What pulses beneath the soil? What do our roots seek when they dig deep? What sap rises in spring to feed the branches that reach for the stark sky? Place an ear to the trunk of Arkana to hear the hushed voices at work beneath the bark.
This is Arkana’s blog.
Hi everyone! This February, Arkana editors had the privilege to visit and participate in the AWP conference held in Kansas City. At our booth, visitors had the opportunity to write down short one-liners which our editors have now strung together to make one cohesive poem created by the friends we made at AWP this year. We hope you all enjoy this piece, and we look forward to seeing you all again at next year’s AWP!
The first thing my mother did after the divorce was to go to Knotts Berry farm.
I never found any solace in dusty old Saints
—until I found a ledger sick of your external bullshit
She whispered when she longed to scream
And her face—a blue distortion
Invisible body, Invisible Girl, Invisible disability
Who is to say she will not bare her lupine teeth
Aline. Aline. A tree of Emerald Starry aligned with lined on metal strings
The scars on every inch of sun-scorned flesh became a galaxy. Limitless Breathtaking, Unknowable.
Tut mir Leid. Why? Because you needed to be loved not burned
I glut myself on the feast of their words,
From honey fed lips. My bared teeth are as red as my curls
Names don’t change others. They can change you for better or worse, that’s for you to decide
And afterward everything echoes, stream to the street in movement
I’d like to exist here, between your thumb and forefinger
like a corner of a page of your favorite book
I river the tongues of my ancestors so they may flow into my body
Missing my cats, my roommate and my girlfriend
Desperate to eat a steak
Ode to my grandmother’s stitched table cloths, her spice dense air, her full plates and full smiles
I remember reading about how ancient trees existed before fungi knew
how to break them down.
Not that the fungi didn’t exist but that did not know how.
That somehow they had not yet reached their potential
as the true ferryman of the natural world.
Thank you again to everyone who provided lines to make this poem possible. Our editorial team had a lot of fun experimenting and trying our best to fit as many of your contributions into this piece as possible. While not every line made the final cut, we are beyond blessed to be part of such a creative and fun-loving community, and we thank all of our contributors for their participation in this fun little thought exercise. Hope to see you all at AWP next year!
This spring, Arkana editors had the opportunity to interview Madari Pendas, illustrator and author of “Blurry Kindness,” which appeared in Arkana’s Fifteenth Issue. Read below to learn more about this fantastic artist, and stay tuned for more contributor spotlight posts coming soon!
ARK: I love the duality in this poem between the beauty of the world around you and the lack
of beauty you saw in yourself. How did other people look to you? What was it like
seeing your mother clearly for the first time?
MP: This is such a great question. Seeing clearly for the first time is such a salient moment for a lot of people with eyesight issues. We usually remember those first initial, gripping instances when everything comes into focus, especially those minute details in nature (like the traces of pollen on a petal) or on people (that they have more freckles than you realized or the jagged, and incomplete patterns of someone’s facial hair). My mom has face tattoos (it still surprises me every time I remember that). Her eyebrows and lips are lined, and above her lip is a Marilyn Monroe inspired mole. When I received my first pair of glasses, I was able to see those lines more clearly, how distinct, and sharp they were, the tapering, the blue hue the color had taken over time, due to sun exposure. A rush of feelings overtook me: wonder, confusion, hope, and awe. My mom’s face was clearly a working-class face–and I struggled to understand the implications of that, and the inherent shame tied to poverty. For decades, I struggled with these perceptions, but education and acceptance have shown me that my mom’s face represents strength–the eyebrows and lips are painful areas to tattoo. Those moments of seeing my mom’s face engendered so many questions, and I am glad they did because it feels like a mystery, you’re working out within yourself. I would ask myself questions like Is it bad to have visible tattoos? On the other hand, are we supposed to consider everyone’s opinion before doing something? And it has been enjoyable to tackle these questions and see my mother’s face from different perspectives.
ARK: How long did it take you to adjust to being able to see? Aside from seeing yourself,
classrooms and nature, what was the most difficult thing to be able to see?
MP: For longer than I’d like to admit, I thought glasses made me appear ugly so I’d constantly take them off, hang them from my shirt collar or on my head or squeeze them into my pants pocket. So there was always this constant vacillating between seeing and not seeing. Wanting to be seen in one way and needing to see in a utilitarian sense to pass my classes and get through my day. There is so much pressure to be beautiful, which carries so many biases and imposed standards, so I think the hardest thing to see was that many of my classmates and peers did meet these ideals. I equate seeing with knowledge, and knowing how perfect my peers’ faces were, how symmetrical, how clear, how smooth etc. put me in a position where I felt I needed to compete with other girls, later women. Our society overvalues beauty and teaches that it is the most valuable currency, which makes aging more challenging (when really, it’s a blessing). It creates a surface level connection with yourself. I wish I could have looked at my face earlier and said So what if I have large pores, I am a great reader. Beauty or the search for physical perfection tends to diminish or background other qualities. I’m going off on a tangent here, but it was difficult to see I did not meet the operational definition of beauty, and harder to deal with the vanity of it all and the pull to be seen in the right kind of way.
ARK: Did not having glasses keep you from doing art when you were younger or even
though you couldn’t see very well, were you still able to create?
