Why did you start an online literary magazine?

Because I wanted to be the boss. I wanted the magazine to look a certain way and contain only material I like. I also wanted it to be very easy to negotiate. I have no patience with online presentations that are overly complex. I am a long-time publications editor and I have spent my career looking at materials from a reader’s point of view. I want to make the magazine as simple as possible to negotiate and to read. I want the reader to feel welcome. Come in, my little pretties! Come in and read…

What kind of writing do you look for?

Above all, honest and daring. I would like writers to send FRiGG the stuff they wouldn’t show their mother—and they certainly would not send it to any self-respecting lit mag. So send it to us. A number of months ago, I took a story by Terri Brown-Davidson that’s about a scholarly woman whose husband is away and she discovers the joys of masturbation and she kind of goes nuts with it. The story killed me when I read it. I said to Terri, Thanks for sending us this story! And she’s like, You’re the only place I could think of to send it. I wouldn’t have dared send it anywhere else.

So—send us the stuff you wouldn’t dare send anywhere else.

But we do also like the writing to be smart. In fact, the writer and editor Steve Hansen described FRiGG’s material to me as being “pointy headed.” I think this means it’s smart. Doesn’t it?

What percentage of your submissions do you accept?

Out of every 100 submissions, we might accept one or two. That’s an average. Sometimes we have long dry spells. Other times we might get several submissions in the course of a few days that we accept. Sean’s like, How come we’re all of sudden getting all this good stuff? Maybe it’s partly zeitgeist.

What is the quality of the work you are receiving?

I do not want to say anything here that might be construed as insulting to any writer or artist who has taken the initiative to share his or her work with FRiGG. As a writer myself, I am a complete advocate for writers. Perhaps what you’re asking is, Are we so inundated with stuff we love that we have to turn away a lot of it away? Are we debating far into the night about what we’ll accept and won’t accept? No. Sean and I can very quickly spot the stuff we want. Sean and I are the only ones who read the submissions, by the way. I read the fiction; he reads the poetry. We’re both good at quickly recognizing the work we want to take for FRiGG. Now, this does not mean the work we don’t accept is not good work. Others might look at some of the stuff we reject and they’d go, Why’d you turn this down, you idiots? Well, because we didn’t want it. Remember I said I started FRiGG because I wanted to be the boss? It’s good being the boss. You can do whatever you want.

What kind of mistakes do new writers make when submitting to online publications?

This is question to ask print magazines that have a lot of rules for submitters. FRiGG doesn’t have a lot of rules. I want people to paste their submissions into the body of the e-mail; I don’t want file attachments. But sometimes I get file attachments and—don’t tell anyone—I read them anyway! I don’t return them unread. I forgive writers a lot.

We accept simultaneous submissions, but we want the writer to tell us if the submission gets accepted elsewhere. Sometimes they don’t tell us. In fact, sometimes I accept work and then the writer says, Oops, I forgot to tell you—it’s been accepted elsewhere. I know this really pisses off some editors. But, like I said, I’m willing to forgive a lot from writers—especially the good ones, the ones whose work I liked enough to accept for FRiGG. So I tell them it’s OK, and I ask them to submit again in the future if they want to. I mean, FRiGG is not going to fold if we don’t get work from any particular writer. And no writer’s career is going to be impaired because he or she did not appear in FRiGG. None of what we’re doing is all that dire. I do FRiGG mostly because it’s fun. Doing it is a total gas. I’m not doing it so I can get my panties all in a bunch over “mistakes” writers make in submitting.

What is the benefit of submitting to online publications?

It is very quick and easy to submit to most online magazines! You just send your writing as an e-mail attachment or pasted into the e-mail itself, and push the send button. You don’t have to fool with the manuscript formatting and submitting procedures (involving the—shudder!—U.S. Postal Service) for print magazines.

Editing a magazine takes time away from your own writing. How do you deal with that?

