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We receive a lot of submissions at PANK and we have a team of amazing, generous and intelligent readers who help us sort through those submissions. We wanted you to get to know them a bit so here they are, talking about who they are, what they like, and what they look for when they read for PANK. These are a wonderful group of folks and it’s a pleasure to work with them.
Melissa Bean
My name is Melissa Bean and I’m a short girl who likes spicy food and random trivia. At this point, I only call myself a writer when pressed to. Hopefully that will change soon. A woefully incomplete list of my favorite writers is Amy Hempel, Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, and Cormac McCarthy. When I’m reading a submission, I look for an ache in the piece. It can be happy or sad, poetry or prose, long or short; it doesn’t really matter. It’s that feeling of longing makes a collection of words and phrases into a human experience. If for some reason you want to find me, go to www.melissabeanwriting.com.
Matthew Burnside
I’m currently managing editor of Mixed Fruit and co-founder of Cloud Rodeo, a project I recently started with my buddy Nathan Blake. When I’m not reading for magazines I attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for fiction. I recently authored a chapbook of poems called Escapologies, available from Red Bird Chapbooks. Right now my favorite books are Norman Lock’s Grim Tales, Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, and John Olson’s Larynx Galaxy, all of which lack linearity, something I find manifesting in my own work more and more; I feel we mostly experience life as a series of waves – our past, present, future all crashing together, so the impulse to employ non-linear structure makes sense to me. As a reader, a piece demonstrating two out of three of the following will probably win me over: emotional valence, some degree of risk, surprises in language. I’m a sucker for ambitious experiments as well, therefore more likely to accept something less polished perhaps and more raw depending on how bravely it wears its own teeth. I keep a list of my sins at Matthewburnsideisawriter.tumblr.com.
Joshua Diamond
I was born and raised in partly-cloudy Akron, Ohio, former rubber capital of the world, but my lineage snakes its way through the coal mines of West Virginia and back to folk hero and frontiersman Davy Crockett, who I’ve been lately obsessed by. His language haunts the poems in my first collection Some Mysterious Influence, forthcoming fromTypecast Publishing in early 2014. I now live in Indiana, where I received an MFA in Creative Writing from Purdue University.
If writing tends to be an occupation of the leisure class, I’m looking for poems and stories that make me forget that. Your vacation to wherever is a lousy occasion for an essay. I’m looking for writing that makes an argument, or that at least has a subject or some connection to the personal. Style over substance rarely floats my boat. Given the volume of submissions I read and the number of competent writers out there, competence isn’t enough. I need to be startled into loving something, either by its doing something entirely new, or by its doing something old really, really well.
Jaime Fountaine
When I was five years old and afraid of sleeping, I snuck a lot of television. In the predawn, before Mr. Wizard came on, pressed tight against the back of my grandparents’ pull-out couch, smaller than usual, as if it would prevent me from being seen and caught, I learned about The Elephant Man. Crumpled photos of his body growing mangled flashed aside gentle English-accented reenactments, and a bubble of love and fear rose from my stomach to the back of my throat. The threat of that, of joy and horror releasing themselves simultaneously and against my will, seemed to me then, as it does now, a thing of great beauty and importance.
It’s not too difficult to find me on the Internet.
Jen Knox
About my reading process: The caliber of writing submitted to PANK on a regular basis is impressive. This raises the stakes for me, as a reader, and demands a more specific critique of each piece. The writing has to be good, yes, but it also has to be right for the magazine. I’m a fan of authors who take risks but balance these risks with keen attention to language and style. I like to feel that the narration is immersive enough that I could follow along for the duration of a novel-length work, even if the prose or poem is less than a page long. I look for writing that doesn’t try to be like other writing. My favorite writers include James Baldwin, Joan Didion and Audre Lorde because each writes in such a way (regardless of genre or form) that not only shows real change but creates it inside the reader. A short and incomplete list of other writers whose work inspires me includes: Amy Bloom, Mary Gaitskill, Zadie Smith and Tobias Wolff. There are so many more.