MP: It did! I did not realize how bad my eyesight was until I got my glasses, and I remember part of the exam to enter my middle school’s magnet art program required drawing something placed before you. However, my poor vision did make me love books even more because I could bring them right up to my face. I didn’t have to ask a teacher or a classmate what was written; books felt intimate and accessible in a way that art (at the time) didn’t. And this invited writing. I’ve kept a diary since fourth grade (I still have all of them) and the closeness I felt with books taught me to write in a personal and private way–I’ve gone back and seen entries that still surprise me, and they do so because I’m shocked a kid had a safe space to write some of the things I wrote, which included crushes on other girls, a detailed recounting of staying up all night to watch Adult Swim and how that truly was “freedom.”
ARK: At the beginning of the story you mentioned that twelve years was long enough to go
without having clear vision. How did you realize how badly you needled glasses? What
was the moment when glasses made sense?
MP: I started having issues in class. I wasn’t passing exams or able to follow the teachers as they explained things at the board. When I tried to ask my desk neighbors what was going on, I’d get shushed or then they’d fall behind. If I tried to go up to the board, I’d rush to write everything down so as not to block or inconvenience others but thus the copying took up more mental bandwidth. It made me think I was dumb or a “bad kid.” And I did feel like in elementary and middle school there was a sorting of children. Some are gifted, and will get the attention, some are bright and get chosen to read aloud, and then there are the “others.” I further felt that sentiment when I had to take remedial math in middle school; and these classes were held in trailers at the far end of the school property. So what message does that send to kids? And how can that feeling snowball? I knew a lot of brilliant “bad kids” who didn’t get the care they needed in school and saw how that affected their self-esteem, and later life choices. So after the second remedial math class, which was around seventh grade, I got evaluated. I think the moment came when I was crying over a practice FCAT (a Florida standardized test). My mom saw this so she saved until we could go and see an ophthalmologist. I do still wonder what would have happened if I had gotten glasses earlier, or if I would have fallen further behind in academics had received them later in life.
ARK: In the story you call yourself ugly, what was the most beautiful thing you became able
to see clearly?
MP: Honestly, it’s been challenging to find things I like about myself and to admit that and focus on them as ways of building up my self-esteem. I don’t want all my self-worth to come from external things, like my weight or how small my pores look or the whiteness of my teeth because all those things can change, and they will over time. I’m not at the end of my journey to self-acceptance and self-appreciation; but I’ve been able to see more and more things I like about myself. The way my mom’s tattoos conveyed strength, I see my own face (scars, freckling, discolorations, piercings) as evidence of my power as well. I have a scar beneath my eyebrow from where a door hit me in high school and it reminds me, I can endure. The freckles on my cheek remind me of the long path I walked to get to one of my first jobs, and that reminds me that I’m industrious. When I see myself smile, I’m reminded that the awful things and people I’ve endured haven’t stripped me of my hope for a better future. I see a survivor.
ARK: What are your artistic inspirations in the realm of Illustrated Narrative?
MP: I am obsessed with Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. It was a book that I finished in one sitting, and it combined everything I loved about storytelling– winding asides that explore childhood dreams and beliefs; an intimate style; a playful tone that challenges what we’ve been commanded to think by authority figures. Sometimes we’re in her head and that can take up the width and height of a whole page, and in other moments we can shrink, falling to a place that feels absolute and alone. This book was instructional as well. It taught me that comics can be used to explore wounds without losing sentiment. Before this book, I thought artwork had to be hyper-realistic in order to be considered literary or valuable. And that book is all those things in a style that is accessible and sincere. I also adore Jul Maroh’s Le bleu est une Couleur Chaude because it was the first time, I’d seen queer characters’ lives tracked and explored on the page in a sensual and genuine way. They made love, but it wasn’t vulgar. They fought, but it wasn’t an indictment against queer relationships. The art style was jubilant, detailed, and orienting–I learned a lot about how to draw cities and the balance between background work and foreground. Comics, in particular, feel like a thorough line in my life. They keep me connected to my childhood, and that allows me to feel wonder.
Madari Pendas is a Cuban-American writer and cartoonist. She received her MFA from Florida International University, where she was a Lawrence Sanders Fellow. Her work has appeared in Craft, Smokelong Quarterly, The Masters Review, Oyster River Pages, PANK , and more. She is the author of Crossing the Hyphen (2021).
Hello everyone, we’re back after a long break with another Contributor Spotlight post. Read on to hear more from Issue 14 contributor and writer, Sekhar Bannerjee. Keep an eye out for more posts like this in the future!
1. Was this poem inspired by personal experience or the experience of someone you know?
The poem has its primary origin in the disturbing visuals of bombed residential complexes, schools, fields and churches in Ukraine. The intensity of emotions that you feel triggers a domino effect on your memories of personal loss.
2. The contrast between the quiet of prayer and the sound of a bomb is stark. So is the contrast between blue geraniums and weeds. What is the significance of contrast as a device in this poem?
That’s a very good question. I always try to juxtapose the opposites in my poetry because I sincerely believe that life is a study in contrasts. Its vastness, cyclicity and complexity defy common tenets of logic and reason. Maybe, we have survived the meanness of evolution partially due to the irrationality that nature and human civilization have bestowed on us.
3. Does the pomegranate hold any additional significance?
Pomegranate is a unique fruit. Each seed of a pomegranate is like a drop of fire, or, for that matter, a drop of blood. Ancient Greeks believed that pomegranate originated from the blood of Adonis. In most religions, the pomegranate is considered to be sacred. A broken pomegranate is a symbol of the entirety of Jesus’ suffering and resurrection. In Jewish ancient customs, it occupies a special and hallowed place. Pomegranate is also considered a forbidden fruit. It is a recurring motif of fertility and prosperity as well. To me, a pomegranate is a symbol of renewal that we always seek.
