Six Questions for Euan, Founder/Editor, Structo Magazine

Structo publishes fiction up to 3,000 words and poetry in all genres, alongside essays and interviews with authors and others. Read the complete guidelines here.


SQF: Why did you start this magazine?

Euan: I worked on a film journal throughout my time at university and after graduation I realised that I missed the experience of working on a magazine. Literature had always been very important to me, and starting a literary magazine seemed like the perfect way to merge those two interests. Nine years and 17 issues of Structo later, I'm pretty sure I was right.


SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a submission and why?

Euan: The first and most important thing is that it compels us to continue reading. This can be accomplished in many ways—a well-drawn character, sparky dialogue, an intriguing question or statement dropped in the first few paragraphs—but every piece we publish has something of the sort. On the poetry front, verse should have a flow, unless halting text is necessary to communicate meaning. Finally, an interesting or unusual viewpoint is always welcome, be it that of the writer themselves or of the narrative or poetic voice.


SQF: What most often turns you off to a submission?

Euan: Overly elaborate prose or verse. Thesaurus writing gets very old, very quickly. It's also very hard to keep an open mind in the face of more than a couple of spelling mistakes on the first page.


SQF: What magazines/zines do you read on a “regular” basis?

Euan: On the literary magazine front: Popshot, Firewords Quarterly, The New Yorker and Barrelhouse. Also a shout-out to our fellow Nederlanders Versal, who will be coming back into print later this year after a few years away from publishing.


SQF: Based on your experience as an editor, what have you learned about writing?

Euan: That it's relatively easy to write a competent story, and that competent, soulless stories are the worst.


SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?

Euan: The first question, on why I started the magazine, is an interesting one, but I think even more interesting would be: why do you continue to publish the magazine? Working for a literary magazine on a voluntary basis can be rather thankless at times, as after the excitement of the first few issues comes the realisation that most of an editor's job is administration. It takes something more to keep the issues coming, and for me it's working with other people, both the writers I interact with day-by-day and the team that has grown up around Structo and Structo Press.

Thank you, Euan. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.