Are Women Underrepresented in the Small Press?
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When Charles Ries queried why there are so few women represented in the small press, I didn't have a clue what he meant because that has been neither my personal experience nor my observation. But then, I don't generally think in terms of gender, and maybe I just hadn't noticed. The sociologist in me was curious, so I did a statistical analysis of the last issues of publications that ran my work. Here are the results. (Contact me at elockie@comcast.net for a list of the publications, if interested):
In 20 hard-copy publications, 374 women were represented and 334 men. There were 13 men editors and 7 women editors.
In 15 online publications, 113 women were represented and 109 men. There were 13 men editors and 10 women editors.
Of course, this is by no means a definitive study, as it reflects empirically only one poet's work and style of submitting. Yet the publications are very diverse, and plenty of responses to Charles' query support my findings. Liz Bradfield from Broadsided says she has received a fairly even distribution of submissions from men and women. Since her retirement, Rhina Espaillat reports a "nice even balance between men and women" among writers she encounters.
Lee Vowell, Editor of Underground Window, says it never seemed to him there was a large minority of females in poetrydom. He's published over 150 poets, and roughly 45% of them are female. To counterbalance that, John Amen, at Pedestal Magazine, gets probably 60% submissions from females.
Ken Gurney, Editor for Tamafyhur Mountaion Poetry, reports that submissions there split about 50/50 between men and women and that his acceptance rate is about the same. At March Street Press, Editor Robert Bixby says that he, too, gets a nice mixture of men and women. Jennifer VanBuren, Editor of Mannequin Envy, says they get more submissions from men but publish about 50/50.
When Pris Campbell counted the poets in Mipo's last issue, she found more than half of them to be female. During the nine years as Poetry Editor for Poetic Voices, Ursula Gibson found no lack of submissions from either males or females. Ray Foreman, Publisher of Clark Street Review, has the same opinion about the small press in general. Louis McKee at One Trick Pony, indicates that 60% of his blind submissions are from men, but yet he tries to publish balanced issues.
Charles Coe says, "Maybe certain publications--either because of editorial focus or name or whatever--just aren't appealing to women contributors. But I just don't see that as an industry-wide issue." Charles takes the issue one step further and informs us that, "The Council of Literary Presses and Magazines is a service organization for independent publishers funded in part by the New York Council for Arts. If you go to their home page (www.clmp.org) click on the "Member Directory" and poke around at random, you'll see women editors and contributors all over the place."
A few editors indicate they do go out of their way to publish women's work, giving their gender more exposure in the small press. Editors CL Bledsoe, Jillian Meyer and Donna Epler at Ghoti Magazine say they "solicit the hell out of female poets" because they have learned that if they don't, female submissions drop.
Louis McKee at One Trick Pony indicates that 60% of his blind submissions are from men, but yet he tries to publish balanced issues. Gordon Purkis, Mastodon Dentist Editor, says twice he's had to seek female submissions or the issues would have been completely male dominated.
Karla Huston submitted an excerpt from an interview in Margie, The American Review of Poetry, where she interviewed Stellasue Lee, Editor of RATTLE. In the interview, Stellasue tells of a writing workshop she conducted a few years ago with 39 women, after which she invited them to submit to RATTLE. She even called each of them on the phone after the workshop with the invitation. Fifteen did not submit their work. Of course, who knows if men would have reacted statistically different? Also, this interview took place several years ago and may not result in the same consequences today.
Editor Jonathan Penton says if he didn't actively pursue submissions from female authors, fewer and fewer would show. He goes on to say, "To prevent UnlikelyStories.org from becoming a complete boy's club, I try to publish a certain percentage of women in every issue."
Jonathan is also one of the few responding male editors who claimed to have a preference for the "masculine aesthetic." Joseph Farley at Cynic Press, who has published two books by women and ten by men, says that maybe he too has an unconscious bias toward "male qualities" in writing. Louis McKee is another who identifies more with perceived male writers' themes and points of view, although he believes that, ". . . the good poems cannot be denied, and the good, persistent poets will find an audience."