4. Does December hold a certain importance to the narrative or is it used to evoke winter?
Yes, December has a special relevance in the poem. Besides being the epicentre of winter, December is, in climatic essence, gothic and unfeeling. December is also an omnivore because it tries to devour every iota of warmth – both tangible and intangible, at your disposal.
5. When you speak of entering your sleep, do you mean death? I know pomegranates are associated with Persephone and her marriage to Hades. Are you suggesting some sort of elopement with death?
Sleep is a temporary cessation of everything. A blank space, a solace, a brief end. To me, sleep is a limited death, an afterlife and to be able to wake up again is a homecoming. Every morning is a new birth. It is more so when you face an inconducive environment. The myth of Persephone and Hades also proposes to explain the interplay between life and death and the cycle of seasons.
6. I found the playground to be a metaphor for a graveyard, or an afterlife of some sort, where the “seeds” or souls of the dead go to lay at rest. Was this your intention?
I agree. A well-defined yet unkempt playfield resembles a secluded place for something beyond usual understanding. It is kind of a bracketed emptiness which encloses all our griefs, memories and anticipations. In our unconscious mind, every dead relative or a friend is as real as a living person only residing in a different realm, a different space, a different country where they immigrated. Like someone living far away.
7. This poem seemed to centre around death, or loss. What was your inspiration behind writing this poem?
The primary trigger behind writing this poem was obviously the disturbing visuals of Russian bombing of civilian areas in Ukraine. But a poem is more than a reaction to an occurrence, an event, a design or a mishap. I have lost a number of close relatives, mostly elderly, in the last couple of years. The visuals might have unstitched the loss, and the profundity of such feelings just overwhelm you.
When asked about what we had to look forward to in the future from him, Sekhar had this to say: ” I am currently working on the manuscript of my next poetry book ‘Probably Geranium’ which is scheduled to be released in December this year. I am also trying to write a series of poems centred around the rotation of seasons, production of tea and fledging emotions in a tea estate in the sub-Himalayan Bengal, not far from my family home.” Below, find the cover to “Probably Geranium,” as well as a link to purchase the book here.
BY SHELBY NIPPER
I am a first-year student in an MFA Creative Writing program. I was unaware of and still learning about all the people and processes in the publishing industry. What I do have is a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology. I have studied systemic inequalities and their effects on people of various racial, ethnic, and social groups. Through that I have learned the significance of all cultures and people, and I believe human connection and observation is essential to recording our history and keeping human expression alive.
I think the publishing industry has an issue. Publishers with the largest outreach and impact lack diversity, though this is changing. VIDA: Women in Literary Arts is one of many organizations and publishers creating a space for representation. They produce the VIDA Report, an online interactive report where they quantify diversity in at least ten publishing companies. They are not the only ones; these numbers can be found with simple searches. VIDA, like many, publish writings of marginalized voices, and they state that they are a “research-driven organization…to increase critical attention to contemporary women’s writing as well as further transparency around gender equality issues in contemporary literary culture.” Women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ communities are making their way through the literary world but are VIDA’s efforts as effective as they could be?
The truth of the matter is for the writing industry to make some vast and strong changes, people are going to have to become uncomfortable. People are going to have to continue to stand up and make that space for others but also start creating new connections. However, all the programs, journals and publishing companies being created to find new writers will go to waste if the education about them is not present. For example, Red Lining was a practice under Jim Crow laws where banks outlined areas of lower resource availability. In these areas, home loans were not given, healthcare was not as accessible and financial institutions turned their backs. Redlining was focused on Black and Latino neighborhoods, meaning it was a systemic demonstration of racism that affected every person within the area. It was banned in 1968 but still affects school districts and resource availability. People who are from redlined areas have greater health complications and fewer educational opportunities. The schools within these areas typically have a larger number of students of color and are still underfunded. The writers who live in these areas exist but are more than likely unaware someone is looking for them, that their voice is significant, and that the publishing industry is looking to hear them. They do not know what opportunities exist (and sometimes opportunities aren’t made for them).Schools are not the only places where people are not aware of how significant their voices truly are. The LGBTQ+ community is still not fully represented either and for the same reasons.
V. F. Cordova, a philosopher and writer of Native American Philosophy came to my mind when I was learning about diversity shortcomings among publishing writers. In chapter 7 of their book, How it is (2007), they talk about each person in existence having a matrix. This matrix is representative of everything that you are, everything that you believe, your dialect, your language, your heart, your truth, your definition of right and wrong. It has been commonly thought that once your matrix is built, you have made the connections you are able to make, and your matrix will only align with those similar to you. V.F. Cordova thinks that is not true. We do have a matrix of thoughts and beliefs, but we can use them to tap into other people’s matrices and use our differences and similarities as a point of connection. Cordova writes “There are no absolutes. The complexity is infinite because part of that complexity is change, motion. Whatever is, is in motion, and change is inevitable in the world.” There is no one “Truth” or belief system but an ever changing, fluid motion of thought that I believe should be recorded. Thanks to organizations such as VIDA, White women are being seen and heard; they have taken over the publishing industry, but that is not diversity just yet.
