In 1968, French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes famously declared, “…the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.” It is now 2011, and if any news of the online literary journal > Kill author has made its way to Barthes; he may be smiling, slightly, in his grave.
> Kill author is an online literary journal that publishes new fiction and poetry every two months in issues dedicated to an array of deceased writers (previously recognized writers include Kurt Vonnegut, Flannery O’Connor, and Raymond Carver.) The site has recently been named 2010 Website of the Year by 3:AM Magazine, and has been listed as one of the “Top Ten Lit Mags You Should be Reading” by Flavorwire. However, it is > Kill author’s notable reverence toward Mr. Barthes that makes them truly stand out in the fast growing garden of online publications. Sporting the above quotation at the footer of their website, > Kill author has vowed to keep its editors anonymous. An explanation found on the site reads, “…we believe that an over-familiarity with the personalities and egos behind a literary journal can have a negative impact both on a reader’s ability to objectively appreciate the fiction and poetry he or she finds published on its pages, and on writers submitting their work, who may find themselves unduly influenced by the stature (or notoriety) of the editorial team lurking behind the scenes, rather than considering the style, tone and approach of the publication itself.”
Though Barthes himself would likely have some sharp criticism regarding all that is modern in literature, >Kill author has managed to tip their hats in his direction, while gaining well deserved notoriety and a strong following of readers and authors, all while staying true to their vows of anonymity. Though we may never know whose minds are behind the thriving publication, I was at least able to get in a few words with the ghosts that make it happen.
> Kill author is an online literary journal that publishes new fiction and poetry every two months in issues dedicated to an array of deceased writers (previously recognized writers include Kurt Vonnegut, Flannery O’Connor, and Raymond Carver.) The site has recently been named 2010 Website of the Year by 3:AM Magazine, and has been listed as one of the “Top Ten Lit Mags You Should be Reading” by Flavorwire. However, it is > Kill author’s notable reverence toward Mr. Barthes that makes them truly stand out in the fast growing garden of online publications. Sporting the above quotation at the footer of their website, > Kill author has vowed to keep its editors anonymous. An explanation found on the site reads, “…we believe that an over-familiarity with the personalities and egos behind a literary journal can have a negative impact both on a reader’s ability to objectively appreciate the fiction and poetry he or she finds published on its pages, and on writers submitting their work, who may find themselves unduly influenced by the stature (or notoriety) of the editorial team lurking behind the scenes, rather than considering the style, tone and approach of the publication itself.”
Though Barthes himself would likely have some sharp criticism regarding all that is modern in literature, >Kill author has managed to tip their hats in his direction, while gaining well deserved notoriety and a strong following of readers and authors, all while staying true to their vows of anonymity. Though we may never know whose minds are behind the thriving publication, I was at least able to get in a few words with the ghosts that make it happen.
Greg Dybec: Who are you? I’m kidding, of course. I love the anonymity and the modern acknowledgement of Roland Barthes. You have received an abundance of positive publicity recently. Does the thought of revealing yourselves ever become tempting?
> Kill author: First, thanks for the compliments. That means a lot. Even though we've been around for nearly 18 months, some still don't get the whole anonymity thing - why we do it, what it's all about. That's fine - we can't expect everyone to like it. But when people do get it and go beyond just a, "hey, cool lit mag" reaction, we perform a little dance in front of our mirror.
About the "big reveal." We're only human, so there have been times when we've wanted to drop the anon. As much as it's a great feeling consistently putting together issues we're really proud of and can congratulate ourselves about in the privacy of our secret Batcave, when people out there react positively to what we do we sometimes want to shout, "THAT'S US! LOOK AT US! WE DID THAT!" We haven't succumbed to temptation (yet) because we still genuinely believe in our reasons for being anonymous.
People seem to love celebrity culture, even in the relatively small world of indie / online lit – we don't. We saw more and more literary magazines increasingly being about the identities of the editors instead of what they published, what the magazine stood for, and we decided to react against it. Whether we've had an effect, we're not sure. For now, we're going to continue our small crusade and hope all those readers and writers who like what we do and approve of the anonymity (or, more realistically, aren't bothered either way) continue to climb aboard.
We'll tell you a secret though. One day, if and when we give up > kill author, then we'll likely come out of the shadows and take our final bow.
GD: One thing I credit your site for is that it has a strong sense of humor. How important do you think it is for online literary journals to establish a consistent personality?
