Why good journals don't publish writers from their masthead

In yesterday’s post, I made this statement: “Good journals don’t print writers from their masthead, unless it’s in the form of a review or an interview.” My friend Shannon liked that bit, and she asked me to elaborate.

I’m always pleased when someone suggests a topic. I struggle, actually, to come up with a timely and interesting topic to address each day. I’m delighted when a prompt or question shows up in the comment area of a post, or when a friend drops me a note to share an interesting idea or a funny bit of correspondence from an editor.

As for my statement, it may be a good idea to define “masthead,” a word that is often misused to refer to the name or flag of a journal or other publication. The masthead is the list of editors of a publication. It’s always among the first few pages of a newspaper, magazine, or journal, and it includes the editors and interns and assistants—all of the people who make a publication possible.

When I say that good journals don’t print writers from their masthead, I mean that they don’t print original creative work—poems, essays, stories, and the like—from the people who make decisions about what goes in each issue. This is for the simple reason that ethical journals find their work among the hopeful—the people who have submitted their best work in good faith. It would be appalling rudeness to reject a writer from the submission pool, only to print a story by the managing editor.

This is understood by established journals. Only a very new journal or a student-run one is likely to make this sort of editorial decision. It can make sense with a student-run journal at an undergrad institution. In a very small program, the litmag is an instrument of the community. It brings people together and cements identity. In my own undergrad journal, I served on the editorial staff and had my work printed as a winner of an annual literary prize. This strikes me as an exception; anyone could enter the contest, and the journal just agreed in advance to print the winner. The winner happened to be a staff member of the student magazine, but those pages were set aside in advance; printing the work of the prize-winners did not put editors in competition with submitters.

I can imagine a very small university with a campus-only journal—not one that prints outside submissions—where staff members might represent the most dedicated writers. That’s certainly how it was at my small university; a few dedicated writers were at the core of the magazine and the reading series and the writing classes. It wouldn’t make sense to deny a spot to the dozen students who do all of the writing stuff on campus. Who will write the content if the writers are doing the editing? There will be a few people who step up, but most of the serious writers are sitting around the table, considering work.

This scenario is quite finite. At a larger university with more options for students, I really wouldn’t support student-editors publishing their own work; there are good undergrad journals, and there are journals that are very open to new writers. That campus magazine is never the only option, and at a larger university, it’s unlikely that every serious writing student is on the staff. Even at a small university, though, if the journal accepts submissions from the outside, printing work by staffers is inappropriate.

A good place for editors to participate more fully in their own journal is with book reviews. There just aren’t enough literary book reviews, and most journals receive few or no unsolicited submissions of these. Plus, a book review is the valid work of a literary journal, and it’s all hands on deck to perform this service to readers.

Likewise, a staff could opt to publish interviews of writers, and that’s a place where an editor could contribute. Since an interview is functionally a conversation between the journal and the subject, there is no problem with editors doing this work and enriching the journal with the sorts of insights that can result.

Often, journals include the names of consulting editors on their masthead. For nonprofit journals, the consulting editors are usually well-known writers who have agreed to allow the journal to list them because they support the editors’ work. Don’t picture annual gatherings of this august body; that’s not a thing. There is no board meeting/barbecue/kickball tourney. The work starts and ends at the list, or, for more enterprising journals, it ends with occasional dialogue—do you like what we’re up to, what is your favorite feature, are we making any errors, etc.

Consulting editors are typically chosen because they are favorite writers of the editors, or because they have contributed frequently to the magazine in the past. I may make an exception for this group. If, say, Stephen King agrees to serve on the board of consulting editors, it’s highly unlikely that he’s going to be sitting around that table and deciding whether Joe Schmoe’s nonce sonnet makes the cut. Consulting editors don’t make this decision. Usually they do nothing at all. I suppose we shouldn’t even have them, but granting organizations like them, and it can be helpful to have that kind of cachet.

If Stephen King sends a story, feel free to accept it (if it’s good enough—and I suspect it will be); his title is honorific, because you like his work, but he’s not really a member of the staff. But if your assistant poetry editor does, please don’t.

The bottom line is that editors need to be very fair to submitters. Submitters are people who spend hours at their keyboard or notebook, getting the words exactly right, to the best of their ability. They deliberate over where to send their work, and each submission is accompanied by faith in the editors to do well by them, to treat them fairly, to respond with promptness and with respect. Staffers have no business elbowing these good people out of the way.