A giant H bordered by curly brackets invites the reader into a sleek layout. A revolving banner of arresting visual art looms over the clickable genres before the headline announces, “Hypertext Magazine: 10 years of fiction, essays, poetry, visual art, interviews.” In a time when it’s difficult for journals to stay afloat, the fact alone that Hypertext has been active for a decade is impressive, especially having started right after the recession. But it isn’t just longevity that makes Hypertext a magazine worth your time. Their dual publishing of online and print contains excellent writing, much of which is authored by women.
“Hypertext Magazine opened its virtual doors in 2010. We pride ourselves on publishing first-time published, up-and-coming, and established writers side by side. In other words, we aren’t particularly impressed by padded bios. Our editors live all over the United States – from Chicago to Boston to Los Angeles to Dallas. We think of ourselves as small but scrappy. Most of our editors cut their fictional teeth in the Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department, nurtured by dedicated professors and an innovative teaching approach – an approach that celebrates diverse voices and caters to alternative learning styles – developed by the writer and educator John Schultz.
We’ve published writers from all over the globe and we’re currently looking for writing that presents the world in new and startling ways. We want to see writers take chances, push forms. In fiction and essays, we’re looking for stories written by and about all ages and types of people, stories that change the way we view the world. We’re looking for carefully crafted writing that amazes and inspires.”
I was introduced to Hypertext by West L.A. Chapter Lead Anita Gill. Editor Christine Maul Rice was gracious enough to give thoughtful and extensive answers over email. I hope that many of our members will consider submitting to Hypertext. You’ll be in the company of Elle Nash, Megan Stielstra, Women Who Submit member Wendy C. Ortiz, and many others.
What does a typical day look like for you as Editor of Hypertext?
Our fabulous and dedicated editorial team includes Managing Editor Chelsea Laine Wells and Senior Editors Karen Halvorsen Schreck, Brian Schlender, Amy Crumbaugh, and Associate Editor Sarah Mulroe.
The fiction editors look through our online submissions, discuss pieces that are beautifully-written, vividly seen, uniquely told, compelling, among other elements. As for me, I’m usually working with the writers whose work I’ve solicited for the print journal. If a piece needs revisions, I’m usually working with the writer on those revisions. I also work with our Associate Editor, Sarah Mulroe, to post and copyedit stories. And I’m responsible for updating the website, etc. So, to answer your question, there isn’t a ‘typical’ day. Some days I’m working on graphics for the website, others I’m working on revisions with writers or reading through the slush pile.
Lately, I’ve been getting the print journal together to send to the copyeditor and this process is every bit as exciting as watching paint-dry. Here’s what it involves: arranging the short stories, essays, and poetry in Word (and making sure I have the latest version!) and working with the copyeditor and authors, gathering bios, putting the table of contents together, writing the Editor’s Note, designing the cover, working with the typesetter and printer, and revising the colophon and front matter info. The actual nuts and bolts of putting the print journal together is incredibly tedious but, of course, crucial to publishing a professional literary journal.
And because we’ve never made money on Hypertext Magazine online (sales from our print journal, Hypertext Review, help us almost cover our cost), we earn a living working paying jobs. Our editors work as teachers, librarians, road construction workers, booksellers, freelance writers and editors, etc. And we’re all fiction writers. That’s why we formed the nonprofit Hypertext Magazine & Studio (HMS). Hopefully, once we get funding, we will be able to pay our editorial staff and the writers we publish—at least a small amount. All of our work is done ‘in kind.’ In other words, no one is getting paid. We do this because we love introducing new stories to Hypertext’s audience.
In addition, in 2017, we launched the nonprofit Hypertext Magazine & Studio (HMS). HMS offers social justice writing workshops to divested Chicago-area adults and we publish their work too. So far, we’ve worked with Cabrini Green Legal Aid, St. Leonard’s Ministries, and Above & Beyond Family Recovery Centers and, once we get grant money, we plan on expanding our reach.
What distinguishes an outstanding submission from the rest? What are you looking for in submissions?
It’s hard to qualify what makes a story ‘work.’ For me, there has to be a certain lyricism to the voice and the story has to be well crafted. I also look for stories where something—whether it be grand or small—is at stake. For example, Isaac Babel wrote a story about a child who wanted a dovecot (“The Story of My Dovecot”). The story’s scope, of course, is much deeper and broader and darker than a child’s desire for a dovecot but, in the end, that’s what the action centers around. Christine Sneed wrote a story, published in our last review, about a woman who had a big family (in fact, it’s called “Big Family”) and how people react to her based on this fact. Again, the story is about many things but this fact, in a way, centers the story. It’s the way a writer handles a situation’s nuances that interests me.
