Source: Susan Jackson Rodgers, 785-532-2183, suejack@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Jessica Grant, 785-532-6415, jgrant@k-state.edu
Monday, April 28, 2008
K-STATE OFFERING PUBLISHING SEMINAR FEATURING EDITORS FROM LITERARY MAGAZINES
MANHATTAN -- Editors from three top literary magazines will be featured at a Kansas State University seminar on how writers can get their work published.
"Get Published! Tips from Literary Journal Editors" will be at 4 p.m. Tuesday, May 6, in Room 212 of the K-State Student Union. The seminar is free and the public is invited. It is sponsored by K-State's department of English.
Literary journals are often the first publishing venue for writers. Editors will talk about the process of selecting poems, stories and essays for publication, with a question-and-answer session to follow.
"The purpose of the publishing seminar is to offer practical advice to aspiring and emerging writers on how to get their work noticed," said Susan Jackson Rodgers, K-State associate professor of English and director of the creative writing program. "While I've put the panel together for our students in creative writing, I hope people from the university and Manhattan communities will attend.
"It should be a fun event -- a chance for writers to hear from editors and find out what they're looking for and how to best present work for consideration," she said.
The typical trajectory for creative writers is to publish in smaller magazines before going on to publish books or contact agents with book proposals, Jackson Rodgers said.
"The editors are looking forward to talking about their journals and meeting our creative writers," she said. "It's a great opportunity for them to get the word out about the mission and vision of their publications. All three editors are also writers, so they have the perspective of both sides of the table: writing and publishing."
Editors on the panel include:
James Engelhardt, managing editor of Prairie Schooner, a national literary quarterly published with the support of the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Press. Prairie Schooner has been published for more than 80 years and features fiction, poetry, essays and reviews published by beginning, mid-career and established writers.
Engelhardt is a doctoral student in poetry focusing on ecopoetics and place-based education, critical pedagogy and sustainability. He was awarded the initial Susan Atefat Peckham Fellowship and received a Louise VanSickle Fellowship. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including National Bridge and Isotope.
John Gallaher is editor of The Laurel Review, a literary magazine published with the support of GreenTower Press, which operates through funds provided by Northwest Missouri State University, the Missouri Arts Council and the sales of the magazine and chapbooks. The Laurel Review publishes poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction and book reviews twice yearly. Gallaher has published the poetry book "Gentlemen in Turbans, Ladies in Cauls." His book "The Little Books of Guesses" was the winner of the 2005 Levis prize. He has poems in Boston Review, FIELD, Ploughshares and Colorado Review.
Evelyn Somers Rogers is associate editor of The Missouri Review, a literary magazine based at the University of Missouri. The magazine has been around since 1978 and is published four times a year. Each issue contains new fiction, poetry and essays, in addition to interviews with famous authors and found-text features of never before published works like a short story by William Faulkner. Somers Rogers has a master's in creative writing and a doctorate in literature from the University of Missouri. She has been the associate editor of The Missouri Review since 1990, and has published fiction and interviews in several literary journals. In addition to teaching at Missouri, she is a freelance book editor of fiction and nonfiction prose.