Submissions

Click here to read "Meet Our Art Editor: Alia Zapparova"
Image of a book combing images and poetry, whose pages open and close like an accordian
Image of an art installation in which three rectangles hang on a wall, a string attaching each to a pile of square plates on the ground

Artwork by Alia Zapparova. “Looking at the Top of a Blue Tree,” Concertina book, 14 x 22 cm (from approx. 80 cm long when partially unfolded; 550 cm long when flat), inkjet printed on uncoated paper. “A Disencounter,” inkjet prints on Japanese paper, 30 x 45 cm, silk thread.

When our new Art Editor Alia Zapparova speaks about what first drew her to SAND, a smile spreads across her face. She leans forward and says, “The intersection between image and text, especially the conversation that emerges when visual art is presented in print alongside and in relationship with writing, rather than appearing only as decoration for the writing.”

Alia’s interest in these conversations between image and text is also integral to her own artistic practice. She works between photography and writing, placing them in various configurations, as handmade books, small-scale image-text installations, and performative readings. Her work has been exhibited all over the world, from Berlin and London to Australia, India, Greece, Serbia, and Portugal. 

As a co-coordinator for Artistic Research | Performing Heterotopia, she collaboratively organized and curated events that included a mix of performances, screenings, presentations, readings, and workshops. She is interested in intersections between realities, imaginaries, genres, and mediums; in the ways art collects incompatibilities, heterogeneities, impossible combinations, chance encounters. Her projects often involve collaborative experiments between image and text, such as an image/text publication on the theme of Missing Out, which she is co-creating and co-editing.

Abstract image from a project that misuses photographic paper and processes to explore some senses of a “not”: not doing, not printing, not making, and end up with a collection of traces that speak of failures and absences.
Abstract image from a project that misuses photographic paper and processes to explore some senses of a “not”: not doing, not printing, not making, and end up with a collection of traces that speak of failures and absences.

Artwork by Alia Zapparova, from left to right: Pieces from “How Not To,” Chemigrams on silver gelatine paper, 20 x 30 cm. 

In her own work and in the work of other artists, Alia is “interested in practices of unlearning and undoing; in refusals and opacities; in exploring dislocations between language, space and belonging through attention to the everyday.” Alia says she is inspired by artists “whose work has both a simplicity and an opacity, and leaves me with a sense of surprise but also intensifies a state of not-knowing. I am especially interested in art that challenges hierarchies and systems of domination through its materiality.”

When looking at and curating art, Alia finds it important to pay attention to the context of the work. “I am interested in more than the image alone,” she says. “It also always matters who is behind the piece, who is speaking, whose perspective is being presented.”

After joining the team in December, Alia paid homage to the work curated by her predecessor, our long-time Art Editor Ruhi Parmar Amin, by putting together an online exhibition of work published in SAND 20 – 23. (Selections below, full exhibition on Instagram.) Alia was drawn to this work because all of the pieces were “exploring the possibilities of distorted, fragmented, or disintegrating images and bodies, which I think expresses in quite a material way the idea of subverting norms and embodying marginalized perspectives.”

Image of A blurred image of woman smiling - artwork by Guilherme Bergamini - from Feminicid
Painting of bodies folded into themselves and into each other as if those bodies are pieces of clay - Molten Caress by Megan Archer
Still from a video performance entitled "Unlearn the Body" in which the artist, who is disabled, uses a crutch and ropes to shape her body into a distortion
A painting of a man sleeping on a subway train - Late Night Train - Yongjae Kim - Published in SAND 23

Selections from Alia’s online exhibition of art from SAND 20 – 23, from left to right: Detail of work from Feminicid by Guilherme Bergamini (SAND 20), “Molten Caress” by Megan Archer (SAND 21), Detail of still from “Unlearn the Body” by Panteha Abareshi (SAND 23), Detail of “Late Night Train” by Yongjae Kim ( SAND 22). See the full Instagram exhibition

Nearly 100% of the work we publish in SAND is from open submissions. If your artistic work is a fit for SAND, read our submission guidelines and submit here.

The Image-Text Connection Read More »

Click here to read an article on the top reasons SAND editors reject and accept submissions

ACCEPTANCE/REJECTION

Acceptance and rejection: even the words we use to describe how submissions are treated sound like something out of a rom-com. It’s probably not off-base to say submitting to literary journals is a lot like a (sometimes-bad) romance in which we’re constantly evaluating how editors feel about us: Is my writing good enough? Do they like me? What are they thinking? It’s so hard to know what they want!

If you’re a writer trying to puzzle out the mysteries of how literary journals choose the work they publish (and finally seal the deal with your favorite lit mags), our editors are here to help. Because, in the end, the relationship metaphor isn’t much of a stretch: The most important thing writers can do to increase their chances of getting the journal to say yes is to ensure that the writer and the journal are compatible. 

In fact, the number one reason our editors reject writing is that the content, style, or aesthetic is not a fit for SAND. The submissions we do consider accepting are the ones from writers who understand us and share our tastes and values.

Below, our poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction editors discuss what convinces them to accept a submission and the top reasons they reject submissions. We’ve also included bonus material, including texts we’ve published and links to readings and “why we chose it” segments.

POETRY

Poetry Editors Crista Siglin and Emma C. Lawson say it’s difficult to generalize about what poetry is looking for in poems because each poem is so unique in the way that it functions. They look for a wide range of aesthetic sensibilities, never relying too heavily on a more limited set of sensibilities. Crista and Emma like to see poems that contain an entrance point that they don’t necessarily encounter often. They also love to see poems that carry them through a particular state of being or carry them through a sense of transformation.