It doesn’t take time away from my own writing. There is no way I would spend more than a few hours a day writing—and this is the very best case. So there are a lot of other hours in the day to do other stuff! Sometimes I work on FRiGG. As I said, it’s fun. Writing, however, is often not fun. It sometimes makes me cry. FRiGG never makes me cry. Sometimes it makes me swear, though. When it’s close to the time to put up a new issue and I cannot figure out how to fix some freakin’ HTML code, sometimes I use bad words.

Do e-mail submissions require cover letters?

I can speak only for FRiGG here. We do not require cover letters. You can just paste your writing into the e-mail and not say anything else. Or you can briefly introduce yourself and give a bio if you want to—but it’s not mandatory. Other magazines might want cover letters, though. Always check the magazine’s submission guidelines.

The list of online magazines is large. How does a beginning writer choose where to submit?

Look at all of them and decide which ones you like the look of. Read some of their material. Submit to the ones you think share your tastes—and you’d like to see your work in.

Is it wise for a writer to keep submitting to magazines that have rejected their work?

This is a very good question. Every editor might have a different answer. Is it “wise”? Probably writing fiction and poetry isn’t “wise.” But you mean, Will submitting again and again help you get published in that magazine—or will it just annoy the editor? Well…both. Either. I do tend to root for those writers who keep submitting. It’s obvious they really want to be in FRiGG. Or maybe they just have a really efficient submitting system. There are a few writers who, as soon as I send them a rejection, they’re back with another submission. It’s almost like they have all their writing in a database that automatically sends another story to whatever magazine rejected a piece. I told this to another writer (who’s also an e-zine editor) and he’s like, Whoa, that’s clever! I could see his wheels spinning. He was both repulsed and attracted.

So when I get yet another submission from a writer who keeps trying, I might sigh just a little—and then put it in the queue. Eventually I’ll read it. Now, the other day I was reading a story submitted by a writer we’ve turned down a bunch of times and the story started out really well and I was totally rooting for the guy but then the story just collapsed and the ending was awful. I was mad. I was like, Come on. Do better than this! So I sent him a form rejection letter. I didn’t even acknowledge that I knew him. This was probably cheesy, but if the guy isn’t going to send better work than that, why do I have to send him a personal letter? (See how petty editors are? We’re very, very small.)

My point here is that it’s fine to keep sending stuff to a magazine, but send us your good stuff, OK? Don’t just keep tossing us your old bones! But maybe that guy thought that story was his good stuff. He was thinking, This is the one, I’m tellin’ ya! This’ll hit the mark! And then I hate it and fire off a form rejection letter to the poor guy. All I can say to you writers is, God love ya. You’re so great to send us your work, only to have us get mad at you for not trying hard enough and summarily reject you. Editors really ought be slapped around a little.

How do you think the internet has changed the “writing” world?

Hugely. Now, some people working on print magazines do not yet realize (or they want to deny) the impact of the Internet. That’s OK—they’ll see the light soon enough. Print magazines’ audiences are small. Even well-known literary magazines have circulations only in the hundreds. Internet magazines, on the other hand, can reach millions of readers worldwide. It is staggering. There is no way print magazines can compete with the wide availability of Internet magazines.

Also, e-zines are free. The fact that they’re free is great for readers—but not so great for writers or publishers. We’re giving our goods away for nothing. Will it remain this way? Maybe not. Someone’s going to try to figure out how to charge people to view an e-zine. Is this bad? I’m not sure. Will it work? I don’t know. An e-zine can try to charge people to read it, but will people want to pay? If you had to pay to read FRiGG, would you? And there will always be someone who will offer a good e-zine for free. In any case, the Internet is not going away. Print magazines will never again be the only game in town. The world as they knew it is gone.

In one word how do you describe your publication?

“Good.” FRiGG is good.

How did you choose the name of your publication?

Frigg is the name of the Norse goddess who was married to Odin. She was the patron of marriage, but in some myths she supposedly had affairs with Odin’s brothers. So I like her style. She’s one interesting goddess. Also, the word “frigg” has other connotations. Some e-mail filters think it’s a dirty word so they won’t accept my e-mails. Prudes!