Women have fought for their representation, and they now know what it takes to be heard and be seen by this industry. We need writers from every background, every culture, every race. As writers, we record history and for so long people have been written out, we know this. The paradigm shift is occurring, but it is time to get our feet wet and really promote listening and providing space. We need to show our matrices and show that connection is human and natural. I firmly believe that every person has something important to say. If they want to shout it from the rooftops, how come we aren’t showing them the roof? Educating people on what is there and available is vital, and listening to people already shouting on other roofs is vital. We need to be connected, our matrices need to cross and build a bond so the gap can be bridged. Having a place at the table is not enough, the same conversation of wanting diverse writers to be published has been occurring for decades but no one is sitting in the seat. It is the job of literary journals, publishing companies, magazines, etc., to stand up, go out, and make space for the voices they are wanting to hear. Here at Arkana, we are constantly trying to do just that. We are, as a team, constantly working to be the most diverse we can be.
BY DYLAN RICHARDSON
I’m no stranger to the rush of wanting to win.
It’s in our very nature, not only as emerging writers, but as human beings (animals, really).
What energizes me more than the chase of victory, though, is feeling like I am a part of something; a community. Camaraderie is something that writers need almost as much as winning a contest; we arguably need it more. Imposter syndrome sinks its talons deep and convinces us we are alone in our quest to be published and prove our worth. My imposter syndrome has improved since I have connected with peers within my MFA program and beyond. I saw that I was not even close to being alone. But we all wanted to feel that rush of being published, validated, seen.
The ideal scenario, then, is to blend competition and community building through a wholesome contest model that primarily serves to benefit a specific community of writers holistically. Market the contest as a way to network and connect with the writing of your peers. Allow for mentorship opportunities where they make sense and use the contest as an avenue for building a community that writers desperately need to fulfill the campaign for validation and artistic acuity.
Pitch Wars gave this idea a solid foundation by launching careers and fostering a community dedicated to peer support as well as the art of writing (through mentorship opportunities, etc.). Despite the program’s demise, I think Arkana can learn a lot from its strengths and its weaknesses.
Arkana dedicates itself to uplifting the voices of the marginalized and overlooked, which I think we definitely achieve to some extent with each issue. However, I would like to see Arkana embrace its Arkansan roots a little more than it currently does. Arkansas happens to be what many Americans consider a ‘flyover state.’ Artists and writers from Arkansas are often overlooked, much like our lush landscape. A contest that exists for writers within a 500 mile radius of Conway, AR would not only uplift those overlooked voices, but it could connect them.
For me, a huge draw of the Arkansas Writers MFA program at the University of Central Arkansas is the principle of connectivity between myself and my contemporaries. I want to seek out and work toward understanding the voices of artists around me. I want to build off of one another and rise above the lack of visibility that plagues our region. Hosting a contest event with avenues for collaboration, discourse, and mentorship would extend that connectivity to our community.
Connecting with other local hubs of artistry and exploring the art of collaboration will be critical in maintaining visibility and achieving the community-building goals of this concept. Submission fees would need to be kept low to preserve the accessible nature of such an experience. This idea is only that and will certainly require some workshopping before actionable steps can be taken. Until then, I and the rest of Arkana‘s editorial team will work to bring this concept to life.
An Arkana sponsored contest for local writers would be a great addition to the literary landscape in the mid-south. Maybe Arkana can aid in starting a broader movement to elevate an overlooked population of writers and this idea can evolve through the actions of many. Community, validation, and visibility lie within our grasp.
With an experience such as this, more writers can win without necessarily winning.
Dylan Richardson is a writer, higher ed administrator, and current MFA student at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA). He obtained his BA in Creative Writing from UCA and his MS in Counseling and College Student Development from Kansas State University, where he lived and worked for two years. He started out as a student journalist and morphed his way into the world of the abstract. His passion for music inspired a love for writing poetry and nonfiction. A native of Little Rock, he now resides in Conway, Arkansas with his wife and dog.
BY STORM WEAVER
I picked the wrong time for an MFA.
Maybe it’s something about my timing. I might be cursed. I first considered entering my MFA early in 2020, and needless to say, I’m glad I didn’t. I’ve been fortunate enough to miss out on The Horrors of remote learning, to have been able to start on campus in 2022, meet my cohort, participate in the organic flow of discussion around a classroom, but The Horrors persist.
And I suppose, yes, it’s nice that when a classmate can’t make it to class, they have the option of Zooming in, but I’m not necessarily in favor of this work-at-all-costs mindset that’s bloomed out of COVID. We’ve only tipped the scale more in favor of working longer, harder, regardless of the circumstances. COVID should have taught us the opposite. We should have learned to slow down.
Instead, where has this all gotten us?
I’d propose that the sudden and malignant onset of Generative AI is the direct result of this hypercapitalist avalanche started by COVID, by the USian response to catastrophe with a classic case of workaholism as a flight-based trauma response. There’s no need for such trivial pursuits as art, as reading for pleasure, as thoughtful entertainment. We’ve charged headlong into Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the book burning replaced with something far more insidious:
Rather than stripping the world of art and literature, we’re overpopulating it. And we are poised on the cusp of being able to use AI to make the problem exponentially, catastrophically, worse.
Earlier this year, back in August, author (and indispensable font of resources on the publishing industry) Jane Friedman reported that books on Amazon bearing her name and written in her style were not actually hers. The dystopian explanation was that AI had written these books—a generative AI had been trained her works, given a prompt, and published to Amazon, impersonating Friedman.
Amazon removed these impostor works, but only after the alarm was raised by Friedman herself. For a platform the size of Amazon, which publishes 1.4 million works via Kindle Direct a year, it would be nearly impossible to vet every work that passes through Amazon’s self-publishing doors (unless by a bot, and when we’ve gotten to a position where AI is policing for AI, we really have to ask who’s watching the watchmen). Amazon has made some effort to curb this bizarre get-rich-quick scheme by limiting self-publishing to three works per day.