Image: Screenshot of poem: A/nd De Wata Breaks Someone Serious - Sherese Francis

Art by Célestin Krier +”A/nd De Wata Breaks Someone Serious” by Sherese Francis, published in SAND 22

Image of poem in journal: A Sign - Stella N'Djoku translated by Pelosi-Thorpe

“Breakfast Stars” by Londeka Mdluli  + “A Sign” by Stella N’Djoku, translated by Julia Anastasia Pelosi-Thorpe, published in SAND 22

Image of poem in journal: Okazaki Fragments - Kanika Agrawal

Art by Henry Curchod + “Okazaki Fragments” by Kanika Agrawal (SAND 19).  Bonus: Watch Kanika discuss the intersections of science and poetry at Poetic Vision.

In addition to pieces not being a fit for SAND, another top reason for rejecting poems involves language. This usually includes work that is not sensitive to language or is not making good use of  language, often by including too many spare words or using cliches without commenting on or engaging with those cliches more deeply. Crista and Emma also receive many poems from very talented writers with an amazing opening or closing line, while the rest of the poem is a bit unformed and is being carried along by the single line. They want poems that hold their attention in every moment.

CREATIVE NONFICTION

Creative Nonfiction Editor Melissa Richer notes that journals may interpret creative nonfiction differently, so it’s important to keep in mind that she’s looking for variety. Her goal is to show myriad examples of what’s possible in creative nonfiction and what’s at the forefront of the genre. That means publishing more traditional long-form prose next to hybrid pieces and other experimental work. The type of work she’s looking for really emphasizes the creative in creative nonfiction: long form pieces, flash, essays (especially layered essays), hybrid forms, autofiction, and imagery or graphic writing.

Image of creative nonfiction in journal: A Litany for Stolen Men in Three Attempts - Keegan Lawler

“A Litany for Stolen Men in Three Attempts” by Keegan Lawler, published in SAND 23

Image of creative nonfiction in journal: How to Kill Your Father by Carol Claassen

Artwork by Célestin Krier + “How to Kill Your Father” by Carol Claassen, published in SAND 22. Bonus: Watch Carol Claassen read from her piece.

Excerpt from What Once Was by Helena Granström, translated by Saskia Vogel, published in SAND 19

Among the top reasons Melissa rejects work outside of it not being a fit for SAND: Many writers send pieces that are still in first or second draft form and therefore aren’t finished. She also sees writing with a strong central idea that becomes muddled when the author expands the piece to other parts of their lives, so that the story loses focus or is too wide in scope to be contained enough for the length of the piece.

FICTION

Editor in Chief Ashley Moore and Junior Fiction Editor Siena Powers say they’re most interested in risk-taking writing that experiments using intention, internal consistency, and attention to nuance. They want writing with a strong emotional heart and a subtlety that leaves readers with room for reflection on deeper issues. It’s long been important to our fiction team that SAND publish stories representing the full range of experiences and identities in the world, and that these stories are told from a place of lived experience or from a place of deep sensitivity and thorough research.

Image of short fiction in journal: Cora Pearls Magnificent Vanishing Act by Claire Dodd

Art by Célestin Krier +”Cora Pearl’s Magnificent Vanishing Act” by Claire Dodd (SAND 22). Bonus: Watch Claire read from the piece with an intro from Ashley on why we chose it 

Image of short fiction in journal: The Fun Car by Gurmeet Singh

“The Fun Car” by Gurmeet Singh, published in SAND 23

Image of short fiction in journal: Losing the Plot by Tariro Ndoro

Art by Célestin Krier +”Losing the Plot” by Tariro Ndoro (SAND 22). Bonus: Watch Tariro read from the piece with an intro from Ashley on why we chose it 

Like other sections, fiction rejects most work because it is not a fit for SAND, and like creative nonfiction, because the work is an incomplete first or second draft. Fiction also receives many well-written scenes or well-written ideas that are not complete stories in and of themselves. Ashley and Siena also see a lot of internal monologues. These are often full of interesting ideas but lack attention to form so that they are not complete stories, or, if they have a political or social agenda, read more like lectures.

GET TO KNOW US & SEND US YOUR BEST WORK!

Our editors agree that the best way to ensure work is a fit for SAND is to read the journal or use the many resources available online to find out more about what we publish. (For example, the information above is excerpted from editorial webinars on Secrets to Standout Submissions.)

The newly launched SAND ONLINE features excerpts from the current issue and full pieces from the SAND archives in addition to video readings and articles on writing and art. Our YouTube channel contains multiple readings from SAND contributors, editorial interviews, a preview of our latest issue, and more. We feature artists and excerpts from poetry and prose on our Instagram and Twitter and you can find more featured artists, excerpts, and information on our website. You can also sign up to our mailing list to stay up-to-date on all things SAND. 

Our Editors on Acceptance/Rejection Read More »

Click here for information about SAND submissions, open December 20 - January 10

SAND 24 Submissions Open December 20, 2021 – January 10, 2022

For SAND’s 24th issue, we’re looking for art, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, flash nonfiction, and translated work that subverts, work that pushes against the boundaries of form, message, and voice in ways that we will feel, physically, in our bodies. We want work that haunts us with its soul, edge, and truth. Show us that fresh can be slow, sensitive can be rough, bold can be quiet. 

SAND is a nonprofit journal of literature and art made by a diverse, international team in Berlin. We welcome both emerging and established talents to submit, and we have long been devoted to amplifying the voices of writers and artists who are women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, working class, neurodiverse, international, and/or geographically underrepresented.

SAND is open to submissions of visual art, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, flash nonfiction, and translations from December 20 to January 10, 2021. Fiction, creative nonfiction, flash, and poetry will close once submissions caps are reached, so submit to these genres early since they could close well before January 10

Most of us editors are also writers and artists, and we know how it goes. That’s why we consider every submission, why we welcome emerging writers and artists, and why we will never charge you fees for submitting. (Donations and subscriptions are of course appreciated, and help us stay weird and independent.) We also pay contributors semi-professional rates.

The best way to get to know if your work is a fit for SAND is by reading SAND, by reading editor interviews, by checking out editor interviews and performances of pieces from past issues on SAND’s YouTube channel, and by visiting our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages. 