>Ka: Completely. For a literary magazine – online or print – to have a recognizable personality is everything, otherwise it becomes just a whole bunch of fiction and poetry that the editors liked and put together in a collection. That's fine as far as it goes - it obviously reveals something of the magazine's personality via the editorial choices - but we think there's so much potential for magazines to travel further down this road.
We've said before that when we were planning > kill author, the journals we were inspired by were those where even though the editors were named, they were just a part of their publication's whole personality. The editors weren't the most important thing about the magazine – the magazine itself was. So we had in mind places like PANK, elimae, Robot Melon, Dogzplot, My Name is Mud. More recently there's been Lies/Isle and, in print, Artifice.
As we're anonymous editors, we think it's even more important to stamp a personality on what we produce, because there are no names and no faces you can relate to – so when we think about how > kill author comes across there's the definite touches of humor, but there's also the sharpness, and the feeling that while we take ourselves seriously we don't always need to be serious about it. We also think we have a sense of "attitude" – which is different from ATTITUDE. Do you know what we mean? We think it's good to have a bit of attitude, but we don't feel the need to SHOUT ABOUT IT and endlessly mention how DANGEROUS and EDGY we are – behavior like that always feels like a noisy hyperactive kid screaming in your ear about wanting attention.
> Kill author: First, thanks for the compliments. That means a lot. Even though we've been around for nearly 18 months, some still don't get the whole anonymity thing - why we do it, what it's all about. That's fine - we can't expect everyone to like it. But when people do get it and go beyond just a, "hey, cool lit mag" reaction, we perform a little dance in front of our mirror.
About the "big reveal." We're only human, so there have been times when we've wanted to drop the anon. As much as it's a great feeling consistently putting together issues we're really proud of and can congratulate ourselves about in the privacy of our secret Batcave, when people out there react positively to what we do we sometimes want to shout, "THAT'S US! LOOK AT US! WE DID THAT!" We haven't succumbed to temptation (yet) because we still genuinely believe in our reasons for being anonymous.
People seem to love celebrity culture, even in the relatively small world of indie / online lit – we don't. We saw more and more literary magazines increasingly being about the identities of the editors instead of what they published, what the magazine stood for, and we decided to react against it. Whether we've had an effect, we're not sure. For now, we're going to continue our small crusade and hope all those readers and writers who like what we do and approve of the anonymity (or, more realistically, aren't bothered either way) continue to climb aboard.
We'll tell you a secret though. One day, if and when we give up > kill author, then we'll likely come out of the shadows and take our final bow.
GD: One thing I credit your site for is that it has a strong sense of humor. How important do you think it is for online literary journals to establish a consistent personality?
>Ka: Completely. For a literary magazine – online or print – to have a recognizable personality is everything, otherwise it becomes just a whole bunch of fiction and poetry that the editors liked and put together in a collection. That's fine as far as it goes - it obviously reveals something of the magazine's personality via the editorial choices - but we think there's so much potential for magazines to travel further down this road.
We've said before that when we were planning > kill author, the journals we were inspired by were those where even though the editors were named, they were just a part of their publication's whole personality. The editors weren't the most important thing about the magazine – the magazine itself was. So we had in mind places like PANK, elimae, Robot Melon, Dogzplot, My Name is Mud. More recently there's been Lies/Isle and, in print, Artifice.
As we're anonymous editors, we think it's even more important to stamp a personality on what we produce, because there are no names and no faces you can relate to – so when we think about how > kill author comes across there's the definite touches of humor, but there's also the sharpness, and the feeling that while we take ourselves seriously we don't always need to be serious about it. We also think we have a sense of "attitude" – which is different from ATTITUDE. Do you know what we mean? We think it's good to have a bit of attitude, but we don't feel the need to SHOUT ABOUT IT and endlessly mention how DANGEROUS and EDGY we are – behavior like that always feels like a noisy hyperactive kid screaming in your ear about wanting attention.
GD: Barthes focused heavily on the impression left on a reader by the written word, as opposed to the reader’s previous knowledge of the author affecting their interpretations and overall reading experience. In terms of stories and submissions you receive, what do you find most often leaves a memorable impression on you?
>Ka:You said it. Or Barthes did. It's the impression left on us by the written word – often by the language more than the story or the theme of the poem – which really hooks us in. It's impossible for any editors to say "we're looking for THIS" and be a hundred per cent definite about it, so we're not even going to start trying, but language with a sense of otherness about it is frequently important. It's when we read work that frequently makes us stop to re-read certain lines, certain phrases, put our dropped jaws back in place and think, "Where the hell did THAT come from?" – those moments are the ones we look for. Even then, we might not accept a piece if it's about ideas or themes that we're not keen on (in short: pastoral poetry, stories set among yet more eloquent drunks in bars, childhood reminiscences), but we'll be sure to let the submitter know that we liked their skill with the written word.
