10 Questions with Mike Joyce, Editor in Chief of “Literary Orphans”

Mike Joyce is the founder and Editor in Chief of “Literary Orphans“. We asked him ten questions about their upcoming Irish issue, dream submissions and the business of running an online magazine.

1. What is the decision process behind the themes and titles for Literary Orphans issues and how do these themes influence selection? 

There are two distinct types of issues for LO: our “regular” monthly issues that have no theme, and then our special projects that include a theme. For instance, our last issue (Bo Diddley) was named after the famous orphan musician, yet this did not affect the reading process-stories didn’t need to have a rock-and-roll theme or anything remotely like that. We name all general issues after (nearly) all the pieces have been chosen. This last one (ISSUE 09) we noticed a very Ur rock-and-roll, a very agitated yet jubilant tone among all the pieces. Knowing Bo Diddley and his history, knowing he was an orphan, we selected his name to be honored with the issue.

Other projects have a theme. Notably, the 8th issue was a split issue-half was general fiction and the other half was dedicated to writing by Native American authors.

2. Who are the key influences on the style of Literary Orphans?

In terms of writing: Flannery O’Connor, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Margaret Atwood, David Sedaris, and James Joyce. But this isn’t all that influences us. Individuals from the sociological-sphere have had a huge impact on the mentality of LO. I want to say political individuals, but I hesitate to use that term. We have a very rock-solid, egalitarian vision of society. We believe in altruism, and when I started this project it was with the purpose of making people think about themselves and others through the literary medium, and maybe reflect on their place as privileged or disadvantaged. That being said, we are not big on didacticism-we don’t take pieces that stand on a pulpit and tell you how to think. We don’t think that’s the way to (healthily) learn through literature.

We like pieces that make the sociological personal. Pieces that take a character through mental brambles, pieces that show us a struggle with a couple growing to accept their handicapped son. We take pieces that have miserable anti-heroes and show us who not to be. We take pieces that have shining heroes with Mormon smiles who show us how not to be. Here, in Chicago, we love the underdog-the little guy the everywoman and the everyman the guy with the chip on his shoulder but the tenacity to persevere, the ones trying to make it in the dog-eat-dog society our world is increasingly becoming. That woman, on the corner of Madison Street and State. missing her lower jaw and her nose, with her face looking like it was punched in, with the Dunkin’ Donuts change cup-people like her influence this journal.

3. To me, the Literary Orphans website is pitched as an analogue magazine in a digital form. Could you expand on that idea?

I can see where you get that impression. I think there is a (slowly diminishing) feeling that people have regarding websites in general, that they are an “inferior” media to publish original work. When we think of online publishing, we think of kittens, we think of vanity blogs, we think of selfies, we think of garbage that doesn’t address serious issues. We feel that paper is somehow more permanent and therefore more worthy. I dislike this concept, and want it to die. I get an eyebrow twinge when I hear another editor talk like they are ashamed of being digital. Hey, listen, we can reach more people and do more with the digital form. We’re only just getting started.

That said, the reason people knee-jerk think of the kittens and the cupcake blogs is because there is a lot of that about. A lot. I don’t think whether I wear a suit should effect whether you think I’m a worthy person to talk to, but if it takes the suit to make you stop and have a gander, I’ll wear it. Maybe with it I can change some minds. That’s the reason the approach to the magazine might be seen as styled as print. We take the analog suit and wear it to the digital riot.

5. Why an Irish issue?

A large part of the reason this Irish issue is coming out, is because every which way I turned I was getting slapped in the face with Ireland. It came first when I watched an interview with Colum McCann via Charlie Rose. Then my old man calls me up and I go to the Irish-American Heritage Center here in Chicago to listen to Tim Pat Coogan and Robert Ballagh speak in a panel about Seamus Heaney and Tim Pat’s latest book-which got me really fired up. I then approached one of our two Fiction Editors, James Claffey (an Irish immigrant to the USA), about his thoughts on doing such an issue. From this conversation, we decided it needed to be done.

