At CSU's Business of Writing Colloquium I discovered that Cleveland’s homegrown publications rock: Imagine that! As I'm a student wrapping up the final year of my undergrad, about to enter Cleveland's art and writing world as a "professional." The high octane sessions at CSU's Imagination series served up an opportunity to meet writers and editors, while revealing a lot about the publishing world.

I discovered the hard realities pretty quick: "People will publish you because they think they can make money off of you or bring prestige to their agency...it's just reality," explained Babette Sparr, literary agent with the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency in Del Mar California. She was accompanied by hardened editors Kathy Fagan and Michelle Herman, of Ohio State University's The Journal. They shared their perspectives and their requirements, some critical, some ridiculous regarding submission guidelines to their lit review - this part of the conference hit a "real world" smack in my face. Babette Sparr kicked off the morning session with her above-mentioned positive(?) attitude about writing and continued to elaborate on the "gold-digger" mentality of literary agents. Kathy Fagan and Michelle Herman from Columbus came across as haughty; I was not sure if it was justifiably so (being editors for 15 years at Ohio State University's lit journal), but they succeeded in creating a national crisis over the exact font size required from writers who submit, and that margins should be 1.2356987547123 or else submissions are immediately rejected. They educated us on the pitfalls of submitting to OSU's lit mag, "As editors we are looking for reasons why not to publish you," which included writers' manners, propriety in correspondence and incorrect writer queries. They filled the audience in with their policies for blackballing, too, "We have certain rules, if writers don't follow them, they are no longer invited to submit." In response to a question in the audience, "What can writers do to make sure their material actually gets read?" to which they responded, "Send chocolates with your writing," somewhat humorously, but no one was laughing.

They also reminded the audience of their right to be editors by name-dropping, "Publishing is still largely about who you know." This self-promotion went on for a good ten minutes; I felt like bullshit bombs were being dropped on C-Town. The message they sent to the audience was mainly their "requirements" which were all subjective. By the time they'd finished, I was stressed out enough to upgrade my Marlborough Lights crave to Marlborough Reds. But session three was still to come, with featured panel discussions by Eric Anderson, Editor for CSU's Whiskey Island, Amy Sparks, Editor and Founder of Angle Magazine, and Daniel Gray-Kontar, Editor and Founder of Urban Dialect. These three represented well and spoke to the crowd with a sensible approach; not only were they inspiring, uplifting, and positive, they were down-to-earth. Eric Anderson talked about publishing in Cleveland, recognizing both East and West side writers, "Writers from different areas bring a different aesthetic, you feel it in their writing." Anderson, Sparks and Kontar enforced the importance of creativity and their desire to see imagination, innovation, and differentiation in submissions. And Kontar talked about fusing creative writing with non-fiction, mining Cleveland's literary and cultural movements and synthesizing them. It was cool hearing him speak about "Post Soul" and celebrating diversity throught writing.

The most important aspect I learned from the conference was that some of the best editors and people in publishing are right here in Cleveland. And my apprehension about entering this “real world” of publishing dissipated. Our city's publishers are real people, focusing on content that makes a difference and shapes our community. When it comes to alternative and creative publications, it's true: Cleveland Rocks. from Cool Cleveland contributor DJ Hellerman DJ_Hellerman@yahoo.com (:divend:)