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admin
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| 24-02-2009 12:23 PM |
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Welcome to AWMonline's first live forum for 2009 with special guest, Ronnie Scott.
Ronnie Scott's writing has appeared in Torpedo, Wet Ink, Bookslut and other publications. He has worked as an advice columnist, a breakfast radio host and, most importantly, a car park attendant. In 2009, he is associate director for the National Young Writers' Festival, part of This Is Not Art in Newcastle.
Ronnie is founding editor of The Lifted Brow, an independent magazine based in Brisbane and Melbourne. The Brow is a fantastic publication that proudly fails to distinguish between established and school-aged artists; overseas and local artists; genre and literary fiction; and between writing, art, and music. |
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admin
Posts:231
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| 25-02-2009 10:51 AM |
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Good morning everyone!
Welcome to the first live online forum of The Australian Writer's Marketplace for 2009 - a discussion with Australian writer and edotir/publisher, Ronnie Scott, of The Lifted Brow. The forum will begin at 11:00am AEST (or 12:00pm if you are on Daylight Savings Time), so now's your chance to grab a coffee and get comfortable.
Just a bit of housekeeping: Please only "Add Reply" - don't post any New Topics, as Ronnie will only be on this one. I'll be moderating your questions so that Ronnie has a chance to answer them all. If we get a few questions on the same topic, I'll just post one of them, so read other people's questions, too.
Remember to keep clicking "Refresh" (Ctrl+R) to read the new responses.
In a few minutes we will introduce Ronnie and kick off the chat...
As Ronnie would say… "Deal!"
Cheers,
Meg Vann (Moderator)
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admin
Posts:231
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| 25-02-2009 11:02 AM |
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| AWMonline is very pleased to have Ronnie Scott, editor of the Lifted Brow, available to talk now with our subscribers. Welcome, Ronnie! |
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Ronnie
Posts:15
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| 25-02-2009 11:03 AM |
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| Hey, Meg! |
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admin
Posts:231
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| 25-02-2009 11:05 AM |
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| To kick things off, I'm really interested to know about how you began your career as a writer. Was it something you always knew you wanted to do? |
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admin
Posts:231
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| 25-02-2009 11:07 AM |
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Hey Ronnie,
Jodi here. I'd love to hear how you actually got the first edition off the ground. if you were an undergraduate, how did you go about funding it and how did you learn the processes that were involved in putting together a print publication? |
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Ronnie
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| 25-02-2009 11:10 AM |
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| Sure. It was always that or paleontology. I eventually enrolled in Creative Writing at QUT, just hoping to buy myself time to write, but I ended up meeting and living with a number of great writers in and around Petrie Terrace, Herston, and Kelvin Grove. It was a breeding ground both for bacteria and ideas. |
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Julie
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| 25-02-2009 11:12 AM |
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Hi Ronnie
The Lifted Brow includes such amazing international writers - how do you get them all to submit to the magazine?
Barbra |
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Ronnie
Posts:15
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| 25-02-2009 11:15 AM |
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Jodi: The first edition had a print run of, I think, 300 copies, then another 200 when we sold all those. It was on cheap, grey paper and saddle-stitched, the idea being that (a) you could roll it up and put it in your pocket - disposable aesthetic - and (b) we could only afford cheap, grey paper and saddle-stitching.
We funded it through a few $100 ads from local businesses, but still came up short. A bunch of our friends got together one Friday night and had a bake-off; we made fudge, cookies, cupcakes. We dressed up the most attractive person, a writer named Sarah Grey, and went out into the Valley at about 2am with all the baked goods in a cellophane-lined basket. Right up until the sun came up, Sarah would step out of the shadows and innocently sell the baked goods to Valley drunks, and that made up the shortfall.
The magazine was thereafter funded mostly by sales. |
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angela
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| 25-02-2009 11:19 AM |
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| Ronnie, what's your slushing process like? How many readers are involved and what do they look for in submissions? |
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Ronnie
Posts:15
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| 25-02-2009 11:19 AM |
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Hey, Barbra! After a while, you just get good at ferreting out email addresses. Faculty directories are gold, since a lot of these people teach at universities.
