Spring 2012 Reading Period Closes April 1!

The close of our Spring 2012 reading period is this Sunday, April 1. (If you follow our Twitter feed, you likely already know this.  This is for everyone who doesn’t follow us. Also, if you’re on Twitter and you aren’t following us, we’re going to be hurt.)

Because I’m a procrastinator at heart, I understand that many of you are still mulling whether or not to submit your work in this reading period, and you may still be considering it until this Sunday around 11 p.m.  I’m here now to provide a few hints to help you get through that last-minute submission, primarily because I am more likely to be enjoying a nap of the eight-hour variety at that time of night than to be sitting in front of my computer.

• We cannot accept submissions via e-mail. If you have difficulties with the online submission system, I can generally walk you through the problem. Please check our help document or contact me (support@theminnesotareview.org) instead of e-mailing your submission.
• Don’t wait till 11:57 p.m. It will take you a few minutes to get through the submission process, especially if you haven’t yet registered as an author, and your work must be uploaded by 11:59 p.m. EDT (Eastern) on April 1 for it to be considered by the editors. If it’s marked 12:01 a.m. April 2, the editors will not be able to consider the work until the next reading period (August 1-November 1), and you probably don’t want to wait until then.
• Not sure how to register as an author? The help document will walk you through the process.
• If you’ve already registered, you can simply log in and begin the submission process. We’re going to ask all sorts of questions when you get started. Please don’t just skip past those questions or click them randomly. Those questions are pretty important – we do not publish previously published works, for example.
• Please don’t ignore our guidelines (available here). For example, we ask that you upload multiple poems as a single document. This streamlines the review process, which means you get a response more quickly.

Is there anything else you’d like to know? Send your questions/comments via the comment section below or e-mail me at support@theminnesotareview.org.

Ashley Patriarca is the editorial assistant for the minnesota review. She recognizes that she’s a bit geriatric in terms of her sleep habits, and she’s okay with it.

VIDA and The Minnesota Review

Over the last couple of years VIDA: Women in Literary Arts have been counting the woman/man ratio in literary journal publishing. Expected, or not, the results were worrisome. In many categories, and at most magazines and best of anthologies, women were constantly being marginalized as authors. So, in the spirit of transparency, here are the minnesota review’s figures from three recent issues:

Issue 77:

Creative nonfiction: 1W/0M
Fiction: 0W/2M
Poetry: 2W/9M

Issue 76:

Creative nonfiction: 0W/0M
Fiction: 1W/3M/1 Gender Neutral
Poetry: 7W/5M

Issue 75:

Creative nonfiction: 0W/0M
Fiction: 4W/0M
Poetry: 5W/9M

Drawing conclusions on such a small sample is always tenuous. In addition, the minnesota review has a revolving editorship pooled from the M.F.A. program at Virginia Tech. Therefore, tastes and preferences are constantly changing and are not consistent semester-to-semester. Nevertheless, it does seem, at the moment that we do publish more male poets. Over at the Poetry Foundation, they’ve been discussing this issue and the reasons for the imbalance. If you have any thoughts on the topic, please leave a comment below.

Christopher Linforth is the fiction editor of the minnesota review and a fiction candidate in Virginia Tech’s MFA program. He has work published in Denver Quarterly, Chicago Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, and other literary journals.

The Art of Hype

Working on my own novel, it’s a selfish curiosity that compels me to buy and read (and be jealous of) emerging authors’ first novels.  I read these books differently, I know, than I do other books, and perhaps not in the right spirit to engage literature, trying to suss out what these authors have that I do not (besides, obviously, an agent, contract, and, one would assume, readers).  I do have a novel, but I’m not yet a first-time novelist for the simple fact that my novel is not available to be read.  So, why not?