And what we just said? You can take note of it just as much as disregarding it too, because we've sometimes published long and quite conventionally told stories – which people might think aren't typical > kill author style - set in many of the situations we've said we don't like. When we did it was because the writing style and the language grabbed our attention and fired up our imagination.
GD: You have recently been listed as one of the “Top Ten Lit Mags You Should be Reading” by flavorwire. Congratulations on the success and recognition. Any words of advice for other online publications that may be just starting off?
>Ka: We don't want to repeat ourselves, but it's what we've been talking about in the previous answers. Have some firm ideas about the personality you want your whole publication to put across. Don't just rely on your own personality as editors to do it for you. This next statement might seem a bit too strong and too dismissive of some fine publications, but if you just want to put together a lit mag because you like publishing people's writing and want to have a go at editing a journal, is that really enough to sustain your venture? In a very crowded field, how will that come across to readers in a way other than, "Oh here's another one…send us your best shot and we'll maybe publish some of them”? Does that excite you and make you want to get involved? Because it doesn't excite us.
Another thing: we know some people hate them and think they're pretentious, but consider having a manifesto in which you can tell people what you stand for and why you're different from the rest.
Thinking about your magazine's personality involves everything about it too – the name, what you write on your "about" page and in your submission guidelines, how you illustrate your publication if you're using images. We're convinced that design is vital too – the typography you use, the background colors, the layout. Until recently, there's sometimes been a feeling that the only important thing is the words, and people will read them if they're in a bright purple 8pt serif font on a black background, with titles all in huge flashing emerald green letters. They won't. The punk aesthetics’ fine if that's what you really want, but the web has moved on and got more sophisticated, meaning that some of those edgy don't-give-a-fuck-cos-we're-punks designs just end up looking like shit. We're really glad to finally see some online lit journals thinking about this and going beyond the default Blogger or Wordpress styles. The design is a huge part of your publication's personality, so our final piece of advice would be to get to know a friendly, sympathetic design geek and an expert coder if you can't do it yourself.
>Ka:You said it. Or Barthes did. It's the impression left on us by the written word – often by the language more than the story or the theme of the poem – which really hooks us in. It's impossible for any editors to say "we're looking for THIS" and be a hundred per cent definite about it, so we're not even going to start trying, but language with a sense of otherness about it is frequently important. It's when we read work that frequently makes us stop to re-read certain lines, certain phrases, put our dropped jaws back in place and think, "Where the hell did THAT come from?" – those moments are the ones we look for. Even then, we might not accept a piece if it's about ideas or themes that we're not keen on (in short: pastoral poetry, stories set among yet more eloquent drunks in bars, childhood reminiscences), but we'll be sure to let the submitter know that we liked their skill with the written word.
And what we just said? You can take note of it just as much as disregarding it too, because we've sometimes published long and quite conventionally told stories – which people might think aren't typical > kill author style - set in many of the situations we've said we don't like. When we did it was because the writing style and the language grabbed our attention and fired up our imagination.
GD: You have recently been listed as one of the “Top Ten Lit Mags You Should be Reading” by flavorwire. Congratulations on the success and recognition. Any words of advice for other online publications that may be just starting off?
>Ka: We don't want to repeat ourselves, but it's what we've been talking about in the previous answers. Have some firm ideas about the personality you want your whole publication to put across. Don't just rely on your own personality as editors to do it for you. This next statement might seem a bit too strong and too dismissive of some fine publications, but if you just want to put together a lit mag because you like publishing people's writing and want to have a go at editing a journal, is that really enough to sustain your venture? In a very crowded field, how will that come across to readers in a way other than, "Oh here's another one…send us your best shot and we'll maybe publish some of them”? Does that excite you and make you want to get involved? Because it doesn't excite us.
Another thing: we know some people hate them and think they're pretentious, but consider having a manifesto in which you can tell people what you stand for and why you're different from the rest.
