Six Questions for Randon Billings Noble, Editor, After the Art

After the Art publishes “review essays 500-1,500 words long that explore the ways reading can enrich the experience of looking at art. Each essay must be about a piece of art as well as a written text. A piece of art could be a painting, a photograph, a sculpture, a museum exhibit; it might also be a film, a play, a concert, or a show.” Read the complete guideline here.

SQF: Why did you start this magazine?

Randon Billings Noble: I had worked as an editor on other magazines (Nonfiction Editor at r.kv.r.y, Reviews Editor at PANK and Tinderbox Poetry) and was always toying with the idea of starting a magazine of my own. What might it be? Only essays? Only reviews of essay collections? I knew I wanted it to have a specific focus, but I wasn’t sure what. Then I saw that exhibit at the Renwick, and read that Maxwell novel, and thought – what about essays that explore the relationship between books and art?I registered the site’s name and started setting it up within a week.





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



RBN: 

1. That it follows the guidelines! After the Art asks for a specific kind of essay, and it must explore both a piece of art and a written text. We get too many essays that are just about art or just about a piece of writing. Some of them are beautiful and I’m sorry to reject them. But they’re not what we publish.

2. An unexpected pairing of art and text.

1. A painting of a White Castle and a James Wright poem? 

2. A video installation by Ragnar Kjartansson and poems by Kristín Ómarsdóttir? 

3. Nineteenth-century hair art and a novel in verse? 

4. Perfume and Prufrock?Yes, please! 

3. A strong beginning. On our homepage we only show the first few lines of an essay as well as the piece of art. An interesting or unexpected first line is a big plus.





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

RBN: 

Not following the guidelines. Or feeling like the piece of art or the written text is tucked in quickly to make a different kind of essay into an After the Art essay.



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



RBN: As I said before, we like that first line to pop. Other than that, it’s often fun to have an essay begin in a meandering way – perhaps with the piece of art, perhaps with the text, perhaps with a story of the writer’s own experience – and then have the second main ingredient (the art or the text) come in an interesting turn, a welcome surprise.



SQF: Are there any topics that are off limits?


RBN: So far this hasn’t been an issue.



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


RBN: I’m often asked, Why essays? Why not ekphrastic poems or short fiction?

I love essays. I’m an essayist! And I think there needs to be more essays out in the world. Not just hot takes or listicles but essays that meditate, ruminate, think. It’s the thinking-work that drives an essay. An essay that thinks about a piece of art and a written text gets us to think too – about art, about writing, about new ways to see and read and live. And that is a wonderful, necessary thing. 

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