The Themed Issue Conundrum
Friday, January 9, 2009 
For the past fifteen months, I've been at work on a story about an Iraq war vet. No, not exclusively at work on this piece, of course, but a short story has to go through a natural maturation process before it's ready to fly. This all takes time.
From the day I conceived this piece in all its particularity, I'd been thinking of The Virginia Quarterly Review as its perfect home. I had a very solid draft a year ago, but I waited. I wanted the story to age and settle.
This Fall it was finally ready, and I was just about to send it off to Ted Genoways and his fine crew when I picked up VQR's Fall issue, a themed issue on the topic of--guess what?--Iraq war vets. "But my story,' I wailed, "they missed my story." No one heard my plaintive cries (except my five-year-old, who asked me to quiet down because I was making it impossible for him to hear the soundtrack of his new DVD of the original School House Rock--at least that was cool).
These days most of the larger literary magazines that frame issues around a specific theme don't seem to announce that theme in advance. Tin House does occasionally, and Mississippi Review online. I've heard a number of lit mag editors say they don't even know the theme of a given issue until all the accepted pieces are assembled next to each other. But I couldn't stop thinking: if only VQR had announced theirs. I'd have submitted this piece nine months ago, it would have been promptly picked up, yada yada yada. A genuine win-win, I tell you.
Nevertheless, last month I decided to go ahead and submit the story in question to VQR--I still think it could be a damn fine fit. Will see if Mr. Genoways agrees....
Reader Comments (5)
We've often considered announcing our themes in advance, but the trouble is that they change, frequently, right up until we put the issue to bed. An issue about leaving home becomes an issue about returning home becomes an issue about homeland becomes an issue about enclaves that are, themselves, homelands that are utterly unlike the surrounding area. If we announced that nine months in advance, I imagine people would be just be angry that we changed the theme and, thus, their "leaving home" article didn't get published.
But, yeah, it would be great if we could manage to promote our issue themes in advance. It would be good for us and good for writers.
All makes sense, Waldo. Appreciate the insider view into VQR's theme-making process.
Ah, a common Native American approach: see what the kid is like before you give him a name.
Hey, it's how most of us do titles, too.
True, David, on both the title front and the kid front. My older son was three days old before we named him--by then, we already had a decent sense of what our first "issue" was going to look like ;)
If you requested a media packet from any major magazine in North America, you would find that they have their editorial content at least tentatively mapped out. Its so advertisers can plug in accordingly. It helps advertisers see the pub as viable. And it helps writers.
I don't mean to inject the subject of filthy lucre, but most lit mags make nary a cent. I wonder if a little more editorial discipline would pay dividends on the marketing/sales end of things.