Some magazines are solo run. How many people help put your magazine together?

There is me and Sean Farragher, the poetry editor who also designs the pages. Sean and I are the only ones who read the submissions. There’s Al Faraone, who does all the covers and a lot of the artwork. Sometimes Daphne Buter, who’s also a fiction writer, does some artwork. Meridith Gresher, who’s a poet and fiction writer, proofreads all the content. Everyone on the staff is extremely talented and special. Really, they’re all way overqualified to work on this little e-zine, but they think it’s fun. The pay sucks, though.

Do credentials help get a writer acceptance in your publication?

Let me be careful in my answer to this one. I’ll say that if a writer has good credentials, I might read his or her submission faster. I figure the odds are good that it’ll be decent piece. Sometimes it is; sometimes it isn’t. In fact, some writers with really impressive credentials have sent us stuff that we were not at all interested in taking. Credentials alone will not get a writer into the magazine—unless that writer is really, really famous. We would like having a really, really famous writer in our magazine! We keep checking our submissions and so far…nothing from Philip Roth or John Updike or Alice Munro or Toni Morrison or Charles Simic or Mary Oliver. Can you believe this? Nothing!

List three of your favorite zines besides your own.

SmokeLong Quarterly is a groovy zine. The Mississippi Review Web Edition is good. I like Bev Jackson’s Lit Pot, but I think she’s closing soon. I hate it when lit zines go away. That’s one thing about FRiGG. It’ll outlast them all. Really, I am very dogged. Years from now people will be going, Why doesn’t that FRiGG bitch fold up her tent? This is one way to come out on top: Outlast ’em. Writers should take note of this. Just keep doing it.

What are your own writing credentials and background? Do I have to answer this? My credentials are thin. They’re anorexic. I haven’t submitted anything in a long time. But I am writing. I’m writing a novel. It’s long. It’s taking me awhile. It takes place the future but maybe by the time it’s done it won’t be in the future anymore. Note to self: Set novel even farther ahead. It takes place after the end of the world. Terrorists have unleashed a virus and most people were killed. So my protagonist is living alone in her parents’ mansion in Kansas City. She’s kind of glad everyone’s dead. It’s nice and quiet. I’ve been showing the chapters to my writers group here in Seattle and a smart woman in the group who is much more successful than I am told me, Ellen, I don’t like this character very much. Well, yeah, I can see what she means. The character really is a pain in the ass. But what the hey—the world is ended. She’s supposed to be all happy?

Do you still read print publications?

Oh, I do. I love print magazines. I wish I could do FRiGG in print but it would cost me a goddamn fortune. I can put up all those big, lush pictures on the Web, but if I did it in print, I’d go broke. This is one of the huge benefits of the Web—you can run mammoth colour pictures.

But back to print. I get The New Yorker. I’ve read it ever since I was a kid. I adore it. Back in the 1980s I subscribed to Esquire, but I don’t anymore. On and off I’ve subscribed to various print lit mags like The Missouri Review, The Sun, New Letters (a magazine out of Kansas City, where I used to live), The Seattle Review. Sometimes I buy single copies of lit mags at the newsstand. I like to look through all of them, see what writers they have. Really, I love paper. I love to feel it and look at it and smell it and take it to bed. Maybe someday, if I’m rich, I’ll do print copies of FRiGG. I’ll do it on glossy paper. Large format. Wouldn’t that be luscious? But then I’d have to die because I wouldn’t have any more money left.

Elizabeth P. Glixman's poetry, fiction, and interviews can be read online at Outsider Ink, Wicked Alice, In Posse Review, Frigg, southstory, Eclectica, www.laurahird.com and 3 A.M. Magazine and in print in Tough Times Companion, a publication of the Institute on Violence and Survival at the Virginia Foundation For the Humanities, and several mass story market anthologies. She is currently looking for a publisher for her poetry collections, Voices At Night and Reliquary. Elizabeth has a BFA degree in studio arts and a Masters Degree in Education. To visit Elizabeth's Showcase page on this site, click here