We’ll soon be featured in the Standout Markets column of Writer’s Digest magazine. Here’s a sneak peak at a few of the interview questions as well as the answers that genre eds Don Bogen and Michael Griffith collaborated on.
What makes a submission to The Cincinnati Review stand out? A combination of boldness and craft, a distinctive energy to both the language and the project as a whole. Also the courage of one’s idiosyncrasy, the willingness to take chances.
What are some common mistakes, either in the submissions process or in the writing process, do you see? Work that seems derivative or easy. Not enough attention to the overall shape of the piece. Work that does the same old things in the sa
me old ways, however competently.
What makes you unique? We don’t publish just one school of work or rely heavily on well known figures, looking instead for distinctive work by both experienced and new writers with a wide range of subjects and perspectives. Change our minds about what fiction or poetry can do or should do. We’re looking for work, as John Berryman put it, that “not only expresses the matter in hand but adds to the stock of available reality.”