More information on our style and approach can be found in these editorial interviews and articles:

We look forward to reading your best work in the submissions pile! Please submit on our Submittable page after reading and following our submissions guidelines: http://sandjournal.com/submit

SAND 24 Submissions Open Read More »

Image: Still of Viva Padilla from her reading of “xolo. to my lover who can no longer live under capitalism and the farce of democracy of the united states.” in SAND 22.

To supplement our print and digital versions of SAND 22, our contributors have submitted videos of themselves performing some of their works from the issue, which we are posting on our YouTube channel. Some of our editors have also produced videos about the issue’s selections.

A number of these videos came from our SAND 22 “Re/construction” launch event, which took place on 28 February 2021 and is available as a full replay here, while others were released after the launch.

Credits

Lena Blackmon (they/she) is a scientist and a poet. With writing featured in The Offing, Rookie, and the Visible Poetry Project, their work is also part of the anthology, Rookie on Love (Penguin Random House, 2018). They were named a 2018 VONA/Voices fellow and have previously performed with the Stanford Spoken Word Collective. 

Carol Claassen reads from her creative non-fiction piece “How to Kill Your Father” as part of the SAND 22 Virtual Launch Event “Re/construction”. Claassen‘s prose has been noted in The Best American Essays 2011, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, nominated for Best of the Net, awarded The Forge Flash Nonfiction Competition Prize, and is published or forthcoming in The Pinch, The Normal School, Fourth Genre, The Forge Literary Magazine, Pidgeonholes, and 3Elements Review. She is working on a memoir about her relationship with her father while riding out the pandemic in her mother’s basement in Easton, Pennsylvania.

R.M. Fradkin reads from her fiction piece “Giant Pacific” as part of the SAND 22 Virtual Launch Event “Re/construction”. Fradkin studied writing with Amy Hempel and Bret Johnston at Harvard and has had short fiction published in Cherry Tree, Theaker’s Quarterly, Cleaver Magazine, and Tincture Journal, among others. She is also Affiliate Editor of the Alaska Quarterly Review. She is beginning an MFA at the University of Idaho in the fall. For more of Fradkin’s work, visit https://www.rmfradkin.com/.

Erin Honeycutt reads from her poem “Extracts from ‘The Contingency'” as part of the SAND 22 Virtual Launch Event “Re/construction”. Honeycutt writes poetry, exhibition reviews, and a variety of texts in collaboration with artists. She has read text at Kadett (Amsterdam, 2019), IÐNO Theater (Reykjavik, 2019), FotoTallinn (Tallinn, 2019), Dzialdov Gallery (Berlin, 2019), Reykjavik Arts Festival (2018), DA Space (Heraklion, 2018), Beyond Human Impulses (Athens, 2018), and Pólar Festival (Stöðvarfjörður, 2017). She has an MA in Art History from the University of Iceland and one in Religion from the University of Amsterdam, and now lives in Berlin. For more of Honeycutt’s work, visit http://erinhoneycutt.persona.co/.

Viva Padilla reads her poem “xolo. to my lover who can no longer live under capitalism and the farce of democracy of the united states.” in the original Spanish, and her translation in English, as part of the SAND 22 Virtual Launch Event “Re/construction”. Padilla is a bilingual poet and writer from South Central Los Angeles. She’s the founding editor in chief of Dryland, an independent and grassroots print literary journal. Padilla’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in the L.A. Times, The Acentos Review, Cultural Weekly, wearemitú, and Every. Thing. Changes., an art exhibition by the L.A. Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. Padilla is a first-generation Chicana. She dedicates her work to the memory of her father and the sacrifice made by both of her parents. For more of Padilla’s work, visit vivapadilla.com/ .

Ayesha Raees shares her poem “Smothering a Mothering” in this beautiful visual form in celebration of the release of SAND 22. Raees identifies herself as a hybrid creating hybrid poetry through hybrid forms. She currently serves as an Assistant Poetry Editor at AAWW’s The Margins and has received fellowships from Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Brooklyn Poets, and Kundiman. From Lahore, Pakistan, Raees is a graduate of Bennington College, and currently lives in New York City. For more of Raee’s work, visit ayesharaees.com .

SAND 22 Video Features Read More »

For SAND’s 23rd issue, we’re looking for art, poetry, fiction, flash fiction, and translated work that subverts, work that pushes against the boundaries of form, message, and voice in ways that we will feel, physically, in our bodies. We want work that haunts us with its soul, edge, and truth. Show us that fresh can be slow, sensitive can be rough, bold can be quiet. 

SAND is a nonprofit journal of literature and art made by a diverse international team in Berlin. We have long been devoted to amplifying underrepresented voices and encourage submissions from writers and artists who are women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, working class, international, and/or geographically underrepresented.

SAND is open to submissions of visual art, poetry, fiction, flash fiction, and translations from March 20 to April 10, 2021.  (Creative nonfiction is currently closed.) Submit early: Fiction, flash fiction, and poetry will close once submissions caps are reached, meaning these genres might close before April 10.

Most of us editors are also writers and artists, and we know how it goes. That’s why we consider every submission, why we welcome emerging writers and artists, and why we will never charge you fees for submitting. (Donations and subscriptions are of course appreciated, and help us stay weird and independent.) We pay contributors, too, and will continue to do so for as long as our funding will allow.

The best way to get to know if your work is a fit for SAND is by attending webinars with our poetry and prose editors (Secrets to Standout Submissions in Prose and Poetry on March 14, 2021), by reading digital or print issues of SAND, by reading editor interviews, or checking out editor interviews and performances of pieces from past issues on SAND’s YouTube channel. 

More information on our style and approach can be found in these editorial interviews and articles:

We look forward to reading your best work in the submissions pile! Please submit on our Submittable page after reading and following our submissions guidelines

SAND 23 Submissions Open March 20–April 10 Read More »

In a video feature for the virtual Lyrikmarkt (poetry fair) at the 2020 poesiefestival berlin, our poetry editors Crista Siglin and Emma Lawson discussed the poetry of SAND 21 during the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, exploring the subjectivity of time and how our daily experience changes our readings of poems.