What else I do: When I am not reading for PANK, I work as a creative writing instructor, an assistant editor, and a writer. I live in San Antonio with my husband, cat, and dog. My writing can be read in some wonderful journals, including EDGE, Gargoyle, Istanbul Review, Narrative, PANK (from my pre-reader days) and Short Story America. Thanks, in large part to the wonderful people at Vermont Studio Center, I am a good ways into revision of my first novel. I will finish it this year. Links to forthcoming and published work as well as my blog and updates are here:http://www.jenknox.com.
Derrick Martin-Campbell
Derrick Martin-Campbell is a writer living in Portland, OR. As a reader for PANK, he looks for plot-driven narratives, poems that are curious about cliches, and any writing that manages to be both surprising and familiar at once. He enjoys provocative mixtures of tone, is patient with descriptions of the sky, and loves a good ending.
In addition to PANK, some of Derrick’s favorite journals include Hobart, Sundog Lit, The Collagist, Metazen, and HOUSEFIRE. Some of his favorite writers include Ursula K. Le Guin, Annie Proulx, and William Faulkner.
He has a Tumblr.
TaraShea Nesbit
TaraShea Nesbit’s novel, The Wives of Los Alamos, will be published by Bloomsbury in 2014. Her prose, poetry, and criticism have been featured in The Iowa Review (Online), Quarterly West, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Laurel Review, and other literary journals. She teaches at the University of Denver and the University of Washington in Tacoma and facilitates writing groups at The Gathering Place. She is the nonfiction editor for Better: Culture & Lit and an editor at Kore Press. A graduate of the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis and doctoral candidate at the University of Denver, TaraShea is originally from Dayton, Ohio, a WWII Manhattan Project location where polonium was refined and produced. She now lives in Colorado with her family.
What I love: I have a magazine subscription problem. Stacks and stacks of mags topple over the flat surfaces of my house: Art Forum, The Believer, Harper’s, Granta, the NY Review of Books, The London Review of Books, Creative Nonfiction, Denver Quarterly. I wish I received The Paris Review, Tin House, A Public Space, and n+1. In terms of books, I’ve been recently thrilled by Sarah Vap’s Arco Iris, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, and rereads of Jen Denrow’s California, Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book, Evan S. Connell’s Mrs. Bridge, Eula Biss’ Notes from No Man’s Land, Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonelyand Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. I don’t want Laird Hunt’s, Kind One, Jamaica Kincaid’s See Now Then, and Charlotte Rogan’s The Lifeboat to end. When reading submissions I look for the ill-defined energy of something I haven’t quite seen before, which can take so many forms I’m hesitant to describe it too much, but something about a mind at work, not wearing a tuxedo, making unusual constructions in language, or character, or dialogue, or pace, or subject matter, or tone, or the subversion of genres as well as reader expectations.
Lilly O’Donnell
Lilly O’Donnell reads and writes lots of things. Sometimes she reads the things that you submit to PANK! Sometimes she likes those things and recommends that they be published here.
When that happens it’s often when a familiar story is told in a new and surprising way. (Weird is great, but usually not when it’s just weird for its own sake.) Overly confessional is also usually a flop. She loves when your words and images are stuck in her head days later. Also major points for making her laugh.
Lilly’s a Columbia Journalism School Graduate and works as a fact checker at New York Magazine. Her work has appeared in VICE Magazine, The New Inquiry, NarrativelyNY and lots of other places. She’s also a bartender.
You can find her at: lillyodonnell.com and on Twitter: @lillyodonnell
Joe Stracci
Hi. My name is Joe Stracci. I’m 28 years old and I’m a writer and a teacher and an administrative assistant (that’s in reverse income order) and, of course, a PANK reader. I live in the woods in Connecticut with my wife, who is 8 months pregnant, and our two cats, Bukowski and Wallace. I maintain a blog and write mostly fiction. You can find all of my publications here. My debut novel, Whitney, will be published in October of ’13 by New Rivers Press. They recently posted the cover art and a snippet.
