Timothy Monaghan, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The Ledge Magazine and Press
Jendi Reiter conducted this exclusive email interview with Timothy Monaghan, editor-in-chief and publisher of The Ledge Magazine & Press. This independent literary publisher, based in Bellport, NY, offers three annual contests, each with a top prize of $1,000: The Ledge Fiction Awards for unpublished short stories (deadline February 28), The Ledge Poetry Awards for unpublished poems (April 30), and The Ledge Poetry Chapbook Competition (October 31). Recent chapbook winners include Moira Egan, Michael Colonnese, and John Popielaski. The Ledge Poetry & Fiction Magazine celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2008.
Timothy Monaghan was born in 1969 and began publishing The Ledge Poetry & Fiction Magazine in 1988 at the age of 19. Though he has not submitted his own work for publication in many years, his poems have appeared in various journals and publications including 5 AM, Poet Lore, New York Quarterly, Rattle, Negative Capability (with former President Jimmy Carter), and Whiskey Island Magazine. He works as a corporate underling for a Fortune 25 telecommunications company, and is an avid photographer of abandoned places and industrial ruins. His photography website is under construction.
Q: Tell me about the founding of The Ledge Magazine & Press. How did it get its name? What was your original vision for the press, and how has it evolved over the past two decades?
A: I founded The Ledge in the spring of 1988 at the age of 19. I was attending a class with New York beat poet Bernadette Mayer at the New School in Greenwich Village, and during one of our conversations after class, we began discussing the history of small press publishing and literary magazines as being one of the few outlets for poets to submit unsolicited work, and I got the idea that launching a poetry magazine would be a great way for me to see what other poets were writing about at the time, and to offer a forum for poets to present their poems to a (relatively) larger audience. I really had no idea I'd be publishing The Ledge more than twenty years later, as the idea of publishing a literary magazine was really a rather impetuous notion to begin with, with very little planning or preparation on my part. The first couple of issues consisted of poems I'd solicit from fellow readers at open mic readings in downtown Manhattan. I also scotch-taped a lot of flyers to street lamps, too. I was young and naïve and did all of our marketing on the fly. Really, I had no idea what I was doing and learned pretty much everything there was to learn about publishing as I went along.
The Ledge Magazine was named after an actual place, an abandoned loading dock behind a mammoth factory adjacent to an elevated railway for freight trains. The Ledge itself was a very tranquil setting, situated high above the streets of Brooklyn where I grew up, with trees and tracks all around, but close enough to the action where you could still hear the traffic below and the loud voices coming from the park down the block. I hung out there quite a bit during my teenaged years, in all seasons, so at the time I decided to put together a poetry publication, The Ledge seemed a rather natural choice.
The first few issues of The Ledge were very cheaply printed at a Manhattan copy shop and I fondly recall collating and stapling together the first issue with a couple of friends in Tompkins Square Park the afternoon before the infamous riot in the summer of 1988. For the first couple of years, I'd walk all over Manhattan dropping off copies of The Ledge on consignment at local independent bookstores, most of which are no longer in existence, places like Spring Street Books and Embargo Books on the Lower East Side, and Gotham Book Mart in the Diamond District. As the years passed, I began to envision The Ledge as a greater forum for both poets and writers and began publishing stories. I applied for and received our first of several public grants from the Queens Council on the Arts back in 1991, and with that seed money I transformed The Ledge from an offset saddle-stapled journal to the typeset perfect-bound publication it is today.
Q: In the mission statement on your web site, you write, "We firmly believe that superior writing appeals to a wider audience than most literary journals endeavor to reach, and consider The Ledge Poetry & Fiction Magazine a truly democratic publication in that regard." Please elaborate on this statement. What segments of the reading and writing population are under-served by other literary publications, and how do you fill the gap?
A: I try to be as eclectic as possible when selecting work for publication in The Ledge. My ultimate goal is to appeal to as wide a range of readers as possible. I believe that powerful poems and stories can be accessible and innovative, employing dramatic tension and utilizing language on a visceral level. I dislike obtuse poems or strictly academic writing replete with obscure literary references. I want the poems I publish to excite our readers, to elicit some kind of emphatic or empathetic response, even if it's a negative one. On the other hand, I am unimpressed with undisciplined or self-absorbed work, as I believe that writing poetry and fiction requires a great deal of discipline like any other artistic medium, and should not serve solely as the means for an author's unbridled expression. I am very receptive to both free verse and formal poems, and believe the most impressive poems will alter or affect, however slightly or significantly, the perception of the reader. My intention is not necessarily to criticize other journals whose standards may be different from mine, but to emphasize that The Ledge is open to all styles and schools of writing by poets and writers of all backgrounds and persuasions. Biographical notes and previous acknowledgments mean little to me when I'm considering work for publication or prizes.
