Interview with Rusty Barnes

Night Train Magazine: Read It Now!

Editor, poet and writer of fiction. Like most of us in the literature racket, Rusty Barnes wears many hats. He is the co-founding editor of Night Train Magazine, hosts numerous literary blogs, and is busy revising his novel. Still, though, he found the time to answer our questions about the business of literary magazines. Sidestepping inquiries into what makes a story unique, or which types of fiction he prefers, this interview focuses on the schematics of literary publishing, Web versus print journals, and when, if ever, editing a literary magazine is a rational endeavor.

Dark Sky Magazine: Night Train publishes quarterly issues online and then collects them in an annual print issue. How has the online reading community influenced the way, and how often, you publish Night Train?

Rusty Barnes: I should clarify part of your question: It was always my intent to publish spiffy vita-worthy annual print issues, but between having another kid and troubles with my own health I have not yet managed to do so. Best intentions and all that, but I don’t see annual print issues happening soon, or at all, honestly. I will say I intend to do a ten-year anniversary anthology in 2012, a greatest hits sort of thing.

The online community hasn’t affected Night Train’s point of view on the way we publish—if I like it, the piece goes in, generally—but certainly the journal’s done well with occasional author interviews as well as gained significant traffic through our weekly Firebox fiction. Social networking—I came to it a little late, sadly—gives us really incredible traffic. We double and sometimes triple our normal traffic just through short announcements on Goodreads and Facebook and Myspace. If I had enough patience to Twitter, that would help too, but besides being impatient, I’m embarrassed to use a service with such a stupid fucking name. There’s no dignified way to say you Twitter, so I simply ignore the whole phenomenon.

A Collection of Flash Fiction From Rusty Barnes

When we went online originally, I had planned on becoming a quarterly journal, but life circumstances again interrupted. From now on, I’m going to publish a new issue whenever we get 10-15 good stories and a roughly equal number of good poems. I expect it’ll round out to two or three issues per calendar year.

DSM: What are the advantages of using an online model?

RB: Print is expensive. It took us 5-7000 dollars to do right by a print issue, and raising that kind of cash regularly took attitude and skills I simply don’t possess. It took me a long time to realize I wouldn’t be able to shoehorn myself into a fundraiser’s role. During our exclusively print years, I had significant help in that area, and we survived, even prospered, inasmuch as litmags ever do.

Now that we’ve downscaled our staff severely AND become an online journal, publishing life has become much easier and honestly, much more fun for me. As well, the change to online-only has allowed us to reach more potential readers and to better fulfill our mission as a non-profit organization. Going online was a win-win situation. I wish in some ways we had begun online, but Rod Siino and I had grand print plans. While we fell short on some elements and readjusted on the fly, I’m confident we’re going to be around for a long time to come.

DSM: Aside from mere survival, what factors determine a literary magazine’s success?

RB:

* Good word of mouth support.
* Consistent editorial guidance.
* Excellent support staff (I wish I could name them all, but people significant to NT’s continued growth and success over the years include Cami Park, Alicia Gifford, Zett Aguado, Susan Henderson, and Tom Jackson).
* Fighting off ennui (before we streamlined, we turned over 8-10 associate editors every year).
* Excellent visibility or brand-building, if you will.

DSM: Can a traditional print magazine move online and still be successful? Are there different principles at work? What are they?

Check Out the Night Train Website

RB: The short answer is yes, they can. The long answer is, unless they have a significant and consistent fund-raising presence, they’re eventually going to be forced to go online. I believe that belt-tightening universities—where most litmags are at least partially sponsored—are going to trim what doesn’t make them money. If so, many markets will convert or die. I guarandamntee that every uni-sponsored and non-profit litmag in the country is thinking about their eventual conversion, if only in the abstract.

Right now I can see only one principle that differs. Literary fiction writers and poets often double as university teachers, stuck in the publish-for-tenure hamster wheel. They need publications with cachet or other national renown, and right now, that cachet is strongly in the print camp (still). But it won’t be that way forever.

DSM: What challenges do online literary magazines face that traditional print magazines do not?

RB:

* Getting any notice at all. Print journals can be fetishized. Mmmm, nice new paper smell. Right now, pixels don’t have the same bouquet.
* Avoiding a reputation as a fly-by-night journal in constant danger of disappearing. Although print journals can disappear as quickly.