In general, it's much tougher to get somebody like Andrew McGahan or Kate Grenville to give us the time of day, whereas a lot of well-known overseas writers are very open to fun projects. I also think there might be novelty value in being contacted by a magazine from Australia. |
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admin
Posts:231
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| 25-02-2009 11:21 AM |
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| Meg here. what a great way to fundraise - I love the image of writers in the kitchen, cooking up a literary magazine! I'm wondering how many different roles you fulfill - editor, publishing mnger, promotions in Bris and Melb, plus orgainsing gigs - how do you prevent the burnout factor that seems to plague indie publications? |
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Julie
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| 25-02-2009 11:23 AM |
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| Why is it, do you think, that high profile Australian writers are reluctant to submit? Do you send a copy of the mag to any of the aussie's you ask for content from? |
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admin
Posts:231
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| 25-02-2009 11:24 AM |
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| How did you get involved in the Newcastle festival? Is it just another writers' festival? |
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luke
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| 25-02-2009 11:25 AM |
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Hi Ronnie,
What sort of writing do you publish in the lifted brow? fic/non-fic, spec-fic etc?
Luke |
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Ronnie
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| 25-02-2009 11:27 AM |
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The "burnout" question is a tough one. For the last year, the Brow's been a three-man job - Jane York, editor-at-large, Liberty Browne, designer, and me. However, we're about to lose Jane to the jungles of South America, I think with no return ticket.
A few days ago, though, Lib and I interviewed some interns. One of them interested in the business side, one of them interested in the editorial side, and one of them interested in "everything". Hopefully we can give them the experience they need. I tried my best to explain that we've always pretty much just made it up as we go along, so there'll be no shortage of high-responsibility solo tasks, if they want them. I will cook for them as payment.
Also, I really love working on the Brow. I never expect to make any money from it - I plan to keep doing it as long as it's still a fun challenge. |
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angela
Posts:79
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| 25-02-2009 11:29 AM |
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| So, how have you found the Melbourne lit scene - as opposed to the Brisrael lit scene? |
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Lisette
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| 25-02-2009 11:31 AM |
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| hey RS, lisette here. am wondering if you've thought about the transition from being a "youth" writer/artist/activist to merging into your mid and late 20s... and beyond. do you think you'll still be doing and publishing the same stuff, or do you envision your tastes and projects will change over time? |
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admin
Posts:231
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| 25-02-2009 11:33 AM |
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| It's lovely to be hearing questions from our regular AWMonline forum fans. I know we have quite a few other subscribers watching, too. Any first-timers want to ask Ronnie a question? |
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Ronnie
Posts:15
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| 25-02-2009 11:34 AM |
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Angela: Our slushing project used to be a very long, strange ceremony - about five of us would read the first page aloud, then keep going if we liked it, and if not, just the last page. We would have a No pile, a Maybe pile, and a Yes pile.
For issue five, I basically did the submissions as they came in. The No pile is easy, the Yes pile is easy, but the Maybe pile is disgustingly hard. We had about a hundred stories in the Maybe pile this time, from which we needed to pick, say, twenty. At that stage, Jane came along and helped refine it. But the Maybe pile was halved and halved again too many times to count.
"Why is it, do you think, that high profile Australian writers are reluctant to submit? Do you send a copy of the mag to any of the aussie's you ask for content from?"
I have no idea. I think a lot of them, or their agents, have a firmer idea of what the "grownup" journals are in Australia - Overland, Heat, Meanjin. In Australia, there seems to be a huge divide between "grownup" journals and "youth" journals, which seems pointless. I hope we are a middle-ground but I think people see us as a "youth" journal. I've never sent a copy to someone I'd like to see a story/song from, but yeah, I should!
"How did you get involved in the Newcastle festival? Is it just another writers' festival?"
The directors would kill me if I said "Yes, it's just another writers' festival." But no! It's not! It's fun, messy, and immersive - as flat as those three descriptors look on the page, it's true. I got involved through Nic Low, who was the outgoing director last year. He asked me to apply and I didn't. Then he asked me to just help with programming and I jumped at the opportunity to redeem myself. |
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