Poems discussed from the issue:

  • “Entreaty to the rattlesnake population of Griffith Park” by Waverly SM (featured here on Instagram)
  • “Essay on Causation” by Adele Elise Williams (from SAND 20)
  • “Experimental Prayer” by Ari Feld
  • “White Money” by Hsien Min Toh
  • “Black Pepper Greens” by Lizzy Yarwood
  • “Housefitting: threshold” by David Felix (featured as a video collage on our Youtube channel)

Poetry in SAND 21 Read More »

As part of SAND‘s online 10th anniversary festival in May 2020, our SAND 21 cover artist, Morgan Stokes, gave a virtual tour of his studio and spoke with SAND Art Editor Ruhi Parmar Amin.

In the studio tour and interview videos, Morgan discusses oil painting, practicing in both Berlin and Sydney, publishing in indie print journals like SAND, and the ways in which digital screens mediate and manipulate our view of ourselves and the world, often making us unwitting commodities, among other topics. 

Watch the videos here, and find more readings, interviews, and the like on SAND’s YouTube channel.

Morgan Stokes (b. 1990) is an artist from Australia based in Berlin and Sydney. He holds a Master of Design from the University of New South Wales. Understanding the internet as a place where past and future coexist in the present, Stokes’ works draw from our fraught relationship with technology, juxtaposing the nascent visual language of digital screens with the tradition of oil painting. Stokes fragments and blends forms and ideas to challenge and explore identity, digital anxiety and the new, technology-centric human condition.

Morgan Stokes: SAND 21 Cover Artist Read More »

Our Editor in Chief Jake Schneider was invited to speak on a panel about literary magazines at the 2019 Society of Authors Translators Association Symposium, an annual event held in London the day before the book fair, alongside Clare Pollard, editor of Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT). SAND has published translations from at least sixteen languages since our founding in 2009; MPT, a venerable institution of translated literature in the English-speaking world, has been at it for more than fifty years. Still, we were positive that our two publications’ unique sets of experiences could not possibly encompass the breadth of translation’s role in literary magazines.

To get a broader view, Jake reached out to the other magazine editors in the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), of which SAND is a proud member, for their own experiences. Within hours, he received an outpouring of insights on how translations fit in to the world of literary journals, and why publishing them in that format is a great way to expose emerging translators and to build the reputations of talented authors whose work is still obscure or unknown in English.

Besides sharing some of their insights on the panel, we’ve decided to post a selection of them below, including comments from:

  • Jennifer Acker, editor-in-chief of The Common, which is devoted to “deepening our individual and collective sense of place”
  • Curtis Bauer, translation editor of The Common who also translates from Spanish himself
  • Dede Cummings, editor of the magazine The Hopper and publisher of Green Writers Press, both with a strong environmental focus
  • Ann Kjellberg, editor of the journal Little Star, but also the literary executor of Joseph Brodsky and a former contributing editor of the New York Review of Books
  • Mindy Kronenberg, editor of Oberon Poetry Magazine
  • Minna Zallman Proctor, editor of the quarterly The Literary Review (TLR), established in 1957

All of these publications eagerly accept translated submissions. The emails were sent to Jake privately and are posted here with the editors’ permission.

 

Why should a literary translator submit their work to literary journals?

Ann: Of course! Who could think otherwise? How else do you expect the awareness of an author and the eagerness to invest in and read their work, to spread beyond specialists in the language? If an author is already well-known in English, there is the necessity of making the case that you have something to offer beyond easily available existing translations.

Minna: Translators, especially emerging translators, don’t often think of submitting works in progress to journals because they are focused on book-length projects for book publishers. Changing that paradigm should really just take a nudge from journal editors – who should do a better job of opening their pages to translation, and reaching out to translators to solicit new work. And translators will certainly have an easier time proposing a book-length translation if parts of it have already appeared in literary magazines. The extra exposure provided by a magazine publication is great for an emerging translator given that the business of literary translation has such a strong word-of-mouth component to it.

Poets/poetry translators should definitely be looking at magazine publication from the start of their collaboration. Most of the poetry books that come out in the US are comprised of poems that have all already appeared in lit mags. That’s the model that’s already in place for poetry and so poetry in translation works similarly. Poetry translators should familiarize themselves with the poetry-literary magazine model so that they can use it effectively.

Curtis: It definitely helps people learn about the new voice in a new language. Take a look at Shearsman Books: their webpage more or less says that if you, as a translator, haven’t published a substantial portion of the book of poems in journals in the UK and US, they won’t even look at it. From a publisher’s perspective, individual publications indicate that there’s an interest in the work in literary circles, and that interest tends to lead to better sales.

 

Have you published excerpts of a translation project that was later published as a book?  Did the magazine publication help?

Dede: A few years ago, I received an email from a translator [Ellen Skowronski Polito] who wanted to know if I would write a letter on her behalf so she could enter for an [ASLE translation grant]. I wrote to say that we were very interested in her work translating the work of a Spanish poet, José Manuel Marrero Henríquez, and that if all went well, we would very much like to publish it. Jenna Gersie, the managing editor of our literary magazine, The Hopper, attended the ASLE convention in Detroit and the award was announced with the translator winning! We then made a firm offer to publish the actual book [Landscapes with Donkey]. The editorial process proved to be quite lengthy, but rewarding. One of our editors at Green Writers Press [Anna Mullen] has a knowledge of the Spanish language, so I signed her to work with the translator to make sure that every word rang true to the tone and meaning of the original.

Curtis: Yes, several. The reasons are obvious, as stated above, but there’s also the publicity aspect. One of the things I love about The Common (there are many) is that the journal publicizes the work that comes later: if I publish a poem there, and then a book comes out, I can tell the editors and they’re going to make that announcement in the journal and on their social media sites. The Common isn’t the only place that does this, but it’s one of the few that does it really well.