Q: From sampling your past winners, I notice that you appreciate formal poetry, particularly contemporary variations on the sonnet, as well as the narrative free verse that predominates in today's journals. Do you have any advice to help writers work with rhyme and meter in a way that sounds natural to modern ears?
A: I've gained a special appreciation for formal poetry over the years. In my earlier days of publishing The Ledge, I'd say about 90% of the poems I published were free verse. Lately, I've been receiving an impressive number of exceptional formal poems, and I'm sure my predilection for publishing such poems in recent issues and chapbooks has done well to attract more of these submissions, as the market for formal poetry is rather limited compared to free verse, especially on the small press scale. I admire the ambition of formal poets who transcend tradition with a more modern approach or interpretation while remaining true to the form itself. I am looking for formal poems that employ energetic word selection or imaginative passages, poems that utilize slant rhyme and off rhyme. Formal poetry doesn't have to be academic or stuffy, but can be just as visceral as the most provocative free verse poem. I don't want to read formal poems that simply plug words in a structure to meet the rhyme and meter requirements. Bar Napkin Sonnets by Moira Egan, which won The Ledge 2008 Poetry Chapbook Awards, is a great illustration of what I mean by modern interpretation of a classical form. (Read samples here and here.)
Q: Light verse is another genre that, in my opinion, has far too few publication outlets nowadays. Some of your winners appear to skirt the edges of this territory, such as John Popielaski's playful riffs on figures from Sir Gawain to George Washington in O, Captain and Moira Egan's boozy flirtations in Bar Napkin Sonnets. Please share your thoughts about humor in poetry—what makes it effective (or not), and how to find a market for humorous verse.
A: I realize that light verse has a rather negative perception in many literary circles, but I enjoy whimsical musings especially in the context of a 200-page publication of poetry and fiction like The Ledge. I also feel strongly that there is a profound difference between accomplished light verse and the limericks most people imagine when presented with a light verse or humorous poem. I also think humor is an especially effective antidote to the heavier, more serious work we are accustomed to featuring. On the other hand, I try not to accept work that is too campy in nature, or stories or poems with "punchline" endings, and the balance between subtle humor and corny slapstick is one of the greater challenges for a light verse poet. Just because a poem is not serious doesn't mean its language isn't charged, its imagery imaginative, or its subject matter quite relevant to our daily struggles and sufferings. Billy Collins is one of the most humorous and profound contemporary poets I can think of, and an exceptional example of someone who has mastered that challenge.
Q: How many submissions do you receive for each contest, how many make it to the final judges, and how many are offered publication?
A: The Ledge presently sponsors annual poetry and fiction awards competitions, as well as a poetry chapbook competition, and I'd say the number of entries we receive for each of these contests is rather consistent, somewhere around 350 or so. On average, I'd say we set aside approximately 50 entries after initial screening, or a little higher than 10%. In addition to the prizewinning poems and stories, we also publish between 12-15 runners-up in each issue of The Ledge.
Q: Who screens the contest entries, and what criteria are uppermost in their minds?
A: I do all the initial screening and judging of entries for each of the competitions. It is a responsibility I take very seriously, and it's probably the reason we take as long as we do to announce the competition results, but I thoroughly enjoy the task, and by doing this, can honestly say that every entry has been thoughtfully and seriously considered. As an editor and a publisher, I feel that it is my obligation to guarantee that opportunity to the poets and writers who choose to send their work to The Ledge.
When I screen entries, I have no real set criteria in mind, as far as judgment is concerned. I make every effort to be as eclectic as I possibly can, and I take great pride in the fact that The Ledge features a very diverse cross-section of poetry and fiction in each issue we publish. In our competition guidelines, I state "excellence is the only criterion," and that is about as accurate as I can get when it comes to what I'm looking for as far as submissions are concerned.
Q: In the short fiction submitted to your magazine and contest, are there particular techniques and topics you feel are over-represented, and conversely, are there others that you'd like to see more often?
A: Originality and use of dramatic tension are the key components I look for in a story. I am not partial to any particular topics or themes, but I am seeking writers who possess an almost poetic discipline when it comes to word selection and sentence structure. I receive a number of generally interesting stories, but many are unnecessarily verbose or flawed by ambiguity or run-on sentences. The most effective stories do not contain these distractions, but rather present a situation that a reader will find affecting or even profound, regardless of his or her own experience or frame of reference. I want to form an affinity for the speaker or the protagonist, as a powerful story will draw you into its setting as if you were part of the experience. Evocative and imaginative use of language is essentially more important to me than the story's topic or theme.
