Jason Jordan is the author of The Dying Horse (Main Street Rag, 2012), Cloud and Other Stories (Six Gallery Press, 2010), and Powering the Devil’s Circus: Redux (Six Gallery Press, 2010). His work has appeared in several literary magazines. He edits decomP, www.decompmagazine.com, and blogs at poweringthedevilscircus.blogspot.com. Currently he’s working on a novel for which he’ll probably seek representation.
Natasha Stagg: Give us a short description of your journal.
Jason Jordan: decomP (b. 2004) is an online literary magazine that is updated monthly. We publish prose, poetry, art, and solicited book reviews. We’ll soon attempt to enter the print realm.
JJ: I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in New Albany, Indiana. I live in New Albany now, though I’ve lived in Muncie, Indiana, for a few months and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for two years.
JJ: decomP is yet another outlet for creative work, but unlike several journals, we publish a range of material from the traditional to the experimental.
JJ: Yes and no. I say yes because no other magazine is publishing what we publish because we require writers to submit new work. The only reason I say no is because many other publications are using the same means–text, pictures, audio, video–to deliver their content. We have limitations in this regard.
JJ: It may surprise you, but literary journals are actually my favorite things to read. I enjoy reading different authors of different genres all in one place. They also help me discover writers I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise. As for being more worthwhile than anthologies, there are a lot of variables that prevent me from giving a clearcut answer. I will say, however, that I prefer journals/anthologies to not have theme issues.
JJ: Great stuff! We publish flash prose and short prose. The prose can be traditional, fabulist, experimental, etc. Our poetry is free verse and form. The art is usually a painting but sometimes a photograph. I think we publish compelling work no matter its classification.
JJ: I recommend checking out our guidelines at http://www.decompmagazine.com/submit.htm. But, to answer your specifics, we accept online submissions via Submishmash. There are no reading fees. There’s no reading period; we’re open year-round.
NS: Do you think literary journals are endangered?
JJ: Not at all. It seems every time I check Duotrope there are new journals popping up.
JJ: I don’t think so. Rather than pit online and print against each other, why not combine them? After all, you can do things with print that you can’t do online and vice versa. I often think of what Lee K. Abbott said in Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2009: “good writing is good writing, no matter where we find it.”
JJ: Yes. I believe a lot of journals don’t make it because people start them without knowing just how much time and effort they’ll require. Maintaining a journal–online, print, or both–is hard work. Plus, you won’t make much of a profit, if any. In fact, I’d say journals, on average, lose money.
NS: What about book-publishing?
JJ: I’d say the same thing: people will continue to publish work if they believe in it, even if they lose money doing so.