I don’t know about you, but I have never, even at my most prolific, been capable of writing three books and editing them to publication standard per day. I’m fairly certain that even famously prolific author and beloved internet buckaroo Chuck Tingle only puts out a new work every few months. So what gives?
Writing, for starters, is notoriously difficult to make scrape-proof—that is, it’s difficult to protect from generative AI being trained on it without the consent of the original creators. Following Friedman’s call to arms, over 15,000 authors have signed an open letter calling on AI industry leaders such as ChatGPT founding company OpenAI (notably started as a non-profit in 2015 but turned for-profit in 2019) to do better. All that authors and artists currently being harmed by the proliferation of AI use want is for these companies to offer clear and transparent pathways to consent to our works being used to train generative AI. As it stands, the AI industry is largely operating on outright theft of intellectual property and copyrighted works, simply by refusing to disclose the material they’re using for training.
The EU is attempting to curb this via measures to force AI industry leaders to be transparent about their training pools, and perhaps understandably, the industry is resisting. Showing their training pool would almost certainly instantly drain it due to artist requests to have their works removed. In an ideal world, resistance from corporations wouldn’t be enough to sway the will of the law, but we don’t live in an ideal world. In a hypercapitalist world, the corporations make the laws.
So what are we, as authors, meant to do? We don’t have the resources that visual artists do—such as apps like Glaze, meant to make an image unparseable to AI, and Nightshade, which takes this a step further and actively poisons the pool. Ways of shielding or hiding text from AI will unfortunately also make it inaccessible to many humans. Luckily, AI is a long way from writing anything that resembles human writing; it lacks depth, heart, real creativity. AI writing reads as predictable and shallow, trite, uncomplicated. This makes it somewhat easy to pick out to human eyes.
Unfortunately, this means using human eyes. Since we cannot reasonably rely on the industry itself to do the right thing nor platforms to vet their authors, we must become more vigilant as readers. We must learn to be critical of everything we read. And maybe this makes us more suspicious of each other, more fragmented as a writing community than even COVID’s initial strike made us, but in some ways, I believe it will make us stronger too.
Now’s the time to shout out your writing friends, to lift each other above all the noise created by the constant churning drone of generative AI. We’ll get weirder. We’ll get more creative. We’ll work harder together to make our voices heard. I expect this to be an exhausting fight; the Writer’s Guild of America strike is only the start of protecting ourselves as writers against a world that wants our labor but not our thoughts.
We’ll get past this. Maybe I’m in my MFA at exactly the right time, to be part of the wave of voices fighting against the attempts to drown us out.
Storm Weaver is a queer and neurodivergent creative nonfiction writer who calls central Arkansas home. When not writing, they enjoy food TV, cooking, tabletop and video gaming, and doting on their household cats. They are a current MFA student at the University of Central Arkansas.
Hello everyone! We’re so excited to bring you an article written by one of Arkana’s editors (and social media mastermind) Teighlor Chaney! Teighlor joined our staff this year and has already contributed greatly to the journal. Pretty much every piece of social media of ours you’ve seen this fall has had Teighlor involved in some way, shape, or form, so we’re excited to bring you her thoughts on the ever evolving field of social media. Take it away, Teighlor!
As a millennial, I was born and raised on the precipice of what technology is today. I still remember when my grandmother’s rotary phone stopped working, to her great disappointment. I also remember when you had to pay for each word in a text message, so you wrote everything in shorthand. Lol, brb, omg – those abbreviations all came from having those limitations. Now you’ll hear people say, “no one talks on the phone anymore.” While not entirely true, Alexander Graham Bell would be heartbroken to know that most of us prefer writing letters today. When the world began communicating – yet again – primarily through the written word, social media was born. Communication has changed so much since our parents were kids – since I was a kid! Now, whether you want to talk to grandma or market your new book, you’ll find yourself on social media.
For any institution, literary journals not excluded, social media can be challenging. To be effective, social media is a time-consuming process that requires a dedicated staff of employees or volunteers. I have observed that the most successful journals have a defined social media presence. What defines a successful social media page? More than anything, it is consistency. Therein lies the biggest hurdle we all face in promoting ourselves online.
Many literary journals like Arkana are university-run. They rely on a staff of graduate students and volunteers to produce issues each term. These roles change hands every semester, every five months or so. Because of this, maintaining our Facebook and Instagram pages can fall by the wayside. Ultimately, editorial work comes first, as does getting our writers published. So that may beg the question, “why bother with social media at all?”
Social media can garner new readers and attract new submitters to your literary journal when used effectively. I have worked in graphic design, marketing, and social media for nearly ten years. Though social media changes every day, our platforms for social interaction have maintained the same goal – communication! There is a lot of noise in our new world, and filtering it out to drive home your message requires a few things.
As of 2023, thirty-five social media platforms worldwide have at least 100 million users. Among the literary community, the following tend to be the most popular, however:
X (formerly Twitter) has been a popular journal platform due to its concise engagement. In 2022, Carolyn Topperman stated, “This (X) is where agents and editors like to hang out, so there’s a good chance that you’ll hear about the latest trends or what they are specifically looking for. I have also found that quite a few magazine editors post their wishlists on there, and some will even answer your questions. If you are trying to get a reporter’s attention, this is a great platform for that. This comes in handy if you are trying to be featured in an article.”
Facebook provides many features, including cross-posting. It is by far the most versatile of the platforms. It has the most prominent active uses (2.96 billion) and allows imagery, video, and written content.
