[00:00:26] Tamara: Welcome to the Terrain.org podcast--conversations with authors, artists, scientists and others who share Terrain.org's passion for place and focus on climate, community and justice. I'm podcast editor Tamara Dean.
In a departure from recent productions, this episode features A roundtable of Terrain.org's creative nonfiction Elizabeth Dodd, Achilles Seastrom, Jennie Case, and Eric Aldrich.
They discuss how they became editors, what kinds of submissions they long to discover, and which types of essays aren't a good fit for the journal. They talk about how editing has affected their own writing and where else they look for new, impressive place based literature.
Welcome to the terrain.org podcast, Jenny, Elizabeth, Achilles and Eric, it's so nice to be with you today.
[00:01:22] Elizabeth: Hi.
Achilles: Nice to be here. Thank you for having us.
[00:01:25] Tamara: Why don't you go ahead first of all and introduce yourselves. You're all creative nonfiction editors at Terrain.org and you all have significant qualifications in writing as well as editing.
So we'll start with you, Achilles.
[00:01:38] Achilles: yeah, I'm Achilles Seastrom. I just graduated with my MFA from Iowa State University in Creative Writing and Environment. I do some editorial work for a science fiction magazine in addition to this, and I also run a podcast with my friend Emma Crabb called Not all that Human.
[00:01:59] Tamara: Thank you, Achilles. And Elizabeth?
[00:02:04] Elizabeth: I'm Elizabeth Dodd. I am nonfiction editor at Terrain.org and a member of the terrain.org board of directors.
I recently retired from Kansas State University where for almost four decades I taught poetry, creative nonfiction, literature and environment, and science and society.
I am the author of six books and the co editor of the anthology Dear Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, which I co edited with other editors at Terrain.org.
[00:02:36] Tamara: Thank you, Elizabeth. And Jennie?
[00:02:42] Jennie: My name is Jennie Case and I have been an Assistant Nonfiction Editor with Terrain since 2014 after I'd graduated with my PhD and I'm now an Associate Creative Nonfiction professor at the University of Central Arkansas and I've written three books of creative nonfiction and I'm happy to stay involved with Terrain throughout that time.
[00:03:07] Eric: My name is Eric Aldrich. I am a writer from Tucson, Arizona. I teach writing and literature at Pima Community College here in Tucson and I'm also a co chair of the Board of Directors of Sky island alliance, which is a conservation organization based here as well. We work to protect the sky island region of Southern Arizona.
[00:03:30] Tamara: Thanks, Eric.
I'm curious to know how each of you became a Terrain.org editor. Achilles, what was your path to becoming part of the journal?
[00:03:41] Achilles: I did my MA at Kansas State University where Elizabeth happened to be teaching, and the first semester I was there, she said, I don't think you came to the school to work with any of us in particular. And then I spent the rest of the rest of my time at the MA working with her specifically.
And specifically, every single time she told me to do something, I did it.
She would send me online webinars that people were holding. And because I respected environmental writing so much, because I wanted so badly to be a part of that community and to be involved, any opportunity that she sent me, I decided that was why I was at K State at that point, and I did it.
And that paid off because when I went to my MFA the second semester I was there, she sent me an email and said, would you like to read for terrain.org and I said, of course I would, because I'd been. I dedicated so much time to trying to understand this community that I wanted to be a part of, trying to understand how I write in a way that benefits them, how I hone editorial skills in a way that benefits them. And so I guess that's all to say I owe my involvement not only in terrain.org but my involvement in the larger environmental writing community and culture to Elizabeth.
[00:05:08] Tamara: Thanks, Achilles. Jennie, tell me how you became a Terrain.org editor.
[00:05:14] Jennie: Well, I've always loved environmental writing. And I got my PhD focusing on environmental literature and creative nonfiction. And so I did that, and I was immersed in those fields. And then I graduated with my PhD and it took me two years on the job market to find a job, and I was flailing a little bit in that. That one year gap in particular. And I realized I needed to find a way to stay embedded in that environmental writing community so I felt like I was part of that community and didn't just feel like I was unmoored and untethered and floating away.
