Weekend Thoughts on Transitions in Publication

A number of times I have written in One Poet’s Notes about the changes happening in composition and publication of various forms of literature as the dominant medium transitions from print to digital. I have related the steady shift of literary periodicals from paper to online during the last decade (“Online Literary Journals: A Status Report”). I have also narrated my experience with release of a poetry chapbook, Dark Refuge, in numerous formats, most popularly online and as an e-book (“Dark Refuge: Process and Publication”). In addition, a couple of months ago I reported the policy change, after a dozen years, to accepting only e-mail submissions for Valparaiso Poetry Review (“VPR Submission Guidelines: A Policy Change”), as well as the process of submitting work through an electronic submission manager to the newly established Valparaiso Fiction Review.

Ever since Valparaiso Poetry Review was initiated as an online journal in 1999, I have emphasized that electronic literary venues were not meant to supplant print publications, but they were intended to supplement and be complementary. Although I still believe this to be true, I am convinced the balance of influence is tilting even more quickly toward digital publication. I was reminded of this movement and its consequences in a few experiences during the past weekend.

On Friday, at the request of my university’s librarian in charge of rare books and archives, I examined four storage boxes of material written by a nineteenth-century author who had graduated from Valparaiso University. The gathered works included books of poetry, typed manuscripts, hand-written journals, personal letters, and all sorts of other pieces. I was pleased to see the books, published in the 1890s, were still in excellent condition. The content of the journals and letters fascinated me. Especially since I had first learned to value authorship as a boy when I wrote in cursive with my treasured fountain pen and ink bottle, I could imagine the writer’s hand creating those elegant loops and sharp slashes more than one hundred years ago.

The journals contained everyday entries about current events and a chronological record, complete with commentary or analysis, of all books read by the author, as well as details of submissions to magazines along with dates of rejections or acceptances. I was intrigued by the informal notations and hand-written corrections to multiple drafts of typed poems or essays. At the same time, I lamented to the librarian that much preserved in these collected papers would not exist among holdings of a contemporary author because today’s writer most likely would have composed upon a computer and deleted many of the unwanted drafts. Indeed, the letters might also have been lost by an individual writing now if sent by e-mail.

After examining and evaluating the books or papers to be sorted and catalogued, I was offered a tour of the archives. A couple of magnificent books I noticed, beautifully printed and adorned with illustrations, had been published in the mid-1560s, and I was impressed by the fine condition in which they still exist nearly 450 years later. These volumes appealed to my great appreciation for books as objects of art. I immediately contrasted their magnificent presence with the lack of physical substance when reading an e-book.

Nevertheless, I have a fondness for the ease of use and practical economic advantages of electronic publications. As much as I maintain affection for print books—the quality of paper, the choice of font, the design of text, and the artful cover—and continue to add volumes to the thousands in my home library, I also confess to delighting in the ability to obtain any novel instantly or to possibly hold an extended collection of books on the Kindle I can regularly carry in my sport jacket pocket. In addition, though I view magazine covers as artworks, and as attractive as text set in print magazines may be, I appreciate the vastly greater potential of a worldwide audience for literary journals available online.

At a meeting on Friday with Jon Bull, my co-editor at Valparaiso Fiction Review who also is a librarian and has a great attraction to books as tactile objects or physical works of art, we discussed the desire to someday produce a book including an anthology of works from Valparaiso Fiction Review, similar to Poetry from Paradise Valley, the print publication of selected poems from the first decade of Valparaiso Poetry Review that has recently been released. During our conversation, Jon remarked that he expected print books would always be an option to complement electronic publications, though he envisioned a future in which print publications might have a specialty position similar to vinyl records that many collectors still seek despite the digitization of music in other formats. Similarly, I thought of how I enjoy very much my digital camera and the ease of editing or displaying photos online; however, I still prefer viewing the finest photos as prints within a frame mounted upon a wall.

Over the weekend, newspapers included articles concerning the closing of Borders bookstores across the country and bloggers contemplated whether this event represented more evidence of transformation in the literary world. In addition, I received word that Quarterly West, the literary journal with which I gained valuable experience as the poetry editor during a few years of graduate school, would be joining a number of other notable literary journals, such as Shenandoah and TriQuarterly, by making a switch in its next issue from print publication to online only.

On Monday, my weekend thoughts about the contemporary process or product of publication seemed complete when I accepted an e-mail invitation by a literary group to give a poetry reading in the upcoming year, and I responded to a request to deliver a talk about a topic of my choice. I informed the reading series organizer I would present poems from a few of my newest publications, both print and electronic, and for my lecture I felt I had chosen an apt title: “Transitions in Publication.” Indeed, I noted that I believe the subject I selected might reflect various perspectives about one of the most significant developments to shape the literary community during the past decade, while addressing concerns and questions about format that will continue to influence how literature is put forward by authors or perceived by readers in the decade ahead, perhaps even evolving in ways we have not yet determined.