Instagram is primarily for visual content, but this hasn’t kept most literary journals from having a dedicated page. This platform will require that you create images to post, as you cannot create a post that does not include an image, even when cross-posting from Facebook.
The most critical factor in your choice should be picking the ones you’ll use! If Facebook frustrates you, don’t use it. If posting is a chore, you’re less likely to do it. Think about what will engage your audience most. The next category will likely determine your choice of content.
The audience you want reading your journal can factor into your platform choice but comes in clutch the most once you’ve established your accounts. Knowing who you want to market your journal to is arguably the most crucial aspect of promoting yourself online. Who are your readers, or who would you like your readers to be?
For example, if you’re a journal that primarily focuses on nature writing, such as Terrain.org, but you want to focus on female-identifying writers and readers ages 16-30, an excellent social space to promote your journal would be Instagram, as 72% of American social media users aged 12 to 34 utilize this platform, and 48.3% are female. 62% of teens in the U.S. use Instagram, so if you want young readers to engage with this could be a starting point. Today’s young audience prefers video content over all other forms. A journal looking to attract younger readers could utilize Instagram reels to create short videos promoting their issues. Look at what “sounds” are trending (sounds are audio clips such as popular songs that overlay the videos) and use those to accompany your content. You will often see the word “trending” in social media articles, as keeping up with trends is the best way to keep your content relevant. As you’ll read below, these trends will change over time, so remember to do continued research. A common word of advice for writers is to read more. The same goes for social media. You must consume more social media to become more skilled with your content.
You can appeal to a limited demographic. To illustrate the difference, Arkana markets itself towards “the marginalized, the overlooked, and those whose voices have been silenced.” This describes a broad demographic that includes people of color, LGBTQ, those from poorer regions and backgrounds, and generally anyone from a disadvantaged position. On the other hand, Survivor Lit only publishes work by survivors of sexual assault. Having a limited demographic makes defining your target audience much simpler, but will obviously limit your story topics.
When you look at Emerson College’s Ploughshares Facebook page or The Paris Review’s Instagram page, you will see almost daily posts, whether they are quotes from famous authors such as Margaret Atwood or calls to action urging readers to subscribe. Each post is tailored to deliver a message and encourage people to read. However, there is no defined equation for success. As stated before, stay up on trends. As of 2023, these are the recommended post rates and dates for various sites:
Remember, again, these statistics change frequently. Fortunately, each platform allows you to examine your algorithms to determine the best audience engagement for your journal. You can use these as a starting point and re-examine your success rates at a later time.
One of the most underrated aspects of marketing is the graphic design that goes into it. Every post you submit should include imagery or video, whether a carefully cultivated graphic or a professional-quality photograph of one of your writers. The higher the quality of your visuals, the more credibility you’ll garner.
Branding is a big part of marketing. If you have colors that you specifically use for your website, these are part of your “brand.” Why is branding important? It gives your literary journal identity. It creates a recognizable and consistent visual identity. It helps to build the relationship between your journal and your audience. Choose a logo, a font (having no more than two is ideal), a color scheme, and an overall theme or style that showcases the “feeling” you’re trying to convey. Arkana keeps things simple with black and white, a typewriter style font, but adds a touch of nature by incorporating tree imagery. Other journals may choose colors such as green (freshness, natural), red (energetic, powerful), or yellow (joy, happiness). But I won’t get into color theory and psychology in this article. However, thinking about what you want your readers to feel when reading your stories helps develop your brand.
Know that whatever platform you choose, how much demographic research you do, how often you post, or how beautiful your content is there are no guarantees for engagement. Sometimes, it takes several casts to catch a fish; the same goes for social media. If you remain consistent, however, your audience will let you know what is successful and what isn’t. By creating some metrics, you can then determine what needs to change. Like the platforms, it is up to your journal to adapt and grow along the ever-changing landscape of online communication because, at the end of the day, your goal should be just that – communication!
Teighlor Chaney is a writer, artist, animal lover, and current MFA student at the University of Central Arkansas. She is an Oxford American Fellow, the 2023 Porter Fund Literary Scholarship recipient, and has worked as a contractor for Arkansas PBS. She has a bachelor’s in Sequential Illustration from the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design and a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Combining art and the written word has always been her passion. This love of storytelling led to nearly a decade of working in graphic design and marketing. Now, she has decided to pursue her life goal of becoming a writer. An Arkansas native, Teighlor currently resides in Little Rock with her husband, four (and a half) cats, and three dogs, as well as a multitude of other animals on her small homestead.
For two weeks now, Arkana has been hosting a weekly writing prompt contest to celebrate as we get closer to the release of our fifteenth issue. Thank you to everyone who has participated, even if you didn’t send yours in to us! And we’d like to use this post to offer congratulations to our very first weekly writing prompt winner, Dr. Santosh Bakaya! With their permission, we’ve posted their submission below to share just a hint of some of the great writing sent into Arkana on a weekly basis. We hope more of you consider sending us your stories in the future, and keep an eye out for Issue 15 coming soon!
The Prompt:
“You’re about to go to sleep, you turn around to turn off the light, and when you turn back
around, the door to your bedroom is gone, and your house is nothing but an infinite hall. What happens next?
Round The Corner
I looked at the wall clock on the wall: it showed 3 a.m. I had been so engrossed in
reading James Patterson’s Murder House, that I had totally lost track of time. High time I
slept, I said to myself and decided to switch off the light. On second thoughts, I turned
back without turning off the light, and the moment I turned back, I gasped. The door to
my bedroom had disappeared, and my house was nothing but an infinite hall.
