Ever wonder what writers do with those short stories, articles, essays, and memoir pieces too long or too short or too damn weird to make into print? If the writer is famous enough those misfit creations may show find a place in the Collected Works, but otherwise a permanent exile to a desk drawer often awaits the unpublishable work.
Not anymore. As of July of this year, those misfit scribblings can find a place to shine with the launch of a new online magazine, The Incongruous Quarterly. Books@Torontoist’s editor James Grainger spoke with the creator of the new mag, Emma Healey, about her goals for the improbable, incongruous project.
Torontoist: Where did the idea for an online mag devoted to unpublishable works and rejection letters spring from? Did you and the editors feel that there was too much homogeneity out there when it came to the types of works being published.
Emma Healey: It’s actually a pretty selfish project—I started the magazine because as a writer I wanted something like it to exist. While there are a lot of fantastic literary magazines in Canada already, I wanted there to be a venue for writing that didn’t have one but deserved it, something that bridged the gap between weird and not-weird, long and short, prose and poetry, more experienced writers and newer ones, etc. A journal for unpublishable literature seemed to be the best way to do that.
Torontoist: What’s the magazine’s working definition of an unpublishable work? What WOULDN’T you publish?
EH: Anything that doesn’t have a home. A work can be unpublishable for reasons as simple as length or as complex as content. A good example of how broad the definition is: Sheila Heti is putting together a section for pieces writers were commissioned to do but that, for whatever reason, never ended up seeing publication. We want a diverse collection of work in each issue, so people are kind of free to interpret it as they will.
Our only rule is that it has to be good. We won’t publish something just because it’s been rejected 25 times, or because you’ve already had a book published, or because it’s shocking. We have to like it.
Torontoist: How has the response been from contributors?
EH: It’s been fantastic. The call for submissions hasn’t even been out for a month and already we’re racing to keep up with the pieces we’re getting. I think people are really excited about it, or at least intrigued.
Torontoist: Why “Money” as a theme for the magazine’s first issue?
EH: We let each of the guest editors pick a theme for their section and issue. This one worked out really well. Daniel Scott Tysdal, who’s guest editing the poetry section, picked the theme of “The Graphic” and sent us this beautiful, elaborate description of what that theme could entail. And Pasha Malla sent us an email that just said “MONEY.” It’s perfect—I couldn’t have planned it better.
Torontoist: What do you have planned for future issues?
EH: A lot of really exciting things. In the short term: we’re having a party on May 15th at Double Double Land with readings from Pasha Malla, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Sheila Heti, and music from Charlotte Cornfield. Our first issue launches in July, and people should become fans of us on Facebook or check back to our website to find out about the launch party we’ll be having then.
In the long term, we’ve got a lot of really great guest editors lined up for future issues, including (but definitely not limited to) Zoe Whittall, Karen Correia da Silva, Saleema Nawaz, Michael Redhill, Stuart Ross, and Daniel Beirne. The website’s going to expand with every issue—we want to find ways to incorporate different things (like music, art, webcomics, all the great rejection letters people have been forwarding us, etc.) into different branches of the magazine. We’re definitely not short on ideas or energy.
Torontoist: What’s your favourite classic unpublishable work?
EH: Ulysses. Because I’m a nerd.
(The inaugural Incongruous Quarterly reading/party happens on Saturday May 15 at Double Double Land, 209 Augusta Avenue. For details about the event go here.)