So I never met Simmons before, but I just sent him an email. I think I still have the email I sent him saying, hey, there's a situation. I here are my qualifications, and I'd really love to read for your journal. And these are the other journals I've I've worked with as an editor in the past, and he was kind enough to offer me a spot as an assistant nonfiction editor. And I've been here ever since. And I've just continually been amazed at how wonderful and supportive the Terrain.org family is. And people come in and out, and yet it's always really felt like the. This really. Yeah. Supportive community.
[00:06:32] Tamara: Well, that's a great story. Thanks, Jennie. And Eric, how did you become a Terrain.org editor?
[00:06:39] Eric: Well, I believe it started by reading reading Terrain. And then I had a couple pieces with Terrain as a writer, and Elizabeth worked with me on those. And so we got to know each other a little bit through that process. I presented at the American Literature association on a panel with Elizabeth and some other Terrain writers. And then I received an email that asked if I would like to be an assistant nonfiction editor, to which I said yes.
[00:07:11] Tamara: Fabulous. And how long ago was that?
[00:07:15] Eric: About almost exactly a year. It was this time last year that I started being an assistant nonfiction editor.
[00:07:21] Tamara: And Elizabeth, I have to ask you how you became a Terrain.org editor.
[00:07:26] Elizabeth: Well, I was a writer in residence on Mount St. Helens with Simmons Buntin, and Derek Sheffield. And being a writer in residence on Mount St. Helens means you show up with your tent and you pitch it in a meadow and you follow scientists around.
There's a whole cadre of scientists who have been studying succession on the volcano ever since its major eruption in the 1980s.
So that's when I met Simmons and I met Derek.
I became. I was a contributor. I sent a piece and it won the nonfiction contest. And so that was my entry into terrain.org I became a columnist a couple of years later. And then when the existing nonfiction editor moved on, Simmons asked me if I would take on that role and lead the nonfiction staff.
So from my perspective, we have people who've taken different avenues here. Achilles was an intern and did some really valuable work in many different spheres with the Journal before he went on and completed an MFA and is now a member of the team as a nonfiction assistant editor. Eric was an author whom I loved working with. I've taught his essays in my classes. He's been kind enough to come and speak with my students virtually in a Zoom conference. And so we've been able to talk about the kinds of things he was doing in in essays, using the online only format as part of the form of the essay.
And I just admire so much Jennie's bravery in just reaching out and saying, I think you might be my home. And then when she decided it was her home, she stayed and she didn't have to. And she continues to read and spend time with the journal.
[00:09:43] Tamara: Elizabeth, I want to start with you and ask how you define the type of writing that terrain.org publishes. Do you call it nature writing or environmental writing or place-based writing or something else?
[00:09:56] Elizabeth: Well, thanks for that question.
I've been with terrain.org almost as long as Jennie, she is actually our senior person in terms of longevity with the journal and so book. Both she and I have seen the terminology change over the years. The way we envision what terrain.org is up to.
Currently, we define ourselves as place based writing and art. Some years ago we were terrain.org colon. What was after the colon, Jennie?
[00:10:37] Jennie: Journal of the natural and built environments.
[00:10:40] Elizabeth: Yeah, with a plus sign, I think the natural plus built environments. And so our emphasis was all about inhabitation in a larger than human world.
I think that describes us well.
[00:10:58] Tamara: And how does terrain.org fit into the landscape of similar journals or other journals that are publishing place based writing?
[00:11:07] Elizabeth: One of the things we do is just a technical one. We're all volunteer. We don't have any foundation support. We are kind of a shoestring operation.
And yet we do not accept any ads and we never charge anything for simply submission in our open submissions period. So I think one of the ways that we really do do distinguish ourselves is providing a commons. We are a commons for writing art commentary that fits these niches that we're interested in.
We're committed to justice in all of the areas that we publish. So whether it is a built environment or whether it's wilderness, if you will, wilderness writing, we're really committed to a sense of justice in all of that work.
