockjaw is to create that space. The work is looking for readers just as much as readers are looking for the work.

Alex: Such as (I assume) most new endeavors of this sort, we hope to open our door and offer something you cannot find elsewhere.

Christina: Basically, I’m a junkie for mid-century American literature and Modernism (and Post-) in general. I find it timeless, meaning eternally futuristic. And because it’s not big-C Contemporary I feel like it’s fallen out of fashion, but it’s really what I would always prefer to read and look at and listen to. So that’s what Lockjaw is in some part about: the future. The weird future.

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Christina Collins (Poetry Editor) is a writer, visual artist, and musician living in Minneapolis, MN. Her poetry has appeared in Vinyl Poetry, burntdistrict and Mixtape Methodology among others; her artwork has been shown in various venues, most recently the OK Hotel Gallery in Seattle.

David Frederick Thomas (Fiction Editor) is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in, among other places, PANK, Heavy Feather Review, Fence Magazine and The Iowa Review. He lives in Brisbane, QLD (in Australia) with his wife and daughter.

Alex Rhue (Visual Art/Music Editor) is a writer, visual artist and musician currently living in Seattle, WA.