Interpret is Scotland’s new magazine of international literature: open to anyone, anywhere, writing in any language. Each issue features new Scottish writing alongside major authors from abroad, including winners of the International Booker and Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Over eight issues, Interpret has published writers from thirty countries in eighteen languages.
Interpret publishes fiction to 2,500 words and poetry. Read Issue 8 here.
SQF: Why did you start this magazine?
James Appleby: I used to run a poetry night where people read in multiple languages. It was striking how well people responded to languages not their own – even, or especially, when unable to understand. When all the bars closed in the pandemic, I moved the idea online and into print.
SQF: What are the top things you look for in a submission and why?
JA: I’ve read quite a few of the entries on this blog and all editors want originality. But that isn’t very helpful to a writer reading this post, so, in concrete terms, here’s what I feel editors mean by original. The first thing is a lack of clichés. The well-known clichés, sure, but also the writerly clichés that turn up a dozen times per submissions window. I don’t think any poet has ever looked at dust motes in a sunbeam without thinking, ‘Jesus, there’s an image in that.’ The only time of day they go out is the gloaming. And if anyone else writes to me about palimpsests, I’m going to flip my desk.
Originality also means awareness of where your poem or story fits within the scene. It means reading your contemporaries and a number of literary magazines. It means not mistaking your own style for your inheritance in subject and voice.
SQF: What most often turns you off to a submission?
JA: Coming back to ideas of originality, it’s important to take risks. While workshopping has its place, it’s no fun to see a piece written on the defensive: a safe theme, nothing in the way of imagery, unnamed and often unimagined characters. This is the worst possible outcome of a writing group: writing that no one could take issue with, but which, at least I feel, is hard to find joy in.
SQF: What do you look for in the opening paragraph(s)/stanza(s) of a submission?
JA: Writing expansively and riskily also means trusting an editor. I want to find work that, from the beginning, trusts its reader, in their attention span and intelligence, in their ability to empathise even across languages. I want writing that’s not so afraid of rejection that it (a) begins with a huge bang or (b) has no bang whatsoever.
SQF: Is there a genre/type of work you’d like to receive more of in your submissions?
JA: I love to publish writers in languages that don’t receive the international attention they deserve. Last month, I spent a week on a residency in Sofia, Bulgaria, and was struck once again by the wealth of writing in the Balkan languages. Poets like Nikola Madžirov and Kristin Dimitrova, and novelists like Georgi Gospodinov – I mean, they’re an editor’s dream.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
JA: Here’s my question: why does Interpret publish the original-language text alongside the English translation if so few of your readers understand it?
It all comes back to those first poetry nights. I saw then how the original text can enliven and add to an English translation. Even a script you can’t read – Devanagari, maybe, or Cyrillic – can lead you to new learning, connect you with an original text, remind you that English literature is one patch of a much broader field. I hope it encourages monolingual readers to take up a new language, and that it challenges plurilingual readers to think about the process of translation. That original text is key to my work at Interpret.
Thank, James. We all appreciate your taking time fro your busy schedule to participate in this project.
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