[00:12:04] Tamara: Thank you. Jennie, how does Terrain.org's approach to place based writing affect the kinds of submissions you get and what you end up bringing to the world, as opposed to other journals that might not be, as Elizabeth said, such commons with, you know, easy access and volunteer run and no fee for submissions?
[00:12:26] Jennie: Well, I do think terrain.org is more friendly to emerging writers than some of the other larger environmental literature journals out in the world. We get a lot of really strong submissions. So I can't say it's easy to get into terrain.org but we are always looking for new voices and really trying to welcome in and add voices to conversations taking place about place and environment.
So I do think because we're an online journal that publishes almost daily, sometimes especially with the Letter to America series. Right, Elizabeth? We actually published a lot of people who we'd never published before through some of those series and those more informal means of getting into the journal. So I do think it's. Terrain.org is special in that some writers find a home in terrain.org, who. Who may not find a home in some other environmental journals that are increasingly harder to get into.
[00:13:26] Tamara: Hmm. Well, Achilles, I'm curious to hear your experience. How do you regard the journal in that world of place based writing? And also the kinds of submissions that you see coming in?
[00:13:37] Achilles: How do I regard them? With high esteem.
Terrain.org I think, was one of my first introductions to magazines that were specifically interested in environmental writing. So I think for me, the conversations that happen at terrain.org, the people who are involved with terrain.org I've come to see them as kind of the foundation for environmental writing in my life, at least, and the kind of jumping off point that I use to discover more, to meet more people.
I. I try to be very aware of justice and equity in writing. And I think that I probably have annoyed a few people by leaving long comments where I say, this individual deserves recognition and publication, and we need to hear more from people like this. But first we have to do 10 hours of editing for them.
And so I do think of my editorial work with terrain.org and the submissions we get as very much an opportunity to do some good in the world and do some good for the people who need to be heard and need to be recognized right now.
[00:14:56] Tamara: Yeah, I've heard that word justice come up a few times. And equality has come up too. So, Achilles, can you give me an example of a time when you advocated for a particular submission or argued for its merits, despite the amount of work it might have needed?
[00:15:14] Achilles: I don't argue, I just do. I take Elizabeth's decision as gospel. But this morning I was reading a piece by a writer from India, I believe, and the images that he sent in with his writing, I felt were really compelling and unique images to see. He was writing about the effect of pollution on animals in India.
And I sent. Elizabeth is going to see it soon. I sent a long message advocating for the way that he was using imagery specifically to visualize and convey what he saw happening in his home country.
[00:15:55] Tamara: Thank you. Eric, Achilles was just telling us about pieces that terrain.org receives that he feels strongly about uplifting. And I wonder if you can tell us about pieces that you feel strongly about and maybe even give an example of something that really excited you recently.
[00:16:14] Eric: So I really appreciate pieces where, you know, the sense of the place, the setting is really essential to the story and in which the internal narrative of the narrator or, or a particular character is primary in the text.
And I also appreciate it when there's some kind of a conflict.
I know that sounds a little strange because all essays should have some sort of an arc or a conflict.
The one that pops into my head when you ask that question was one of the contest finalists and it was called Unusual Mortality Event. It was by Megan Kearney Anderson, and it was set in New England, which is where I'm originally from.
A whale had washed up on a beach. And it just so happened that her sister was a local politician in the town with the whale washed up. And so she braided this narrative of her own personal life at the time in dealing with her family and some other issues. But she braided it in with the bureaucratic process that it took to figure out how for a town to figure out how to get rid of a dead whale on the beach.
And it was a really unique perspective in that sort of bureaucratic conflict where there was a lot of people involved in systems. And I found that to be unique. And I really enjoyed that piece.
[00:17:39] Tamara: That sounds fascinating. Yeah, thank you.
Are there any trends you're seeing? I'll ask you, Elizabeth, in the submissions that you think might be overplayed or overdone by now?