Ann: I have. […] It is hard to say how precisely this helps. A good source of evidence about this would be editors at publishing houses who publish a lot of translation. Book editors have told me on the whole that they wished they had time to read literary magazines more. We do struggle on our end with readership and distribution – on the other hand, of course, it helps the translator, when going to an editor, to be able to say that parts of this have been published in X, Y, and Z. As an editor myself, I am aware of magazines I appreciate, and I notice when they have given a writer or translator the thumbs up. I think one has to make a somewhat amorphous case that increasing the presence of an author in English is a drop-by-drop process and anything you can do to support this will help a book publisher to commit to your project and will help readers to respond to it. An unknown name in a foreign language is a hard sell, likewise a redundant translation. Literary magazines are your natural ally: they are looking for great work, and you are looking to be seen. Unlike many of their submitters, your writer is a known quantity in their original country and likely to deliver as a writer.

 

On magazines soliciting translations, and where they look for them.

Ann: When I find an author I like I try to find out if there is anything new on the way; I even try to put authors together with translators. I have reached out, for instance, to winners of the PEN and Sontag prizes for works in progress to see their manuscripts. 

Minna: Translators who have been hired by a publishing house to translate literary works are often not included in the serial rights process at all, so they have to leave publishing of excerpts to the publishing houses. The publishing houses that publish more translations are small and independent and often running on limited resources and are not good at getting early excerpts out to magazines (which have long lead times – if we wait for review copies to arrive we usually wouldn’t have time to consider and schedule an excerpt). And literary magazines often don’t have the resources to scour catalogues to look for excerpts. Literary book publishers and literary magazine publishers should work together, because translations – whose authors are often unknown abroad – need more exposure in the literary marketplace to get to readers. Translators can help in this process if they have connections to literary magazines and if the publishers are open to suggestions – even when they are not actually part of placing serial rights.

TLR tries to reach out to publishers for forthcoming work. We’ve found we have to do extra legwork on our end to get publishing houses to think of submitting to us. Again, it’s about forming relationships and keeping up with what people are working on. 

Of course the most important way to know about possible excerpts is through relationships with translators. If we hear from a translator about an interesting work in progress, we’ll approach their publisher to see if there’s something from it that might work in terms of length, and timing. We make a very deliberate effort to engage translation. To that end we have editors at TLR who are focused on soliciting and evaluating works in translation. We’ve definitely found that it’s not a genre of literature that just arrives in the slush pile; we have to reach out for it.

 

On rights to publish translations.

Minna: Most literary magazines are even more under-resourced than small presses and so most of us ask translators to only approach us with projects that they have the rights to – or projects in which they have the author’s permission already to send out for publication. If translators don’t have their permissions in order, most magazines won’t be able to publish. This is very different from how publishing translations work with a book publisher, because in all cases it is the responsibility of the book publisher to seek out and acquire translation publishing rights. Lit mags are the only publishing entity that asks translators to do that work. (Explaining this structure to a room full of seasoned translators can cause gasps of dismay and outrage.) But lit mags for the most part do not have the money or legal experience to deal with translation rights, so that’s how it is. It’s a good idea anyway for translators who are doing a translation for love (rather than under contract – where they don’t have the serial rights anyway) to know the situation with the rights so they don’t spend time on a project that’s already been promised elsewhere.

 

Do you edit translations?

Jennifer: We accept unsolicited translations, and we also commission translators to render works into English, especially for our Arabic portfolios. All pieces are thoroughly edited from an English-language point of view, and our editors work closely with the translators, and often the authors as well, to arrive at the best possible English-language version.  The collaboration can be somewhat unwieldy, given the multiple people reviewing and consulting, but we find we are still able to retain the author’s original voice and stylistic choices. 

Ann: I definitely edit. I usually feel that my suggestions are consistent with an extrapolatable underlying text, and I am counting on the translator to correct me if not; it is a back-and-forth process. In the case of a living author they often participate.

I have been grateful when translators and publishers from whom I am publishing translated work are willing to excerpt it in ways that purists might challenge (The author didn’t mean for it to end there!), in some rare cases even restructuring work. In the later case, one says, “adapted from” in an author’s note or a credit line. One would ordinarily only do this with a living author. I think that it helps to make the work available to an audience and shows the author in a beneficial light.  When translators are able to step back from what might call a dogmatic allegiance to the original, it can often create good opportunities for the work, in the right hands and under the right circumstances.

 

How do you handle edits if the original was already published in its current form, potentially in a language you can’t read?

Mindy: We recently included Korean translations and conferred with the scholar/translator when small inconsistencies were discovered within her own submissions (some of which had previously appeared in other publications). Rules for languages can vary (and dialect and time period can determine linguistic tradition). Admittedly, these were not “substantial,” but one has to try to check for accuracy so that the translation is true as possible to the original work.

Curtis: When editing translations, even when I don’t read the language – I’m thinking of an Israeli poet I published a few years ago (I don’t read Hebrew) – I listen to the English. If there’s a problem, I usually hear it when I read it out loud. In the case of the Israeli poet, I asked the translator about a few lines that I found problematic, how they were constructed in Hebrew and the choices she made in her translation. That evolved into a more focussed conversation about grammar and metaphor (the metaphor in the poem seemed odd, and I wondered if it was “odd” in the original, too; it wasn’t), and ultimately the translator resolved the “oddity” that I heard. I guess what I’m getting at here is that I read the poems and stories and consider their complexities and nuances in English first; if something catches my attention, I mark it as a point for a conversation about the text; that conversation usually leads to a conversation about translation choices and requires that we look at the source text and the translation.

 

Have you taken risks on a translated work that would be unlikely to be published as a book?