My weekly reading routine is divided into two main sections: The Always-Changing (the New Yorker, Marco Arment’s The Magazine, The New York Times, my Instapaper queue, my PANK queue, and an insane-to-keep-up-with Google Reader feed that includes sections like “Writing” and “Foodie” and “Apple” and “Tech” and a catch-all I like to call “E-mosaic”) and The Long Term (fiction, non-fiction, etc.). The last novel I read was Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon, which I thought was excellent. I plan on reading the new George Saunders collection, and that new Scientology book, but right now I’m reading mostly parenting books—The Expectant Father, The Birth Partner, Bringing Up Bebe, etc. Some of my favorite authors are Don DeLillo, Amy Hempel, David Foster Wallace, and J.D. Salinger. I listen to a lot of podcasts, too. All the stuff you’d expect—various NPR shows, Radiolab, This American Life, WTF. The podcast you’re least likely to guess—In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg. I promise that it will make you smarter.
I look for the same thing in PANK submissions that I demand from my own work—pieces of writing that start well, end well, and answer the question: what of it?
Natalie Sypolt
I’m a writer who lives in West Virginia. My publishing credits include Glimmer Train (forthcoming), Kenyon Review Online, Willow Springs Review, and Flashquake, among others. I’ve been lucky enough to publish in some of the journals that I really admire and read regularly. In addition to my own writing, also do a lot of book reviewing, and I believe that makes me a better writer and teacher. I would advise any writer to get involved, somehow, in book talk. I co-host a podcast called Summer Books and that has been an amazing way to get involved with literary conversations and meet other writers.
When I read submissions, I look for originality–and when I say that I don’t necessarily mean a crazy, off the wall story line, but originality of voice and in the way of telling. In stories, structure is important. I want to see a narrative arc and developed characters, even if the story is experimental. In poetry, I look for exciting language and arresting images that will stay with me long after I’ve finished reading.
You can find me online at www.nataliesypolt.weebly.com and www.summerbooks.podbean.com.
Robb Todd
Hi. I write and take photographs and read and don’t dance enough and ride the subway and eat sandwiches and hate the cold (it’s cold right now) and I like going places other people do not like going. That’s also what I expect from a story or poem, that last part. Show me something I haven’t seen before, especially inside something I see all the time. Do not start with the weather. Do demonstrate command of the lines, even if they are ragged. I like ragged and frayed and raw. But I also like clean lines and the perfect word. You can be ragged and still be precise.
An incomplete list of complete enjoyment: Emily Cementina, Samuel Beckett, not having a cat, Gordon Lish, Hawaii,Sam Pink, Amy Hempel, dope beats, Juked, ruckuses of all kinds, black T-shirts, Ernest Hemingway, painted skulls, gargling with Blue Label, Jimi Hendrix, Eduardo C. Corral, fresh coconut, Edward Mullany, finding money on the sidewalk, ee cummings, Miles Davis, Edward Hopper, off-peak public transportation, Bill Watterson, peg-leg pigeons, all pigeons, Mary Gaitskill, tequila, Buddha statues, New York City, Denis Johnson, pizza, Adidas, free time, Charles Bukowski, baseball, Hipstamatic, burritos, Cormac McCarthy, George Carlin, flamenco, Jack Gilbert, people with two first names, tequila again.
Luke Thominet
Luke Thominet is a graduate student at Wayne State University, where he is pursuing his PhD in Composition and Rhetoric. Recently, he has been working on developing methods for integrating videogames and other interactive multimedia technologies into technical communications classrooms. He received his MFA in Fiction from Northern Michigan University in 2012.
He especially loves quirky and imaginative writing. Recently, he’s been rereading Sedaris, Saunders, and Vonnegut, and perusing the poems of Jack Gilbert. His own writing is generally born from sleepless nights and from staring at the world, or rather trying to stare past it. And he looks for all these same things in submissions—something funny, something new, something striking. He wants the fiction to feel like it’s doing something he hasn’t seen before. But it has to do it in a good way—limited and purposeful explanation/description, crisp dialogue, and a compelling ending are all musts.
