Six Questions for Marcus Myers and Brian Clifton, Co-Founding Editors, Bear Review

[Note: While a co-founding editor, Brian Clifton is no longer an active editor of Bear Review; he’s pursuing his PhD right now; currently the co-editors are Marcus Myers, Haines Eason, Andrew Reeves and Ruth Williams.]

Bear Review publishes fiction and nonfiction to 500 words on a biannual basis. Submissions are not limited by genre. Read the complete guidelines here.

We charge $3.00 per submission; each author whose work is accepted for publication will automatically enter our annual editor’s prize (details forthcoming).


SQF: Why did you start this magazine? 

Bear Review: After completing our MFA degrees in 2014, editors Brian Clifton and Marcus Myers decided to launch a literary magazine for poems and micro prose (as poets, we’re biased toward compressed forms/genres) because we felt the impulse to both participate in literary discourse, and also to provide a platform from which others who were, like us, new to the conversation, might participate as well. We wanted to construct an online space where emerging voices might find expression alongside established and acclaimed ones.


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

BR: Literary competence, originality and urgency of expression. By literary competence, we mean an understanding of genre and its tradition. By originality, we mean the piece is aware of what’s already been done (in terms of trope and subject) and makes it new or entirely different. By urgency of expression we mean what’s at stake, or why does what the poet or writer says need to be said?


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

BR: Any number of things might turn us off: sloppy, lazy or incoherent syntax; an uninteresting use of language; cliché imagery or figurative language; overwrought pieces that have more special effects than substance; unfinished pieces; not following our submission guidelines.


SQF: What do you look for in the opening paragraph(s)/stanza(s) of a submission?

BR: Language or voice that’s electric or edgy; a live-wire or gorgeous image/figure; an amusing or interesting juxtaposition; a clear situation or real-world scenario (often a piece fails because it doesn’t give or refer to a human location or context; the beginning of a piece needs to be grounded in the real so the reader can locate real-world referents); a balance between concision and description (lucid details and/or vibrant imagery).


SQF: Many editors list erotica, or sex for sex sake, as hard sells. What are hard sells for your publication?

BR: Experimentation for experimentation’s sake. If the piece obviously won’t come across clearly to our readers, we’re likely to consider it unreadable or inaccessible and pass on it. Experimental writing needs to balance experimentation with nods to tradition, to the genres and forms other authors in the rich history of literature in English have already established. That’s not to say we don’t appreciate a writer’s efforts to estrange what’s commonplace, to put an original spin on a trope or subject, or to subvert or complicate the tradition in some way.


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

BR: How does your name reflect your journal’s values and overall mission? The “Bear” in Bear Review fits with the startling, unpredictable kind of reading experience we hope to provide to our audience. Once while hiking in Arkansas, founding co-editor Marcus Myers found himself face-to-face with a black bear. The experience first scared and then thrilled him. When he and Brian Clifton started the journal, they agreed that great literature at first appeared frightening or disconcerting before giving way to something true and beautiful. Ideally, Bear Review strives to find pieces that are so alive on the page—so urgent and skilled in their unique expression—they might raise the tiny hairs on the backs of their readers’ necks—at least at first.

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