Ann: Certainly. I have often excerpted pieces that are strong on their own when I had reservations about the whole. In cases like that I think I am giving the translator a leg up! Publishing a book is a much bigger financial gamble than including a piece in a literary magazine, but seeing that some of a translation has been published before may help to give a book editor confidence, and suggest some ideas about how an editorial process might bring out the text’s strengths.

Curtis: Of course. I think that’s the only way that “unlikely to be published” piece will eventually find its way into book form; new authors and translators needs exposure. They have to start somewhere, and I’m willing to consider work that may never find its way into book form.

 

When publishing translations, do you focus on a particular language or region?

Jennifer: The Common publishes work in all genres with a strong sense of place. It has led us to include a wide variety of international works from more than 16 languages over the last 10 years. Recently, we have begun to highlight translated works in place-specific portfolios. For example, in fall 2018, we published a 100-page portfolio of works from Puerto Rico, the majority written in Spanish and translated into English, to mark one year after Hurricane Maria.  We have also developed a particular focus on translating and publishing contemporary Arabic fiction. For six years now, I have worked with prominent Jordanian writer Hisham Bustani to select, translate, edit and publish works from the Arab world. In 2016, we published TAJDEED (Renewal), entirely devoted to contemporary fiction from the Arab world, representing 26 writers from 15 countries. This momentum has continued so that we are publishing a special portfolio of works translated from Arabic every spring – in 2018, we published a portfolio from Jordan; and in 2019 we are just about to release our Syria portfolio in Issue 17.

We are currently putting together a call for submissions for Lusophone portfolio, works from and about the Lusosphere – Portuguese-speaking countries and their diaspora. We’ve found these portfolios not only allow us to publish a diverse array of writers, but help us find new readers. These issues are also very popular among teachers who use our The Common in the Classroom program.

 

Do you hold translations to a different standard than originals?

Curtis: I don’t think so. I hold both to a very high standard. 

Ann: No. I expect translations to hold up as a literary experience: they don’t get a pass because they are translations.

 

Do you have any other advice for translators submitting to magazines?

Ann: Only, please do it! It seems so valuable to me. Try to identify sections that are free-standing and give the editor a choice. Offer to provide more if they want. 

Curtis: Yes! Be open to a conversation with editors about multiple aspects of the work. I often encounter translators who are unwilling to engage in a conversation about polysemy. That’s one of the things I love most about translations, so I often ask translators to reconsider word choice and syntax.

Minna: Keep an eye out for literary magazines that publish work in translation and submit to the ones you like best. Tell the translators that TLR loves work in translation. 

Mindy: Think of it as a process of literary outreach, and discovery for readers.

 

A big thank you to Ruth Martin, who is co-chair of the Translators Association and translates from the German herself, for inviting us and for facilitating this discussion at the symposium. And thank you to all the editors for sharing their experiences and agreeing, after the fact, to us posting their illuminating comments on our website.

Why Translators Should Publish in Literary Journals (archive) Read More »

Since our founding in 2009, SAND has published work in translation from at least 18 languages. Although journals like ours eagerly await the arrival of translations in our submissions piles, many translators don’t think to submit to literary journals. This is despite journals being a great way to expose emerging translators and to build the reputations of talented authors whose work is still obscure or unknown in English.

Wanting to get other publishers’ take on the issue, translator and former SAND Editor in Chief Jake Schneider reached out to other magazine editors from the Society of Authors Translators Association Symposium and in the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), of which SAND is a proud member. Within hours, he received an outpouring of insights, including comments from the following editors, all of whose publications eagerly accept translated submissions.

  • Jennifer Acker, editor-in-chief of The Common, which is devoted to “deepening our individual and collective sense of place”
  • Curtis Bauer, translation editor of The Common who also translates from Spanish himself
  • Dede Cummings, editor of the magazine The Hopper and publisher of Green Writers Press, both with a strong environmental focus
  • Ann Kjellberg, editor of the journal Little Star, but also the literary executor of Joseph Brodsky and a former contributing editor of the New York Review of Books
  • Mindy Kronenberg, editor of Oberon Poetry Magazine
  • Minna Zallman Proctor, editor of the quarterly The Literary Review (TLR), established in 1957

Should a literary translator submit their work to literary journals?

Ann: Of course! Who could think otherwise? How else do you expect the awareness of an author and the eagerness to invest in and read their work, to spread beyond specialists in the language? If an author is already well-known in English, there is the necessity of making the case that you have something to offer beyond easily available existing translations.

Minna: Translators, especially emerging translators, don’t often think of submitting works in progress to journals because they are focused on book-length projects for book publishers. Changing that paradigm should really just take a nudge from journal editors – who should do a better job of opening their pages to translation, and reaching out to translators to solicit new work. And translators will certainly have an easier time proposing a book-length translation if parts of it have already appeared in literary magazines. The extra exposure provided by a magazine publication is great for an emerging translator given that the business of literary translation has such a strong word-of-mouth component to it.

Poets/poetry translators should definitely be looking at magazine publication from the start of their collaboration. Most of the poetry books that come out in the US are comprised of poems that have all already appeared in lit mags. That’s the model that’s already in place for poetry and so poetry in translation works similarly. Poetry translators should familiarize themselves with the poetry-literary magazine model so that they can use it effectively.

Curtis: It definitely helps people learn about the new voice in a new language. Take a look at Shearsman Books: their webpage more or less says that if you, as a translator, haven’t published a substantial portion of the book of poems in journals in the UK and US, they won’t even look at it. From a publisher’s perspective, individual publications indicate that there’s an interest in the work in literary circles, and that interest tends to lead to better sales.

 

Have you published excerpts of a translation project that was later published as a book?  Did the magazine publication help?