Having recently turned 27 I’m of the mindset that somehow I missed the handout given to those entering adulthood. I’m a part-time student and full-time writer. I’ve published some fiction, mostly online, and a few ebooks. My ideal day would be spent at the local library scribbling away at a first draft while plucking musty smelling used books off the shelf for inspiration. Growing up in Sleepy Hollow, I quickly became immune, and have grown to dislike, all things Halloween. I came of age with the help of Lego’s, video games, and 90’s hip-hop. My teddy bear has been by my side every night and is way cooler than Mark Wahlberg’s. Despite having multiple athletic scholarships to play college basketball, I dropped out of high school a month before graduation to spite my parents. I didn’t receive my GED until a few years later and then went to college where I discovered literature.
The print magazines that I either have a subscription to, or never miss purchasing an issue, are The Paris Review, A Public Space, and The Believer. There are so many online journals that are worth mentioning (including PANK) but it would take up my entire entry. My favorite writers are David Foster Wallace, for making it cool to be smart, Ernest Hemingway, for making it cool to be macho, and William S. Burroughs, for making it cool to be “other.” What I look for in a submission is something that moves me, makes me think twice about something, or rethink it completely. I tend to prefer fiction but since reading for PANK I’ve grown to like poetry more and more.
Holly Wendt
I teach writing and composition at Casper College in Casper, Wyoming, and am the co-director for the Equality State Book Festival. In addition to reading for PANK, I also serve as the assistant fiction editor for Drunken Boat.
As a reader (as it applies to prose, though also to poetry to a lesser extent), I look for two particular things in equal measure: an engaging narrative that isn’t afraid to be clear and specific about the story and finely crafted syntax. In saying “finely crafted syntax,” I don’t mean obtrusively stylized sentences or lines that remind the reader constantly of the writer’s hand, but rather deft, invisible music at the sentence or line level. I keep coming back to the sentences in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, or Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. The sentences add less in the way of drama and more in the way of grace. But narrative is also important, and I think the sharpest works are the ones that are neither afraid nor ashamed nor uncertain of the story they have to tell.
Clarity in narrative doesn’t mean obviousness or cliche–I think particularly of novelist Rose Tremain and writer Keri Hulme, whose novel The Bone People is one of the most riveting and unrelenting I’ve ever read. Andrea Barrett’s short stories are probably my favorite example of narrative clarity in shorter prose–the stories’ tension derives from specificity, not ambiguity. Irish author Eilis Ni Dhuibhne and the fantastically funny, wry, and sad Scottish writer, A. L. Kennedy, also make my list of influences and inspirations, and they all know their way around a well-written sentence. I turn to One Story, The Indiana Review, and Memorious (among so many other excellent journals) for my fix. Poets like Sean Thomas Dougherty, Sascha Feinstein, Robert Wrigley, and Natasha Trethewey are the writers I turn to when my own words are broken, and Deborah Poe’s work startles me out of too-traveled ground.
As old-fashioned as it may seem, Beowulf is my favorite book. The Seamus Heaney translation is, for me, an execution of all of the aforementioned qualities, and it shows up in everything I write, in one way or another. Poetry, though I don’t write it, is much of what I read because it reminds me of the possibilities of language. I do write, fiction mostly, and some creative non-fiction, though I have trouble telling the truth. I recently finished a long novel about professional ice hockey, of all things. My fiction has appeared in Gray’s Sporting Journal, Memorious, Bluestem, andStymie. I blog, mostly about writing but sometimes about sports. I am taking myself on a pilgrimage to MLB’s spring training on my spring break this year, and in the two thousand miles I’ll be on the road, I’ll listen to a lot of music that contains fiddles, accordions, mandolins, and various assemblages of Eastern European brass.