[00:17:53] Elizabeth: We see a lot of narratives, basic narratives in which the writer is exploring how journey or time in the more than human world has served as a catalyst for self discovery.
And I think that that's a wonderful archetypal story. It can be told again and again and it can always be interesting.
But the writer has to find a way to make it new, to find the new approach, the new angle of approach, and not just rest on the archetypal power of that kind of arc.
And so we get a lot of those. And I'm always looking in the first three pages, how is this going to be new? How is this going to surprise me?
And sometimes it doesn't.
[00:18:48] Tamara: Hmm. Yeah.
Jennie, can you tell me what kind of originality you're looking for in pieces?
[00:18:55] Jennie: Well, the one thing I notice when I'm reading for Terrain is it becomes really clear very quickly which writers are familiar with conversations taking place in place based literature and environmental writing in which writers just aren't. And so they've written something that, like Elizabeth said, might feature a camping trip or it might feature a particular animal and they're writing about it, but they don't know how many people have also written about those same environmental issues in the past and they're not aware of that larger conversation. But if a piece is going to be published in Terrain.org, our readers are aware of those decades long environmental conversations. So a piece that makes its way into the journal needs to be contributing to that conversation. The writer needs to at least be aware of tropes in environmental writing and movements and conversations and conflicts, and to be pushing that larger conversation forward. So it's not that the pieces are bad, I'd say, or it's just the weakness I've noticed in some train.org submissions is simply that it's coming from a writer who doesn't quite see their work within that larger conversation and can't write about their experience in a way that pushes the larger conversation forward.
[00:20:21] Tamara: Yeah, that's very interesting.
So, having an understanding and a background in place based literature can be important to making your work stand out. And that brings me to the question of how many submissions in the creative nonfiction category does terrain.org get per month?
And what is the percentage of pieces you can take?
[00:20:43] Elizabeth: We receive huge numbers of submissions.
We don't read and accept. Well, we read all year. We don't accept submissions all year long. So I think this year our submission window was January through May, and we received hundreds of submissions.
We're still working our way through all of those. I think we try to get some kind of an answer back to people within three months of the submission period. That's becoming harder to do.
I think we will be still working on submissions that we received in April and May through the summer.
Out of those hundreds, we are only able to publish no more than 10% part of what we publish. In nonfiction, we like to feature excerpts from books that have appeared recently.
Again, we want to bring forward the larger conversation in place based literature. And one of the ways that we do that is through publishing some book excerpts.
And so we're really not able to publish more than a couple of pieces each month of original nonfiction. So we have to be very, very selective.
[00:22:11] Tamara: Thank you. I wonder if one of you can talk about the particular experience of working with an author to develop their piece and ready it for publication.
[00:22:21] Elizabeth: Achilles was an intern with us and has had some of that experience, so I'd like to defer to him first.
[00:22:28] Achilles: I did do that. I also worked with Simmons Buntin on the Life of Science series, which was a collaboration with the Carson Center, I believe, at Arizona State University.
In that series, we published personal narratives from PhD students that integrated the work that they were doing with what they were observing around them or the stories that they were finding in their work or the stories that they were finding in their own life.
This might not answer questions about the process, but something that I found very interesting about that work was how clear it became that everybody can actually tell a story about the place that they're in and about how they're interacting with the world. And I was routinely impressed with how well these people, who I assume didn't have much experience in creative writing, did with editorial comments. When I try to support them bringing out that narrative and leaning into the narrative, especially when they were so used to writing for. For a hard, science, academic audience.
And the process, I think, of helping someone say to the world what they feel they want to say is incredibly gratifying. And to my earlier comments about equity in publishing and about the voices that we need to hear, I think that that series specifically played a really important role, I think, in bringing together humanities and sciences and making sure that the people who are on the ground in some way doing that scientific work are part of the cultural and creative conversations happening around environmental work, as well as part of the academic conversations that they drive.
[00:24:20] Tamara: As you say that, Achilles, I was thinking of what a skill it is to blend science and humanities.
