Friday, May 15, 2015

Get Your Stories Heard!

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The topic of my previous post, on-line vs print publication has provided some rich material. I’m now exploring other alternatives to getting published. Here is a sampling of what I’ve uncovered so far.

Narrative magazine was started in 2003 and “is paving the way in bringing the best new stories to the digital world and to the generations of readers who live there.” They pay their contributors well and most of their content is free. Narrative Backstage is a premium offering on their website for subscribers and donors that features Narrative Outloud audio stories and poetry. They also accept video submissions.

I happen to know that the Missouri Review publishes audio stories but what I didn’t know is that you must first have your written work accepted by them. Here’s how they describe their process:
One of the many innovative ideas we’ve had in recent years was to create an audio version of our magazine. Every issue, our staff, lead by audio editor Kevin McFillen, gets an early uncorrected version of the stories, essays, and poems forthcoming in the next issue. The audio team reads the work and then selects a reader (or “performer”) from the Columbia theater community whose voice best captures the text. They get together in our recording studio, down in the basement of McReynolds Hall (it’s room 54 and, you betcha, we call it Studio 54), and then the audio file is edited for production. Each audio recording is then included in the digital version of The Missouri Review.”
Pretty cool!

Heard of Monkeybicycle? It’s an imprint of Dzanc books:
“Monkeybicycle is a literary journal that lives both in print and online. Deemed "better than the rest of the litmags" by The Stranger, Monkeybicycle has been publishing a wide range of authors--since 2002, and has had several works included in Best American Nonrequired Reading volumes.” 
Their website includes a podcast page where you can read about the featured writer and listen to them reading their stories or passages from their novels. 


Nashville Review of Vanderbilt University is going cutting edge:
 Nashville Review was founded with two guiding principles: that our venue would be inclusive of all forms of storytelling, and that it would be both free and available online to anyone who wished to enjoy it. NR seeks to feature art not traditionally recognized as literature—comics, film, music, visual art, creative nonfiction, dance, oral storytelling and other performance arts—alongside the more traditional forms of fiction and poetry.” The site has a clean, bold look to it, easy to read and to navigate. Not always the case with lit sites.

And one of my fave research resources, The ReviewReview, has a solid article on audio publications where I learned about The Drum a literary magazine for your ears:

The Drum Literary Magazine publishes short fiction, essays, novel excerpts, and interviews exclusively in audio form.” They produce 10 issues a year and I find their website to be easy to navigate and fun to explore, for free!

I am very excited about how this audio medium opens up new possibilities for publication, as some of my clients do a fantastic job of reading their work aloud. And with all the great technology readily available to record them, it’s highly do-able.

           



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