THREE QUESTIONS WITH AARON BURCH

He's had a hand in Hobart, HAD, and Short Story, Long--how DOES he do it?

Good morning, friends!

You are probably familiar with Aaron Burch who has created and managed some of our favorite literary journals for the last decade, and I am so happy he answered a few of my questions about building magazines, building community, and building his own writing career parallel to all of that. Plus, I really think he has a knack for realizing what’s sort of missing, or where the gaps are in writing spaces and filling it with something wild and lively and wonderful. If you ever wondered how to get a 💀 from HAD or how the secret sauce of Hobart, HAD, and Short Story, Long is made (maybe not *every ingredient)—this one is for you.

1. You've created two (or maybe more!) brilliant magazines, and I feel like both HAD and Hobart set out with a mission rather than discovering that mission in the process. I'm really curious about what you see as the value(s) in richly understanding your vibe (as opposed to curating it?).

It's interesting (and kinda funny) you say that! I would actually say both discovered their mission in the process rather than the other way around.

I started Hobart after undergrad, less because I wanted to start a lit journal, and certainly not because I had any kind of mission, but just because I didn't really know what I was doing with my life and building a website seemed fun. I think that kind of became the vibe though. I was doing it because it seemed fun, and to entertain myself and my friends. I didn't know anything about editing a journal and was figuring it all out as I went, and as I figured out what I was doing and what excited me, Hobart kinda discovered itself too, settling into itself, and I guess its mission and vibe. It was all borne up out of finding stories that excited me first and foremost as a reader; my guiding light became any story that got me excited to get to share with readers — in general, but maybe even most especially my friends, who weren't the biggest readers, but who I thought would get excited about a story that had excited me.

HAD started a little similarly almost by accident. Every now and then, usually on nights when I was home alone, usually after having a drink or two, I'd have the idea that reading and responding to as many submissions as possible sounded fun. I don't know what had happened to me over the course of working on Hobart for like 15 years made that my idea of a fun night! Reading submissions and responding via a kind of slightly buzzed kneejerk reaction felt unfair to submissions sitting in the queue, but I reasoned that if I was upfront about that scenario then people at least knew what they were getting themselves into. So I posted on Twitter that I was a couple drinks in, might have another, and was going to read and respond as fast as possible if they sent me something right then. It was a kind of goof, a fun little lark. Not very "serious literary journal" stuff, but felt in the spirit of having start Hobart in my 20s. I kind of livetweeted my way through it, and it was super fun — for myself, and it became a little Twitter thing, among my Twitter friends at least, something of an unstuffy, collective fun way of thinking about submitting. It was so fun, I'd do it here and there, every few months... and then at some point, between divorce and the pandemic and how much fun those calls always were, those calls grew into a whole journal of its own, built on that foundation of popup submission calls with as-fast-as-possible replies.

Because I was responding as fast as possible, the stuff that most grabbed my attention was usually stuff that was especially short, often kinda weird or funny. And so then that vibe basically became the "mission" for HAD, but it was really stumbled into, rather than setting out with any kind of mission.

The exception would actually be this newest project, Short Story, Long. After I left Hobart, I wondered if I'd start a new thing and if I did, what it might be. It turned out I kinda enjoyed the lessened responsibility and time and energy commitments of it all!

I was focusing on my own writing, working on various projects, and I completed a handful of "traditional length" short stories, and so was looking around for where to submit them. And there weren't a ton of places I was excited about.

I've said versions of this, and it is a bit reductive and also a generalization, but I think there are a lot of great online journals publishing strong, fun, exciting short-shorts... but I can't totally say the same for longer stories. There aren't a ton of journals publishing longer stories online, and a lot of the print journals publishing those longer stories a) aren't always publishing the stories that most excite me as a reader, and b) aren't read by many people other than other writers (if even then). I know, and understand, a lot of the reasons for all that. I know how much easier it is to read a 300-word short on your phone than it is to spend time with a 5k-word story on a screen. And I know other writers are often just about the only people that read journals, online or in print. Often, they're the only ones who read short stories, period! But I think we've gotten more and more used to reading on screens, and so I think some people are more willing, and maybe even wanting to, spend time reading some longer form stuff, and, too, with them being online, it makes sharing links so much easier, and so they're just more findable than something in a print journal.

Which is all just to say, I know it's all a bit of an uphill battle, but I also do believe there's an audience for these stories, and so that's why I started doing SSL. Because I felt like there was a bit of a void that I could try to help fill, and also, circling all the way back, one thing I missed since having left Hobart was editing and publishing longer stories. I'm not sure how to say it without sounding braggy, but I think I have good taste. I think I have a good eye for short stories. I think I'm good at editing them. And, just, I love it! And as much as, in theory, I could probably do whatever I wanted on HAD, it really feels built for micros and so, as time passed and the more and more I thought about the possibilities of a journal focused on longer stories, the more I couldn't stop thinking about it, and so finally just kinda jumped in.

2. HAD is known as a kind of rite of passage magazine--you earn a skull if you are a contributor. Where did this idea come from, and how has it impacted (you think) the pursuit of folks interested in the work and writing for HAD?

The idea came from contributors themselves! Which I think speaks to the community aspect of the journal (which kinda builds on the above and also on the next question). The journal itself was borne pretty specifically out of me being "too online," and too on Twitter, specifically. I was looking for immediate submissions, so was posting on Twitter asking for them, and then I was just tweeting through how it was going because it was fun. And I think my goofy fun posting spread to goofy fun energy and felt collective. I think if I'd come up with the idea of calling an acceptance "getting a skull," it would have been like trying to give yourself a nickname. But because it came from contributors themselves, I think it felt organic and fun and so spread from there.