Does anyone have a comment on particular writers and how they manage to do that? People you've worked with, maybe, or people whose work you've read and admired? What is the trick to balancing that science and art to write a really compelling creative nonfiction piece?
[00:24:43] Elizabeth: Well, I think Eric brought up one of the points that's key and that it's to have some kind of a narrative. And. And so often the narrative is the story of the author's discovery of the topic and immersing the sense of self and the sense of wonder or discovery into whatever the discovery has been. A sense of history.
So having both the story and the larger story of literary history or science history, and having the two rhyme with one another or have some kind of interesting textural relationship, I think that's what makes really great science writing or creative writing. Engaging with science.
[00:25:36] Tamara: Eric, do you want to expand on that?
[00:25:38] Eric: Oh, sure. I mean, I would agree with what Elizabeth said. It's the combination of having the science in conversation with the personal narrative.
And I really appreciate it when you are meeting a person, like clearly meeting a person in the piece.
We do get some essays that I would lovingly refer to as blog posts, which is not meant as an insult, because a blog post can be really well composed, it can be informative, it can be well written.
But if I could find the same information in your essay online, and rather than read it in your essay, like, there needs to be a reason why you are the person telling me this story.
What did you learn about this particular scientific concept or animal or ecological event?
I really would like to see the writer's unique perspective or connection to whatever the science is. Because we can read science stuff online if we're, you know, good at Googling. So the more essential that the narrative voice is, I think the stronger the science based piece will be.
[00:26:51] Tamara: Mm. Thank you.
I have a question for all of you, which is, is there a particular piece you're longing to find or have land in your inbox and could you describe it, or is it something that you just know when you see it? Eric?
[00:27:06] Eric: Yes.
So there are certain pieces that I. That we have published before because I've been reading Terrain for a lot longer than I've been editing for Terrain where there are. And I don't know how to put this. Like when someone can write an adventure essay, when something really compelling happens relative to action or suspense or some sort of really significant event. I love essays that pontificate or that explore the small things in life as well. But when somebody can write an essay that's really impactful about a really unique experience that involves something that I might call like, more adventurous or has something more at stake, an essay that comes to mind. And I'm sorry, I'm going to forget the name of the writer because it was several years ago that I read this essay. It was the perspective of a female wilderness firefighter and she was comparing her fear of her colleagues to her fear of fire. And that was such an effective, intense piece. And I read that one more than once and I taught it in a class.
So that sort of, again, not every essay needs to have a large adventure arc or something major happening. But when one does, I do get excited.
[00:28:22] Tamara: Yeah, thank you.
Anyone else want to take that on? Is there some piece you're longing to receive?
[00:28:29] Jennie: I always get real excited when I open a piece and I can immediately tell that it's written by a poet at heart. When the writing is there and just the quality of the sentence and the writer has an awareness of sound and style and pacing, it can carry me through that essay. And even If I don't 100% understand the essay, just the quality of the writing can be so engaging that I'm there for it and willing to keep reading.
And we don't get that many of those, actually. We get a lot of really thought provoking essays with great material in them. But the really lyrical poetic work we don't get as often as I would expect us to, and they stand out to me.
[00:29:13] Elizabeth: Let me jump in as well, because Jennie said essentially what I was going to say, that we've been focusing on narrative and the power of narrative and how essential it can be to many kinds of essays.
But the lyric essay, the more image driven essay, in which the connections may be more metaphorical, maybe more subtle, and they certainly won't be primarily narrative driven.
I love those.
And we don't, as Jennie said quite accurately, we don't get as many of those as I would expect.
And we don't get as many successful examples, I think, as I would expect.
We did receive a piece by Lia Purpura recently. We published it, I think, in the last year.
I think she's a terrific example of that kind of writer. She often does write with more a strong narrative sense as well, but her ability to layer metaphor and imagery so that the piece is at least as much driven by those writerly techniques or approaches as it is by narrative.
I was delighted when I saw her piece unsolicited in our submissions list.