Thinking about your magazine's personality involves everything about it too – the name, what you write on your "about" page and in your submission guidelines, how you illustrate your publication if you're using images. We're convinced that design is vital too – the typography you use, the background colors, the layout. Until recently, there's sometimes been a feeling that the only important thing is the words, and people will read them if they're in a bright purple 8pt serif font on a black background, with titles all in huge flashing emerald green letters. They won't. The punk aesthetics’ fine if that's what you really want, but the web has moved on and got more sophisticated, meaning that some of those edgy don't-give-a-fuck-cos-we're-punks designs just end up looking like shit. We're really glad to finally see some online lit journals thinking about this and going beyond the default Blogger or Wordpress styles. The design is a huge part of your publication's personality, so our final piece of advice would be to get to know a friendly, sympathetic design geek and an expert coder if you can't do it yourself.
GD: Since your identities remain anonymous, I take it you won’t mind me asking you to share the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you. I don’t know how many of you there are, so pick the best story.
>Ka: How about something literary? When one of the editors was about ten years old, they won a poetry competition with an epic sixteen-verse poem commemorating an important event in the history of their backwater hometown. They were praised by so many residents and even had a report and photo in the local newspaper. Only now can the truth finally be told: our young editor wasn't the author of the poem. They asked their older teenage cousin to write the poem in their place. This cousin decided to get his revenge by making the poem so bad, so really really bad - rhyming "pistol" with "whistle" as just one example – that even the ten year old knew it was terrible. But it still won the top prize, and then our unfortunate editor had to face the growing embarrassment of reading it at local events – again and again and again – for a whole year.
This editor isn't keen on literary readings now, that's all we're saying.
GD: Do you ever fear that due to the sites lack of editorial profile and bias, that the publicity, recognition of your writers, and overall reputation as a strong literary magazine may ultimately take over as an identity in itself, with an assumed ego and stature, causing the same influence over authors and distraction to readers that you try to avoid?
>Ka: This is unlikely to be a problem until the day > kill author reaches Paris Review status – and that's just not going to happen. We're probably aiming more for "mainstream cult status" – we'd like to still see ourselves as a place not everyone gets, not everyone understands, a bit out on the margins, but which still has a readership wide enough to take it beyond just those people who read and submit to literary magazines. And if your scenario did happen - somehow the "brand" of > kill author became the story in itself, getting a drug addiction, having an affair with a pneumatic porn star and developing a raging TV-trashing ego - then we'd only have two options. The first would be to take > kill author out back and shoot it dead. Brutal, quick and simple. The second would be to reveal we're really a bunch of unimpressive non-entities – news like that would soon deflate the rampant > kill author ego as everybody stared at us and mouthed "WHO?"
Of course, there's nothing to say that we aren't a bunch of unimpressive non-entities. But you'll just have to keep on wondering, won't you?
Check out the most recent issue of > Kill author HERE.
>Ka: How about something literary? When one of the editors was about ten years old, they won a poetry competition with an epic sixteen-verse poem commemorating an important event in the history of their backwater hometown. They were praised by so many residents and even had a report and photo in the local newspaper. Only now can the truth finally be told: our young editor wasn't the author of the poem. They asked their older teenage cousin to write the poem in their place. This cousin decided to get his revenge by making the poem so bad, so really really bad - rhyming "pistol" with "whistle" as just one example – that even the ten year old knew it was terrible. But it still won the top prize, and then our unfortunate editor had to face the growing embarrassment of reading it at local events – again and again and again – for a whole year.
This editor isn't keen on literary readings now, that's all we're saying.
GD: Do you ever fear that due to the sites lack of editorial profile and bias, that the publicity, recognition of your writers, and overall reputation as a strong literary magazine may ultimately take over as an identity in itself, with an assumed ego and stature, causing the same influence over authors and distraction to readers that you try to avoid?
>Ka: This is unlikely to be a problem until the day > kill author reaches Paris Review status – and that's just not going to happen. We're probably aiming more for "mainstream cult status" – we'd like to still see ourselves as a place not everyone gets, not everyone understands, a bit out on the margins, but which still has a readership wide enough to take it beyond just those people who read and submit to literary magazines. And if your scenario did happen - somehow the "brand" of > kill author became the story in itself, getting a drug addiction, having an affair with a pneumatic porn star and developing a raging TV-trashing ego - then we'd only have two options. The first would be to take > kill author out back and shoot it dead. Brutal, quick and simple. The second would be to reveal we're really a bunch of unimpressive non-entities – news like that would soon deflate the rampant > kill author ego as everybody stared at us and mouthed "WHO?"
Of course, there's nothing to say that we aren't a bunch of unimpressive non-entities. But you'll just have to keep on wondering, won't you?
Check out the most recent issue of > Kill author HERE.
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