Before I could blink, the house was besieged by an army of masked figures, and
raucous guffaws echoed in the infinite hall. The figures broke into some sort of a
maladroit jig. One figure shambled towards me, throwing back its head and laughing
uproariously. It stood next to me and yanked away its mask, showing a face dripping
with blood.
It stretched a blood-smeared hand towards me and said, “Come, let us do the tango “.
I screamed in horror.
Aghast, the figure hastily put back the mask, scrambling back to join the rest, who were
blabbering away in an alien language, making gross gestures and cackling like
demented hens. Had my house been taken over by aliens? Or had I myself been turned
into an alien?
The figure who had suggested a tango, made frantic gestures, insanely pointing in my
direction.
Soon, the figure had become a man, exchanging the gibberish for crisp, impeccable
English. “That woman refuses to do the tango with me. The audacity! The
impertinence! No one has ever refused to do the tango with me! How can she be so
cheeky?”
How can I do the tango with strange creatures barging into my house in the dead of
night?
I asked myself, stomach churning badly. An empathetic owl outside added its hoots to
my stomach’s rumbles. The result was an eerie musicality. My heartbeat was full
throttle, and it suddenly caught in my throat, as a rifle materialized in the hand of one of
the figures and I shuddered.
The figure was a gawky man, heading towards me, aiming, and firing, and clicking,
holding his mask in his hand.
“HOW DARE YOU REFUSE TO DO THE TANGO? WOE ON YOU! WOE!” He
bellowed.
I howled in pained surprise; my back arched and I staggered to the floor. As my head
smacked the floor, I could see a grotesque collage of stars and jagged lines doing a
weird dance on the ceiling. The rest of the figures scattered in all directions like
disoriented cockroaches, heads banging against each other.
They soon turned their heads toward the ceiling and started chanting some
incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo. As they picked up tempo, the words became clearer,
and the thumping more pronounced.
“We are vampires, young and old,
See how we burst our lungs,
singing songs wacky and bold.
Hey ho hum! Hey ho hum
We have struck gold
We have struck gold!
Hey ho hum! Hey ho hum.
Thud thud thud we go.
Drinking blood!
Hey ho hum! Hey ho hum! Ho!”
A searing pain shot through my eyes and nose. I gritted my teeth, as another sharp
flash of pain cascaded through my right shoulder. I felt as if my throat was on fire.
“Hey, have you shot me?” I screamed and screamed, springing up from the floor, with
alacrity, and teetering on unsteady feet looking at a man with deep-set, creepy eyes,
while my own eyes almost jumped out of their sockets.
“I have not shot you, silly! I have just severed your head because the Queen ordered
us to do it”. He smiled, revealing uneven teeth.
“The Queen of Hearts? How heartless! Not known for her subtlety, is she?” Whether the
queen was known for her subtlety or not, but, I was known to cling to my sense of
humor even in the darkest of situations. Hence the quip.
“Off with her head!
Off with her head!”
They started singing at loud pitches, their voices hammering at my head, with ominous
overtones.
The creepy-eyed one reached near me, glowered, and bent down as if to pick
something.
“Hey, what are you up to?”
“Can’t you see? I am not up to, only down to something?” He sneered.
As I bit back a protest, he bent down further.
And picked up something, breaking into a bloodcurdling guffaw.
“See, see!”
Before I again collapsed on the ground, I saw.
He was holding my head in his hand like a prize trophy; blood gushed out of it in a
surreal cascade.
“We have inherited the earth.
We are the new-age vampires.
Celebrate our birth, with mirth.
We are on fire! We are on fire!
Hey ho hum.”
From the blood-soaked ground, I watched, as they disappeared singing their victory
song, holding aloft their victory trophy.
“Hey ho hum!” Their voices tapered away.
Then, like a mischievous child, the head- my head, actually, yanked itself away from the
hands of its captor and sailed towards me. Before I could understand what was up, the
head had superimposed itself on my torso, with a triumphant grin, which was of course,
smeared in blood.
I sighed in humongous relief. I would mull over the surreality of the scene later; for the
present, I wanted to bask in the glory of my being whole- once again.
“Hey ho hum!”
I could hear the tapering chants.
“Hey ho-hum.
What a scene gruesome.”
I couldn’t resist the urge to hum my own chants.
“Let me hum improvised songs,
why bother about what lies in the corner?
Hey ho hum!”
This fall, Arkana editors had the chance to speak with artist and writer Gregg Williard regarding his beautiful illustrated narrative piece “Practice in Masks at Sunset” which appeared in Arkana’s 14th Issue. Read on to hear interesting insights from Mr. Williard, and keep an eye out for Arkana’s rapidly approaching Issue 15!
Arkana: What was the inspiration for this piece?
Gregg Williard: “Practice in Masks at Sunset” is part of a continuing life drawing practice (the double meaning is intentional, perhaps a commentary on how the dailyness of a discipline–whether soccer or drawing–acquires a heightened poignancy in times of pandemic, loss or dislocation). I was and am inspired by the economy and speed of spontaneous drawings in public places by artists like Leon Kossoff, (particularly his drawings of public pools), Reginald Marsh, Denys Wortman, Degas or Honore Daumier.
ARK: What is your view of childhood and its fleeting nature?
GW: I write and draw about people of all ages. Every age is fleeting to me.
ARK: Was detail specifically withheld in this piece so it can allow for the most interpretation by the viewer?
GW: I’m not sure how to answer this, beyond the majority of detail omitted or abbreviated in the process of drawing fast and fast moving people and scenes.
