Plans
for the Future
Like many of
you, I suspect, I come up with at least a few intriguing
ideas every week for things I could do with my life, or
things On The
Premises could do, and
so forth. These ideas would all require significant time to
pursue, so even if I had just won the Powerball Lottery and
never needed to work again or something, there’s no way I
could do even 10% of these ideas in a typical human
lifespan, especially one that’s approaching the “probably
half over” mark and which could end at any time for any
number of random reasons.
I’ve also been convinced, though, that publicly announcing
and/or writing down goals makes them more serious and more
likely to be at least attempted. So here are some goals
for On The
Premises, and I’ll be
reporting progress on them in future issues and in
newsletters.
1) Become an Amazon.com affiliate.
I’d like to have a section of the website that links to
books and other resources on Amazon, but only if I
personally trust those books and resources. When I
recommend a book of short stories or a book on writing or
something, I want to be able to give a URL that lets you
buy it, and I’d like that URL to have our name in it
somewhere.
2) Work out some kind of partnership with
Narrative
magazine.
I have strongly mixed feelings about Narrative.
I’m not alone in thinking that they publish the highest
quality on-line fiction today, but that’s because they
resolutely stick to the best and (justifiably) most famous
short story writers. Yet they claim to represent “emerging
writers,” too.
No, they don’t. They represent writers who have had three
or four stories published already, who just finished a
prestigious MFA program, and/or who just won a grant to
continue writing fiction. I’ve got news for you: if you
just got an MFA from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a grant
to spend the next six months writing fiction, then to me,
you’re not “emerging,” you’ve already emerged.
On The
Premises and other
minor-league magazines are where you can find my definition
of emerging writers. I bet we’ve already
published
authors who have decided the writing life isn’t for them
and haven’t written since, or decided that writing will be
a hobby, not a career. But those people can write good
stories, too! Narrative
ignores writers
like that. We don’t. But rather than start a flame war,
maybe Narrative
and
OTP
could work
together somehow.
It’s worth looking into.
I have other ideas, and I’m willing to listen to yours,
too, so send them to Feedback@OnThePremises.com. In the
meantime, please enjoy this issue.
Keep writing and keep reading,
Tarl Roger Kudrick
co-publisher of On The
Premises magazine