DSM: What can you say about the responsibilities of a literary magazine editor? Do editors of online journals have different, or more, responsibilities? If so, why?

RB: I don’t know if I can say anything useful or interesting on this subject. People know what litmag editors do, generally. I will say that the online editor immediately becomes semi-experienced in building and maintaining Web sites or finds friends who are better than themselves.

DSM: How influential should an editor’s literary tastes be in determining the work he publishes?

RB: If there are many editors, publishing becomes a matter of consensus, which is difficult to come by. Now, as we’ve streamlined, I’m responsible for all the poetry decisions and the majority of the fiction decisions at NT. If I like a piece, it goes in. But, having someone like Alicia Gifford, who is my fiction editor, is invaluable, because she will steer me straight on a night I’m not reading as carefully as I ordinarily might, and if she advocates for a story I don’t like at first, I know her judgment is as good as mine, so I think more carefully about the piece. I think the editor should be the guiding force. I’ve edited by committee and solo, and with no disrespect intended to the incredible writers I’ve worked with at NT and elsewhere, I prefer solo. I trust me more.

Rusty's Appalachian Literature Blogazine

DSM: You and I have both stated our allegiance to Richard Yates and Andre Dubus. But what about new writers? Have you come across any writers online that readers should investigate?

RB: This is the benefit of being online, printing writers before they get their huge advances, free Maseratis and premium weed (cough). Otherwise, there are people on this list well-known in some quarters but not really at all nationally. I could name forty dozen, honestly. Writes and poets I’ve looked for in recent days: Nicolle Elizabeth, Merle Drown, Mike Schiavone, Kim Chinquee (former NT fiction editor), Jennifer Knox, Kathy Rooney, Elissa Gabbert, Curt Smith, Arlene Ang, Larry Fondation, Laura Payne Butler. I tend to look for the people I’ve published first, it becomes clear as I write my list.

DSM: What will the lasting impact of the Web be on the craft of writing? Are writers better for it?

RB: I’ve published a hundred stories or so, the majority of them on the Web. I know I have readers online, because they write and tell me about it, or leave me comments, or show their interest by visiting my blogs and Web site. As fine as the print magazines Post Road and Red Rock Review and the twenty or so others I’ve landed in print mags are, I don’t know if anybody even read my stories and poems.

DSM: Fund raising is a tiresome, consistent hardship. Online ad sales are stagnant. What can a literary magazine do to sustain itself?

RB: Go online. Pray. Make lots of connections, shake many and disparate hands, work the conferences and the small press events. Don’t expect to ever make money. In fact, give up before you start if you think it’s a money-making deal. Be willing to change and adapt quickly. Print content more than two or three or four times per year.

DSM: Editing a literary magazine is time consuming. Do you still have time to write? If so, what are you working on currently?

Night Train Issue II In The Print

RB: I do, in bits and scraps of time. I have a novel I finished a year ago on which I’m doing some revisions theoretically—must work more—and I have a chapbook of poems and a full-length ms of poems out in the contest circuit. I think I’ll have a collection of stories out within a year or so, but I’m not really thinking about that right now.

DSM: What are you thinking about, in regards to editing and writing?

RB: Right now, I’m pretty much sold on the idea of not doing anything else but revising/rewriting the novel. Forcing myself, in other words. I’ve let it go too long. As far as editing goes, I’m simply doing what I do, reading submissions and prepping for the new NT issue, which should be out around 9/15. After this novel is improved to my satisfaction, I have a couple ideas about a new one that I need to prepare and research a little.

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Rusty Barnes grew up in rural northern Appalachia. He received his B.A. from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Emerson College. Several years after editing fiction for the Beacon Street Review (now Redivider) during graduate school, he co-founded Night Train, which has been featured in the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and on National Public Radio. He taught writing and literature at Emerson College and Northeastern University for over ten years, and has published poetry, non-fiction, interviews, and fiction in many journals and newspapers. He is currently a fiction instructor at Grub Street.

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Editor’s Note: Rusty Barnes hosts a variety of blogs and Web sites. See the links below to read more about him and to view his work.

Web site — Rusty Barnes
Literary Journal — Night Train Magazine
Appalachian Fiction — Fried Chicken and Coffee
Poetry — Live Nude Poems