Q: Some literary publishers automatically consider an author's subsequent book for publication once she has won their contest, whereas others insist that she go back into the general contest submission pool for each manuscript. What is your policy, for your poetry chapbook winners?
A: In addition to the annual publication of The Ledge Poetry & Fiction Magazine, The Ledge Press publishes one chapbook title per year, the winner of The Ledge Poetry Chapbook Award. While I may be slightly partial to a writer whose work I've published in the past, I evaluate each submission or contest entry individually and objectively, so every acceptance is based strictly on the merit of the work and not due to any special or favorable consideration on my part. I have published many poets and writers within the pages of The Ledge on more than one occasion, but most of the contributors in each issue are still appearing in our publication for the first time.
Q: What is the press run for your chapbooks, and how long do they stay in print? How many copies does the average prizewinner sell?
A: The typical press run for our chapbook titles is 1,000 copies. I try and keep all titles in print for as long as possible, and have received orders for certain titles years after their original publication date. The internet has really helped us reach a much wider audience in that regard, as potential readers can visit us at www.theledgemagazine.com and order any number of back issues and previous chapbook titles. I am always encouraged by the number of visitors to our site each month and the orders we receive from readers from all over the United States and abroad.
Q: Have you or your authors found creative ways to build an audience for particular titles? Please share any success stories that could help other poets gain recognition for their published chapbooks.
A: Getting chapbooks reviewed is rather difficult as most review publications and periodicals focus on full-length collections of poetry instead of chapbooks. Despite this, we've had success in getting our chapbooks reviewed in small press journals and literary periodicals such as Small Press Review, Home Planet News, Fiddler's Crab Review, and some other regional publications. In addition, each of our chapbook titles are on display at the Poets House library in New York City. I feel that chapbooks are often overlooked by reviewers to a certain extent, even though the chapbook as a form of publication has a long and very noble tradition and is generally well-respected by the small press community. The reality of the situation is somewhat of a contradiction, really, and one of the primary reasons The Ledge began publishing chapbook reviews a couple if years ago (from other presses, of course). To that end, I am fortunate enough to have enlisted the services of George Held, a very accomplished literary critic and former co-editor of The Ledge Magazine.
Q: For poets who are thinking about turning their portfolio of poems into a manuscript, what are the advantages and disadvantages of envisioning one's work as a chapbook, as opposed to a full-length book?
A: The length of a chapbook manuscript (typically 16-32 pages as opposed to a minimum of 64 pages) requires the poet to be fiercely selective when deciding which poems to include in his or her collection. You can't afford to have as many "filler" poems as you would in a full-length book. In addition, chapbooks tend to be more thematic in topic, as the shorter length affords the opportunity to group a sequence of poems as a whole. As an editor, I find that many chapbook manuscripts are front-loaded, with the strongest poems at the beginning of the manuscript, and while such a strategy will certainly ensure a favorable first impression and raise the expectations of the reader, the greater challenge is for a poet to be able to sustain that level of quality throughout the entire manuscript. And because a chapbook by definition is a much slimmer volume of poems than a full-length collection, there is far less room for mediocrity where quality is concerned.
Q: Which classic and contemporary authors do you particularly admire, and what can prospective entrants learn from them?
A: My favorite contemporary poets include Philip Levine, Nicholas Christopher, Dorianne Laux, Billy Collins, Marie Ponsot, and Rita Dove in no particular order of preference. My favorite classic authors include T.S. Eliot, Franz Kafka, Truman Capote, George Orwell, and Emily Dickinson. To be fair, I also have a number of less prolific favorites whose work I've discovered while reading for The Ledge, poets and writers such as Sherry Fairchok, Brooke Wiese, Terry Brown-Davidson, Melody Lacina, Robert Fanning, and Jennifer Perrine.
The truth is that I spend so much of my free time reading submissions to The Ledge that I don't have nearly as much leisure time as I'd like to read a lot of other work. I do think it's very important to read as much contemporary and classical poetry and fiction as possible, and to understand as a writer that your world is part of a greater whole and that your growth as a writer will parallel the amount of energy and effort you are willing to invest in this most noble of callings. The art of writing is a fiercely personal pursuit, but entails more craft than inspiration, and if you neglect working tirelessly on the former, the latter will not evolve past mere expression. Don't he afraid to revise and revise, or to cut what is not necessary from the whole. One of the toughest things for a poet or writer to learn is to accept the rejection of his or her work, but if you are unable to fully detach yourself from the work you create on a professional level, and to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses from a truly objective standpoint, your growth as a writer and as an artist will suffer. Be as brutally honest with your work as you can stand to be, and never give up.
Fall 2009