We "eventized" submitting, which wasn't really purposeful — everything started from a place of what would be fun on my end (and Crow's) and grew naturally from there, rather than trying to do anything on purpose. It started with me doing these pop-up submissions, and that was basically the idea for the journal — rather than mission or theme or anything, submissions process itself was basically the genesis. As the site grew, those pop-up submissions got more and more popular, drawing more and more submissions, and the other component, paired with "pop-up submission calls" was as-near-to-immediate-as-possible replies, ideally same night, always hopefully within 24 hours, and that became harder and harder the more and more submissions a call would garner. So I started capping them, just to keep it manageable for myself (and guest editors) and to be able to stick to that fast turnaround time. What happened though was that cap created a limited supply, which basically then increased demand. Like contributors saying they'd "earned a skull," I think it works because it happened naturally. If Crow and I had set out with this orchestrated idea of mimicking a limited edition "drop" to encourage a frenzy or whatever, I think it would have seemed lame and antithetical to the fun that it all actually is.

3. I think of you as someone who is really great at building and maintaining literary communities. What advice would you give to writers who are trying to break-in or find a place within literary communities, online particularly? (I know we're in the chaos of Twitter mass exodus and building on Blue Sky or Threads or whatever is your flavor, but perhaps there is some general advice you might have in your back pocket?)

I started answering this by saying I'm not totally sure about advice, and then I actually remembered this moment from Brian Koppelman's old podcast, "The Moment." I don't remember from which episode, nor if this idea was coming from Brian himself or the interviewee, but I remember them talking about how most people would reach out and ask for some kind of help rather than offering some kind of help. I'm probably misremembering and getting that at least a little wrong, but there's something to that.

One thing I've been thinking about with regard to lit journals and publishing and this whole world or ecosystem or whatever is a frustration with a certain kind of writer who sees journals mostly, and sometimes entirely, as a means to an end and as a vehicle for themselves. With Short Story, Long, I have this box on the submission form where a writer has to tell me something about a story from the SSL archives. I reason it that I don't just want to be a place writers see as somewhere they can submit to and hopefully be accepted and published by, but I want the stories to be READ. And I want writers to be excited if/when they get accepted, not just because they got an acceptance, but because they are excited to be published by SSL; I want them to be excited to be published alongside authors and stories they got excited by! I will sometimes get responses to that submission prompt by authors telling me they don't have time to read the site. And I can't help but be like, well, then why should others have time to read your story? Why should I? Even more rarely, but sometimes, an author uses that box to tell me they really didn't like the story they read. Found it amateurish, or boring, or just not to their tastes. And, fine, whatever, art is subjective. But why are you submitting to a journal that you don't like what they publish?!

That answer drifted from your initial question. But I think there's kind of an interesting distinction between advice on "how to get published" vs. "how to become part of a community that you're interested in." And I guess my "advice" starts from a place of encouraging the latter. Right? "Break-in" or "find a place" because you think it's interesting and exciting. And then, lead with that excitement, and nurture it in yourself, and I think that's a great place to start.

Which, combining that all the way back to where I started... read a lot! Reach out to writers (and editors/journals) when you love something you read, and let them know that, be it via social media or an email or whatever. Pitch an interview with a writer you love — to the writer and/or to a journal? Do some book reviews? Those are really great ways to become involved, and most authors love when anyone shows some interest!

Oof. That answer was all over the place!

AND A BONUS FOURTH QUESTION: You are also an exciting writer, how has being an editor and a community-builder helped your writing life?

I started Hobart and my own writing more or less at the same time, and so these worlds and ideas and roles of editing and writing and publishing have always been so braided together, and have only become more and more so as time passes, that I don't even know how to pull them apart anymore. They all feel part of this aspect of my writing life.

There's this Steven Rinella quote, from near the end of his book Meat Eater, that I think about a lot.

Earlier, I wrote of the things I’ve suffered while in pursuit of a lifestyle that makes sense to me. Things such as cold, hunger, loneliness, and fear. What I failed to mention are the ways in which I’ve been blessed through that same pursuit. While hunting, I’ve cried at the beauty of mountains covered in snow. I’ve learned to own up to my past mistakes, to admit them freely, and then to behave better the next time around. I’ve learned to see the earth as a thing that breathes and writhes and brings forth life. I see these revelations as a form of grace and art, as beautiful as the things we humans attempt to capture through music, dance, and poetry.

I don't really care about hunting, but I loved that book because of the way Rinella thinks and writes about hunting. And I love that quote, because I think all of this — writing, editing, publishing, recommending fave books and stories, raving about the artform... — as part of pursuing this life and lifestyle that makes sense to me. For most of my life, I couldn't have put it into those words — I was just chasing what felt exciting and fun and brought me joy — but I can now, and I think that sounds right.

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Aaron Burch is the author of the essay collection, A Kind of In-Between; the novel, Year of the Buffalo; the memoir/literary analysis Stephen King’s The Body; and the short story collection, Backswing. He edited the craft anthology How to Write a Novel: An Anthology of 20 Craft Essays About Writing, None of Which Ever Mention Writing, and is currently the editor of the journals Short Story, Long and HAD. He grew up in Tacoma and lives in Michigan, where he teaches at the University of Michigan.