[00:30:39] Tamara: Yeah, that's who I was thinking about when Jennie was talking. Achilles, Is there anything you long to see and haven't yet seen or rarely see?
[00:30:49] Achilles: Yeah, I really devour essays that approach something taboo, that are trying to launch a conversation that I think we have shied away from culturally for any number of reasons. It takes a lot of finesse, a lot of delicacy, a lot of economy of language and really precise language to talk about some of these topics. And I think that essays that manage to do that are essential to driving cultural narratives and cultural conversations forward.
And when I can find that. When I can find a piece that, if it had done something slightly different, it wouldn't be publishable on, like, cultural grounds or sensitivity grounds, I really admire the writers who are able to do that. And I get really excited that we're able to. To potentially publish something that, in my perspective, again, can be important for moving conversations into places that are hard to go.
[00:31:52] Tamara: Eric, did you have something to add?
[00:31:55] Eric: I would just comment. As someone who goes through the slush pile, there's a few topics that I more or less just clear out.
So if you don't read Terrain, and you've never read Terrain, maybe read Terrain before you submit. That's important.
We get some topics. Well, recently we've received some writing that was pretty clearly written by AI and we are not interested in that.
So please, no AI writing.
If you are writing something that would probably be considered academic, like if you're also submitting it to the Journal of Urban and Suburban Hydrology and it has lots of citations, we're probably not going to be looking for that either.
And if it's, you know, doesn't have anything to do with the environment and it is trying to convince me to believe in your religion, I probably, probably won't be using that either.
[00:32:51] Tamara: Yeah, those are great to keep in mind. And I'm curious now, are you receiving much AI-generated writing and how are you checking for that?
[00:33:02] Eric: So I don't know what other folks have found, but I have experienced receiving AI writing probably three or four times, which would be three or four out of probably 50 plus pieces that I've read.
And it ranges in how I identify. I teach college composition and literature. I have lots of time to read AI writing and so I sort of recognize some of the routine things that are appear in AI writing. It tends to be pretty formulaic things that like lists or hyper, like extreme hyperbole, odd callbacks to previous points in the essay.
It's been generally just bad writing. So it's not like we're going to publish it. Even if, if it's the same quality like AI wrote it or you wrote it, it's, it's. We're not going to publish it either way. AI is not a particularly adept at syntax and things. So I don't, again, I don't know what Achilles or Jennie or Elizabeth have experienced. I know Elizabeth and I had a conversation about it and I've shared a couple pieces with her that were pretty obvious AI writing.
But. So yeah, we have received some which I think is interesting considering that one of the pieces was, you know, people put their actual name on it and they were real tenure track professors at an actual university and they submitted AI writing to us. So that says a little something about, about, you know, how attached to the actual writing these people were, I guess.
[00:34:34] Tamara: Elizabeth, you want to add to that?
[00:34:36] Elizabeth: I was really glad when Eric brought this to my attention and we started having a conversation.
I immediately reached out to Simmons and, and he pretty quickly devised, with the help of some other folks in the editorial board, a policy. So we're very clear on our webpage now that we will not accept any AI-generated writing.
I have noticed in some of the cover letters since we put out that notice that folks are being very upfront and saying this is original work, none of this is AI-generated.
[00:35:15] Tamara: I wonder if within an issue or a period of publication you try to create a complement of content. In other words, when you choose to publish something, is it considered within the context of a constellation of other pieces you're publishing at the same time?
[00:35:32] Elizabeth: So we used to do theme issues and the editorial board would have a discussion about potential themes that might start speak to a moment.
And we worked very hard at curating some of those issues. We moved away from that structure to a daily publication so that something is coming out every day. And so that interest in really curating a group of pieces that speak to one another in some way is not a priority of ours anymore.
We certainly will pay attention to time pegs when they come in, either as a general submission in nonfiction or in the Letter to America series that Jennie was mentioning earlier. We'll pay attention to that kind of thing.