ARK: Does pencil and charcoal communicate that more effectively than another, more permanent media?
GW: I prefer pencils and charcoal for everyday drawing. I especially like to see such “unfinished” drawings appear on computers as well as print. It feels like a reminder of and insistence on physicality and fragility in a digital world.
ARK: Do you think the perspective of this piece is more voyeuristic, or is it supposed to put you in the place of its subject?
GW: An interesting question! I was masked when I drew this. I think I, and we, were in a shared space both constricted and free.
ARK: My work is often grounded in collage, assemblage, an assembly of parts. I like roughness. I like the seams to show, in drawings and writing.
This fall, Arkana editors had the chance to speak with Donna Steiner, author of the creative nonfiction piece “Rough Edges,” which appears in Arkana’s 14th Issue. Read below for some intriguing insights into her work and writing process!
Arkana: I’m curious as to what you think is the answer to the question you posed in your
piece: can humans be both feral and tame. What did you mean by that, and do you
think humans can be both feral and tame?
Donna Steiner: When I used feral I was thinking about a quality of ferocity in the heart, versus a kind of calmness or comfort that translates to me, at times, as tame. Feral is feeling like an
animal in its natural habitat rather than a sophisticated or even semi-sophisticated human,
with humans generally falling on the tame side of the spectrum. What I’m calling feral in
the piece, or now thinking of as fierce, was a kind of gleeful or joyous energy I was very
aware of when I was a kid. It was a way of being entirely alive, even bursting, feeling like I
needed to break out of my skin, as though my body couldn’t contain my energy. Tame
wasn’t a slight, just a useful comparison.
ARK: What inspired you to write this piece? The bottlecap drawer or the storm, that first
time seeing your grandmother scared?
DS: My grandmother was one of the great loves of my life. My memories of her are vivid,
including that drawer full of bottle caps, and the storm, which was much more frightening
than depicted in the piece. A tree in her backyard was struck by lightning and it looked
and sounded like an explosion. A bunch of neighbors ran over to make sure we were
okay. So I don’t know if a particular image or feeling prompted the piece, but I often begin
with an image…it could have been my grandmother drinking tea, or huddled in the
hallway, or something not even on the page, like our relief when the neighbors banged on
the door.
ARK: Did you and your grandmother have a very close relationship?
DS: I adored everything about her and felt adored in return.
ARK: Do you typically write microfiction, or was this story sort of a departure from your
normal writing style?
DS: I write nonfiction of varying lengths, from a paragraph to 40-page essays. “Rough Edges”
is 100% true; nothing is fictionalized. A longer piece, “Anatomical Manuscripts,” recently
won the nonfiction prize from the literary journal swamp pink. It’s quite different from
“Rough Edges” in that it juggles many stories juxtaposed and braided together, but again,
all true.
ARK: What would you say is the significance behind the bottlecaps in your story?
DS: The bottlecap drawer was one of many delightful things I associate with my grandmother
and her home. The bottlecaps were colorful and they made a wonderful sound when the drawer was pulled open. As I got older, I appreciated the unique impulse to save
something that had no value beyond that delight, beyond being a collection of simple
things for me and my siblings to play with. When I had them to myself, they were like a
little community; I often pretended that inanimate things were real – I imagined everything
as alive and able to communicate. A drawer of bottle caps, a pile of leaves, a clothesline
where blue jays perched – these were all friends to me. I spoke to them, and it felt like a
dialogue. In the essay, when I remember being in the hallway clutching my grandmother, it
seemed like a parallel to the metal caps nestled together in their drawer. My grandmother
and I were in our own scary world for a few minutes, and maybe I imagined the bottle
caps alone in their own dark place as well, all of us quaking as the thunder boomed.
ARK: Seeing an authority figure out of their element/scared for the first time can be eye-
opening for a child. Did seeing your grandmother scared in this way change how
you saw her as a child? Did you see her as more human?
DS: My grandmother was, to me, magnificent. I didn’t see her as an authority figure. She was,
I suppose…but she was also a grandparent rather than a parent, and I perceived her as
an endlessly intriguing and fun grownup. She was widowed young – I think she was
around 34 – so she was on her own and entirely herself at all times. I only ever saw her
as fully and wonderfully whole and the best human I knew. I remember sleeping at her
house and listening to her speak out loud to her dead husband. She would just quietly tell
him about her day. This was decades after he had died. It might sound like she was
delusional or grieving but I don’t think either was exactly true. She just missed him and
was sharing her life with him. I thought everyone probably spoke aloud to their lost loved
ones before falling asleep, the way I talked to bottle caps or birds or flowers. So the
moments alluded to in “Rough Edges” just added dimension to an already extremely
dimensional person.
ARK: What feeling or emotion did you want your readers to walk away from this piece
with?
DS: A major pleasure of reading, I think, is that you get to be alone with yourself in your
responses and reactions. The whole process is intimate – the act of writing, then sharing,
then hoping something resonates for a reader. The feeling I had when I was writing was
that blend of feral and tame – wonder and awe for my grandmother’s life, my good fortune
to have had her in my own life for three decades, and for that wild storm. My perspective
has been tempered through decades of being without her, but I haven’t forgotten that I felt
safe and protected and very alive when I was with her, even when the heavens raged
around us.
If you’d like to read Donna’s award winning essay “Anatomical Manuscripts” which she referenced during our interview, please find it here! Many thanks again to Donna for taking the time to answer our editors’ questions, we appreciate your insights!
Arkana Blog 