That said, the issue is meant to be a fresh look. The Irish voices are many, but often they are drowned out by the hurricane of leprechauns. We want a glimpse of the Ireland of today; we don’t want sentimentality. We want to hear from the Ireland full of immigrants, the Ireland that had an economic boom and then crash. We want to take the pulse of the Irish mentality as it stands today.

6. What are your thoughts on “the Irish tradition”? A boon or a hindrance?

First, I’m not an Irish writer. James Claffey is, and he feels it’s a “half-full, half empty” situation, in which it’s easy to fall into clichés of Irishness, yet includes a rich well from which to draw.

I agree with that, but as someone 3 generations removed from that history, I think it’s a misconception that the Irish tradition is a hindrance. Sure, there are a slew of pop novels about Irish dancing and fairy fantasy lands and all that-but even if you stacked all the pop-Irish books in the world, added up all their impact, could that ever negate the effect a single line of one of Seamus Heaney’s poems? To write literary fiction is to write memorable fiction. That line from Seamus Heaney may change minds-may teach lessons. It is unlikely that traditional pop-novels would offer up any such complexities. Thus, in my eyes, it’s about genre. If you are writing literary fiction, you are in good company. And the people who publish you are more than likely similar to me in the respect that they are individuals who received an education in which not just Yeats and Joyce were required reading, but also Edna O’Brien, Roddy Doyle, and Seamus Heaney.

If I were to make a supposition, I would say the Irish tradition hurts the literary-minded writer most if they allow it to.

7. As both a writer and editor, do you find both skill sets compliment each other or conflict?

If I’m picking a side, conflict. Running a good literary journal, I have found, is like running a business. And it should be-I refuse to treat the operation of Literary Orphans Press as a vanity project. I have little time to write.

The greatest benefit is that it’s made me more empirically critical and has given me a very specific eye in terms of writing. You’re around greatness a lot, and you see how different forms and genres share some of the same properties of that greatness yet can be so different. It’s essentially letterboxed my understanding of writing, given me specific boundaries in which I feel I can operate and still achieve the desired effect I want. I, as a writer, needed that. I don’t get a chance to write much these days, but when I do I can see the improvement.

8. Do you have a dream author who you would like to submit to Literary Orphans?

Scott Waldyn, Managing Editor:  Arundhati Roy

Leanne Gregg, Fiction Editor: Lorrie Moore

James Claffey, Fiction Editor: Kevin Barry

As for myself, Alice Walker

9. What are the advantages and disadvantages of an online only magazine?

The largest benefit: immersion. The artwork pops in a way I don’t feel publishing-sized paper can make them. While you can read the journal from a mobile or tablet, the main way people access us is via their home computers. Personally, I love going to an author’s website and being able to click on the links, to be taken to the various journals that posted their stories. I read them there, absorb the aesthetic of the magazine. Each piece seems like it’s on another planet. The design is absorbed into the writing itself. By crafting a tone via background and foreground imagery, I hope to recreate this effect in every issue-every piece we publish.

Another advantage, not to be underestimated, is saving capital. We are able to make a literary journal without expending or venturing an exorbitant amount of our own income. This is also a disadvantage, however, as we are not putting out anything that could generate an income for us to fund various projects and pay our writers. Immediacy is another benefit, we’re able to distribute, grow an audience, and keep our daily viewership up. I learned a lot of DIY production from the punk underground-and there’s a certain amount of “hey, you’ll be playing shows for free for a while” before you gain the ability to raise funds. That is how I look at it.

I want to make it clear in that statement, that making money is not the primary goal of what we do here. We want to pay writers, and we want to increase our audience through marketing and advertising. Both of those take money-hence why we pursue it.

10. Have you considered producing a print edition or anthology of Literary Orphans?

Yes. I consider it all the time. It is right now, the only thing I think about.

While I wanted to save this for later, we’re actually just opening up a voting option for pieces to be included in a “Best of the First Two Years” anthology. Readers and writers can select 1 piece from each issue of Literary Orphans for potential inclusion. You can access this by clicking here.

I see a clear future in which we have a print version of the magazine.

Thank you very much for this interview, Penny Dreadful.

 

 

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