Dede: A few years ago, I received an email from a translator [Ellen Skowronski Polito] who wanted to know if I would write a letter on her behalf so she could enter for an [ASLE translation grant]. I wrote to say that we were very interested in her work translating the work of a Spanish poet, José Manuel Marrero Henríquez, and that if all went well, we would very much like to publish it. Jenna Gersie, the managing editor of our literary magazine, The Hopper, attended the ASLE convention in Detroit and the award was announced with the translator winning! We then made a firm offer to publish the actual book [Landscapes with Donkey]. The editorial process proved to be quite lengthy, but rewarding. One of our editors at Green Writers Press [Anna Mullen] has a knowledge of the Spanish language, so I signed her to work with the translator to make sure that every word rang true to the tone and meaning of the original.

Curtis: Yes, several. The reasons are obvious, as stated above, but there’s also the publicity aspect. One of the things I love about The Common (there are many) is that the journal publicizes the work that comes later: if I publish a poem there, and then a book comes out, I can tell the editors and they’re going to make that announcement in the journal and on their social media sites. The Common isn’t the only place that does this, but it’s one of the few that does it really well.

Ann: I have. […] It is hard to say how precisely this helps. A good source of evidence about this would be editors at publishing houses who publish a lot of translation. Book editors have told me on the whole that they wished they had time to read literary magazines more. We do struggle on our end with readership and distribution – on the other hand, of course, it helps the translator, when going to an editor, to be able to say that parts of this have been published in X, Y, and Z. As an editor myself, I am aware of magazines I appreciate, and I notice when they have given a writer or translator the thumbs up. I think one has to make a somewhat amorphous case that increasing the presence of an author in English is a drop-by-drop process and anything you can do to support this will help a book publisher to commit to your project and will help readers to respond to it. An unknown name in a foreign language is a hard sell, likewise a redundant translation. Literary magazines are your natural ally: they are looking for great work, and you are looking to be seen. Unlike many of their submitters, your writer is a known quantity in their original country and likely to deliver as a writer.

 

On magazines soliciting translations, and where they look for them.

Ann: When I find an author I like I try to find out if there is anything new on the way; I even try to put authors together with translators. I have reached out, for instance, to winners of the PEN and Sontag prizes for works in progress to see their manuscripts. 

Minna: Translators who have been hired by a publishing house to translate literary works are often not included in the serial rights process at all, so they have to leave publishing of excerpts to the publishing houses. The publishing houses that publish more translations are small and independent and often running on limited resources and are not good at getting early excerpts out to magazines (which have long lead times – if we wait for review copies to arrive we usually wouldn’t have time to consider and schedule an excerpt). And literary magazines often don’t have the resources to scour catalogues to look for excerpts. Literary book publishers and literary magazine publishers should work together, because translations – whose authors are often unknown abroad – need more exposure in the literary marketplace to get to readers. Translators can help in this process if they have connections to literary magazines and if the publishers are open to suggestions – even when they are not actually part of placing serial rights.

TLR tries to reach out to publishers for forthcoming work. We’ve found we have to do extra legwork on our end to get publishing houses to think of submitting to us. Again, it’s about forming relationships and keeping up with what people are working on. 

Of course the most important way to know about possible excerpts is through relationships with translators. If we hear from a translator about an interesting work in progress, we’ll approach their publisher to see if there’s something from it that might work in terms of length, and timing. We make a very deliberate effort to engage translation. To that end we have editors at TLR who are focused on soliciting and evaluating works in translation. We’ve definitely found that it’s not a genre of literature that just arrives in the slush pile; we have to reach out for it.

 

On rights to publish translations.

Minna: Most literary magazines are even more under-resourced than small presses and so most of us ask translators to only approach us with projects that they have the rights to – or projects in which they have the author’s permission already to send out for publication. If translators don’t have their permissions in order, most magazines won’t be able to publish. This is very different from how publishing translations work with a book publisher, because in all cases it is the responsibility of the book publisher to seek out and acquire translation publishing rights. Lit mags are the only publishing entity that asks translators to do that work. (Explaining this structure to a room full of seasoned translators can cause gasps of dismay and outrage.) But lit mags for the most part do not have the money or legal experience to deal with translation rights, so that’s how it is. It’s a good idea anyway for translators who are doing a translation for love (rather than under contract – where they don’t have the serial rights anyway) to know the situation with the rights so they don’t spend time on a project that’s already been promised elsewhere.

 

Do you edit translations?

Jennifer: We accept unsolicited translations, and we also commission translators to render works into English, especially for our Arabic portfolios. All pieces are thoroughly edited from an English-language point of view, and our editors work closely with the translators, and often the authors as well, to arrive at the best possible English-language version.  The collaboration can be somewhat unwieldy, given the multiple people reviewing and consulting, but we find we are still able to retain the author’s original voice and stylistic choices. 

Ann: I definitely edit. I usually feel that my suggestions are consistent with an extrapolatable underlying text, and I am counting on the translator to correct me if not; it is a back-and-forth process. In the case of a living author they often participate.

I have been grateful when translators and publishers from whom I am publishing translated work are willing to excerpt it in ways that purists might challenge (The author didn’t mean for it to end there!), in some rare cases even restructuring work. In the later case, one says, “adapted from” in an author’s note or a credit line. One would ordinarily only do this with a living author. I think that it helps to make the work available to an audience and shows the author in a beneficial light.  When translators are able to step back from what might call a dogmatic allegiance to the original, it can often create good opportunities for the work, in the right hands and under the right circumstances.

 

How do you handle edits if the original was already published in its current form, potentially in a language you can’t read?

Mindy: We recently included Korean translations and conferred with the scholar/translator when small inconsistencies were discovered within her own submissions (some of which had previously appeared in other publications). Rules for languages can vary (and dialect and time period can determine linguistic tradition). Admittedly, these were not “substantial,” but one has to try to check for accuracy so that the translation is true as possible to the original work.