But I do sort of miss that. It's a wonderful thing to bring pieces together in ways that they illuminate one another, that they give you a greater sense of, of richness and texture.
[00:36:37] Tamara: Thanks.
I'm curious to know, what other publications do you read and admire and maybe take guidance from, Jennie?
[00:36:45] Jennie: Oh, that's a tough one. I mean, I'm, I, I always love Orion. Of course I pay attention to what Orion is publishing.
Emergence magazine, I think they do a really beautiful job as well. I really love the Hopper. I think they're another small, beautiful environmental literary journal.
But I honestly don't read as much from literary journals as I do books.
So I try to just keep reading a lot of books that are being published in place based literature and environmental writing to make sure I'm aware of all of the conversations taking place. And honestly, as someone who writes creative nonfiction, one of the blessings of being involved with the terrain.org team is just reading all the submissions also keeps me aware of what conversations are taking place and how people are thinking about environment and place. And I'll see, I'll learn new things from the submissions and see new, new threads coming through there.
[00:37:46] Tamara: Thank you, Jennie. Eric, what journals do you read and admire?
[00:37:52] Eric: Well, Jennie got my first two, Orion and Emergence.
And I love Emergence because I also teach, you know, I teach college and everything is free online and they pair the, they pair the writing with such great artists.
So I teach a lot of stuff out of Emergence and Terrain because my students don't have to pay for it. And it's extremely high quality contemporary writing.
As a reader, I would also, you know, say Ecotone, the one that David Gessner edits.
And I've just been a lifelong reader of The Sun magazine. I think that the diversity of what they publish is really terrific. But I always find something, something in at least the reader's rights section that grabs my and holds my attention.
[00:38:39] Elizabeth: I'll add to those Places Journal is a really interesting online journal. I think that again brings multiple disciplines together in a place based focus. I like them. I want to make a plug for the newsletter, the Sunday Long Read, which curates every week long form journalism. And I read it quite assiduously just to see, see again how so many different approaches are being brought to bear on reportage and the importance of reportage in the nonfiction world.
[00:39:23] Tamara: Thank you. And Achilles?
[00:39:23] Achilles: I think a lot of the big names in environmental literary writing have been covered. I have one foot in journalism, so I appreciate Elizabeth bringing up long form journalism.
The publications I read a lot, Farmer's Footprint, just because I write a lot about the Midwest and about farming. Also the Grist, Inside Climate News and the New Territory, which blends literary and journalism work specifically for a Midwest audience. And a lot of those are, I think more informative to me as a writer, perhaps, but I also think as a reader. We've been talking about timeliness, we've been talking about conversations that stay up to date with what's going on. I think as a reader or a writer, it's beneficial to be looking at what's coming from outside the literary world as well. Especially because we so often see literary writing and reportage or journalism as things that are separate and I don't think they should be.
[00:40:27] Tamara: Yeah, that's a great point. Thank you, Achilles.
It occurs to me that, well, you all read deeply and widely and your writers as well. So, I wonder if, in addition to keeping up with these journals and books being published about place, if being an editor for Terrain.org has affected your own writing, either the process or content or reflection on it and how.
Anybody want to answer that? Eric?
[00:40:55] Eric: It definitely has helped because you know, when you're reading as a, as a writer or as a reader, you are very.
Your own perspective and your own foibles, whatever, are really central to your experience.
When you're reading as an editor and you have to conceptualize a broader audience around a publication, then you're not just reading for yourself.
And so an example would be I read an essay sometime last year and then I. And I was like, this is a really well written essay. I don't necessarily connect with it. Like personally, it's not something that speaks to my experience or a topic that I'm like, you know, completely gravitating toward. But I. But it's a really well written essay and I bet Terrain readers would like it. So I forwarded it to Elizabeth and sure enough it was accepted.
And so being able to have that kind of third party view of writing, including your own writing. If you can picture how someone else's work may appeal or not appeal to an audience, that is a valuable skill to bring to your own view of your own writing.
[00:42:03] Elizabeth: I've become more aware of certain habits of syntax that I can fall into.
