Blog #14--The Collagist

1.        The Collagist takes submissions in the form of poems, fiction, non-fiction, book reviews, and book excerpts.  The submission page states that it will take non-fiction that has not been previously published and is “on a variety of personal, political, and literary subjects” but with seemingly no word limit.  The current issue has 2 essays of non-fiction by the same author—who is a female, or a male with breasts—which were mentioned in the essay—hard to determine the gender of the author from the first name or the content. The length of the current two non-fiction essays is approximately 500 words to about 900 words (though other submissions in the current issue were as long as 5,500 words—the fiction section's submissions were between 1,000 and 3,700 words). 

2.       It’s kind of tough to determine the niche for this publication.  The stories were kind of “out there” and all over the place in terms of subject and, to be quite honest, I didn’t understand a couple of the essays in the fiction section.  In the "about" section it states that it seeks “powerful, progressive literature by both new and established writers to an ever-expanding audience” of readers.  So, anything goes to anyone willing to read it.  Also, the publisher, Dzanc Books, is a non-profit and wants to “champion those writers who do not fit neatly into the marketing niches of for-profit presses.”  If I had to make an educated guess, I’d call this publication avant-garde, since it’s so out there and doesn't fit a typical marketing niche. 

3.       Both of the non-fiction essays presented in the current issue are personal in nature.  The shorter of the two essays is titled “Since You’ve Been Gone” about a personal journey through places around the globe and attempts at alternative medicine.  It reminded me of “Eat, Pray, Love” in a way, since it had the air of a free spirit.  It was done in one single paragraph, albeit in a long single paragraph form.  This long paragraph reminded me of a run-on sentence and of “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, which had one sentence in it that lasted about a page and a half.  At least this essay had periods to stop the sentences.  I would consider this a serious reflection by the author, as it had many personal events shared within the story, like who he/she dated. 

The longer essay was titled “Out of Body” and relays an out of body experience while going through chemo therapy.  The voice of the essay makes me think that the story is being told about someone who relayed this story to the author, as it is not done in the first person, and the word "you" is used a lot for the first words in each paragraph.  This also would be considered a serious reflection, though about someone else, perhaps a loved one.  

I thought the shorter essay had a strange form with just the one 532 word paragraph.  The longer essay had no segments, just paragraph form and extremely short paragraphs at that, like 2 sentences each, with a couple of exceptions.  

As for the artistry of The Collagist, well, I’d give it a 2+ since both essays were interesting narratives and were well written, though not necessarily to my liking. 

There is no information on the website to indicate that there is any form of payment, either to be charged to submit or to be paid when an article is published.  As a non-profit, I would have thought there would be a nominal charge.  I went so far as to submit my "Painted Moons" piece to see if there was a hidden charge that would pop up prior to submission, but nothing happened, so I have submitted my first piece.

Reading dates:  Two periods through the year—March 1st through August 31st and October 1st through January 31st. 

Manuscript requirements:  attached as an attached file.  

In terms of male or female writer dominance: there is none and seems fairly equal.