Curtis: When editing translations, even when I don’t read the language – I’m thinking of an Israeli poet I published a few years ago (I don’t read Hebrew) – I listen to the English. If there’s a problem, I usually hear it when I read it out loud. In the case of the Israeli poet, I asked the translator about a few lines that I found problematic, how they were constructed in Hebrew and the choices she made in her translation. That evolved into a more focussed conversation about grammar and metaphor (the metaphor in the poem seemed odd, and I wondered if it was “odd” in the original, too; it wasn’t), and ultimately the translator resolved the “oddity” that I heard. I guess what I’m getting at here is that I read the poems and stories and consider their complexities and nuances in English first; if something catches my attention, I mark it as a point for a conversation about the text; that conversation usually leads to a conversation about translation choices and requires that we look at the source text and the translation.

 

Have you taken risks on a translated work that would be unlikely to be published as a book?

Ann: Certainly. I have often excerpted pieces that are strong on their own when I had reservations about the whole. In cases like that I think I am giving the translator a leg up! Publishing a book is a much bigger financial gamble than including a piece in a literary magazine, but seeing that some of a translation has been published before may help to give a book editor confidence, and suggest some ideas about how an editorial process might bring out the text’s strengths.

Curtis: Of course. I think that’s the only way that “unlikely to be published” piece will eventually find its way into book form; new authors and translators needs exposure. They have to start somewhere, and I’m willing to consider work that may never find its way into book form.

 

When publishing translations, do you focus on a particular language or region?

Jennifer: The Common publishes work in all genres with a strong sense of place. It has led us to include a wide variety of international works from more than 16 languages over the last 10 years. Recently, we have begun to highlight translated works in place-specific portfolios. For example, in fall 2018, we published a 100-page portfolio of works from Puerto Rico, the majority written in Spanish and translated into English, to mark one year after Hurricane Maria.  We have also developed a particular focus on translating and publishing contemporary Arabic fiction. For six years now, I have worked with prominent Jordanian writer Hisham Bustani to select, translate, edit and publish works from the Arab world. In 2016, we published TAJDEED (Renewal), entirely devoted to contemporary fiction from the Arab world, representing 26 writers from 15 countries. This momentum has continued so that we are publishing a special portfolio of works translated from Arabic every spring – in 2018, we published a portfolio from Jordan; and in 2019 we are just about to release our Syria portfolio in Issue 17.

We are currently putting together a call for submissions for Lusophone portfolio, works from and about the Lusosphere – Portuguese-speaking countries and their diaspora. We’ve found these portfolios not only allow us to publish a diverse array of writers, but help us find new readers. These issues are also very popular among teachers who use our The Common in the Classroom program.

 

Do you hold translations to a different standard than originals?

Curtis: I don’t think so. I hold both to a very high standard. 

Ann: No. I expect translations to hold up as a literary experience: they don’t get a pass because they are translations.

 

Do you have any other advice for translators submitting to magazines?

Ann: Only, please do it! It seems so valuable to me. Try to identify sections that are free-standing and give the editor a choice. Offer to provide more if they want. 

Curtis: Yes! Be open to a conversation with editors about multiple aspects of the work. I often encounter translators who are unwilling to engage in a conversation about polysemy. That’s one of the things I love most about translations, so I often ask translators to reconsider word choice and syntax.

Minna: Keep an eye out for literary magazines that publish work in translation and submit to the ones you like best. Tell the translators that TLR loves work in translation. 

Mindy: Think of it as a process of literary outreach, and discovery for readers.

 

Some of the comments above were made as part of a panel about literary magazines at the 2019 Society of Authors Translators Association Symposium. A big thank you to Ruth Martin, who is co-chair of the Translators Association and translates from the German herself, for inviting us and for facilitating this discussion at the symposium. And thank you to all the editors for sharing their experiences and agreeing, after the fact, to us posting their illuminating comments on our website. This article originally appeared on our website in 2019 and has been edited and shortened in its current form.

Why Translators Should Publish in Literary Journals Read More »

New SAND Art Editor Ruhi P. Amin joined the team with an exciting new vision and identity for the artistic direction of the journal. As a British-Indian artist, chef, and writer (in that order), Ruhi was born in London, spent four years in Paris studying Fine Arts, and has performed and had her work exhibited in multiple shows in Paris, London, Brussels, and Berlin. She is also the co-creator of Berlin-based artists’ and writers’ collective Slanted House.

Ruhi is inspired by a range of artists from 18th century masters to contemporary creators such as Tracy Emin, Rashid Johnson, Sophie Calle, Albert Oehlen, Yoko Ono, Mariechen Danz, and Joseph Beuys, particularly his blackboard drawings. “If I had to name one artist who will always hold a place in my heart, it’s Francisco Goya,” Ruhi says. ”His black and white drawings (especially the one of Don Quixote) are forever etched in my memory, some of the most beautiful artwork I’ve ever discovered.”

And she’s looking for a similar range in the work that artists submit to SAND. Ruhi says, “Sometimes I find that artwork is overly complicated and over-thought. There is a wonderful simplicity in executing a good idea through honesty.” She encourages SAND submitters to show her “something real and different – something I don’t know.” Conceptually, she’s open, whether the work is political, experimental, text and painting, or sketches, which she “LOVES” (in all caps). Ruhi “strongly” encourages “sculptors and performance artists to send in stills and images of their work” as well. “We need to see more of a variety of mediums,” she says, “and particularly performance, which in our current social and political climate is proving to be one of the most powerful”.

Ruhi is especially interested in artists whose stories are expressed through their art. “When looking for intriguing artwork,” she says, “I’m drawn to the background of the artist, more so than the aesthetic and materiality of the piece itself. If an artist is able to beautifully combine a conceptual structure with history and personality and choose their medium well, then I believe the piece will be a success.” It is also important to her that artists of color and artists from the LGBTQ+ communities are elevated since these stories are especially important to share and show.


SAND submissions of visual art, fiction, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and translations are open until January 5th, 2020. All formats and mediums of visual art are accepted, including illustration, painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and images of installments and performance art. Read our submissions guidelines and send in your very best work here.

Meet Our Art Editor Read More »