I'm always a fan of long sentences as part of the act of pacing in a piece and this sense of accretion. I really like essays that do accrete and grow and bring many things to you together, but I rely way too much on semicolons.
[00:42:27] Tamara: That's great. I love that observation. Thank you, Elizabeth. Jennie?
[00:42:31] Jennie: I always encourage my grad students to read for a literary journal, and we have one at uca, so they generally get that opportunity. But I always encourage them to do that because I think in general, reading a slush pile is going to teach you how to read your own work in new ways. And I've certainly found that myself. Right. Where if I can identify something that's not quite working in someone else's draft or their essay, then when I go back to my own draft, I can much more easily identify it in my work too. Or I realize, oh, oh, yes, you're. You're getting too discursive here. The pace has slowed too much. And even though you love that paragraph, you really need to tighten it a bit so that we keep moving, moving forward. And I think in general, just reading other people's drafts and especially having to choose right which drafts are or which submissions are going to make it to Elizabeth and which just aren't quite ready yet to be published, at least in terrain.org that, that learning how to evaluate work like that help gives you skills and tools that you can use to better evaluate and judge your own work.
[00:43:41] Achilles: I'd like to diverge a little bit maybe, and say that I think one of the valuable things about reading through, being a first reader, reading through a slush pile is the way that it connects you with other writers. Writing is. Writing is a very solo task. And reading what Terrain.org is receiving or any of the other literary magazines that I've worked with has given me a sense of community with other people who are struggling in the same way and trying to find homes for their work in the same way and trying to say something that they think is important to say.
And being deep in the pile of submissions really places you with your people even though they're not there, even though you're not having a conversation with them, you are interacting with them in an important way.
[00:44:32] Tamara: Yeah, absolutely.
It makes you part of this community, and you really feel it. Thank you.
Is there anything we haven't covered that you want to make sure listeners understand about your role as a terrain.org editor, the editing process, or the kind of material you're looking for?
[00:44:51] Achilles: I feel like it bears saying, assuming that listeners of this podcast are also going to be submitters to terrain.org that a rejection doesn't say necessarily anything about the value of your piece.
And a rejection also doesn't mean that you shouldn't come back to terrain.org later with another essay.
[00:45:11] Tamara: Thank you. That does seem important to say.
And do you offer encouragement to those whose pieces are close but not quite ready for publication?
[00:45:21] Elizabeth: We do sometimes.
Many people receive a rather short letter declining their work. There may be a sentence or two sometimes, and I've looked at some of the letters that other members of the staff have sent calling out something that they think is particularly strong in a piece, or suggesting some way that it fell a bit short of the mark, but that that's not slamming the door shut on future submissions from that author.
I would like to take this question as a stepping off point for returning to something that I think Jennie was mentioning at the very beginning of this conversation.
And that's the fact that, yes, we publish pieces by authors who are quite well known and who have published several books.
We also publish the very first appearances of a number of writers, and sometimes that does involve a good deal of editing.
I feel fortunate when I have the time to actually work with a younger or emerging writer and give it the kind of editorial attention and developmental editing that it really does deserve.
[00:46:43] Tamara: Thank you, Elizabeth. I'm grateful for the fresh content that Terrain.org publishes so regularly, and I'm really thankful to all of you for taking the time to talk with me today.
[00:46:53] Elizabeth: Thank you, Tamara.
Eric: Thank you for having us.
[00:46:56] Jennie: Thank you so much.
[00:46:57] Achilles: Been a pleasure talking.
[00:46:59] Tamara: Thank you for listening to the Terrain.org podcast. Today's episode featured Terrain.org nonfiction editors Achilles Seastrom, Elizabeth Dodd, Eric Aldrich, and Jennie Case discussing the type of work terrain.org seeks and how that reflects the journal's mission. You can find a transcript of this episode and previous podcast episodes
[email protected]. The music is Natural Murmur by Heron Splinter. I'm Terrain.org's podcast editor, Tamara Dean.