I keep this quote on my bulletin board:
“A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”
― Alice Munro, Selected Stories
I love Alice Munro and I also love how her stories always “contain more than you saw the last time.” As an editor, I look for stories that give me more to consider and that keep me off balance (in an organic, well-thought-out way).
What are some steps that you take to make sure you are publishing a diversity of marginalized voices, especially women and non-binary writers?
In 2009, I started Hypertext Magazine to publish more diverse voices—especially Midwestern voices, especially women. Since then, we’ve published writers from all over the United States (and the world). I don’t really have a good answer as to the ‘steps’ I’ve taken (launching a project with the defined purpose of publishing more women has certainly helped!). I generally go to a lot of readings and read a lot of journals and publications and, when I like someone’s work, I contact them. Living in Chicago and having been a teacher at what was once a very diverse college, I feel like I seek out but also genuinely enjoy reading work by diverse writers. So, I suppose it’s not that I seek out diverse voices as much as I seek out excellent work that happens to be written by diverse writers. I know that isn’t a great answer and it probably isn’t the answer you’re looking for but I’ve been really fortunate to have published diverse voices and then, once those voices are published, other writers might feel like, you know, this magazine publishes stories by people like me and maybe I should submit.
Just look at our magazine to see how many women we publish! As far as non-binary writers, I know that I have to seek out excellent work on that front. I do see it as my responsibility to make our publications as diverse as possible and, in that area, I do feel like I’ve fallen short.
Tell us about your vision for the next few years of HyperText. Where would you like to see the journal go?
My dream is to find solid foundation/corporate/government grants so that we can pay our editors, teachers, and the writers we publish. It would be dreamy to be able to hire a full-time executive director who would be able to manage all of the moving parts of Hypertext.
Google Analytics tells me that we get an average of 1500 visitors each month. That’s not bad for a small lit journal but I would like to be even more visible. I would also like our print and online journal to get more recognition by contests. We’re off to a pretty good start thought, an essay in our first print journal was recognized by the Best American Essays series, edited by Hilton Als. BUSTLE.com included us in their “Best Literary Magazines to Subscribe To If You Love Short Stories.”
We are small but mighty. We’ve published emerging as well as established writers and you can find fiction, essays, poetry, and interviews in online and in print. Here are just a few of the over 600 writers you can find in Hypertext: Megan Stielstra, Christine Sneed, Peter Ferry, Patricia Ann McNair, Anya Silver, Desiree Cooper, John McNally, Marcia Aldrich, Donna Miscolta, Ilana Masad, René Steinke, Rebecca Makkai, Peggy Shinner, Jillian Lauren, Chris Bohjalian, Darcey Steinke, Jessie Ann Foley, Wendy C. Ortiz, Joe Meno, Kiese Laymon, Toni Nealie, Emily Gray Tedrowe, Colin Channer, Chloe Benjamin, Elizabeth Gaffney, Luis Jaramillo, Eugene Cross, Jim Gavin, Claire Vaye Watkins, Stephanie Kuehnert, among others.
Christine Rice’s novel Swarm Theory was recently a 2016 Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award finalist, awarded an Independent Publisher Book Award or ‘IPPY’ (Silver for Best First Book), and a National Indie Excellence Award – Winner (Regional Fiction – Midwest). Swarm Theory also made PANK’s Best Books of 2016, was included in Powell’s Books Midyear Roundup, the Best Books of 2016 So Far, and was called “a gripping work of Midwest Gothic” by Michigan Public Radio’s Desiree Cooper (author of the fabulous Know the Mother). Most recently, her short stories have been published in or are forthcoming in MAKE Mag, Longshot Island, BELT’s Rust Belt Anthology, The Literary Review, American University of Beirut’s Rusted Radishes, F Magazine, and online at Roanoke Review, and Bird’s Thumb, among others. Her essays, interviews, and long-form journalism have appeared in Storynews.net, The Rumpus, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Big Smoke, The Millions, the Chicago Tribune, Detroit’s Metro Times, among other publications. Chris recently founded the social justice storytelling nonprofit Hypertext Magazine & Studio.