Wolf Interviews: Aaron Burch
You've been involved in the independent small literary world for a long time. How would you say that indie literature has changed or developed or, possibly, devolved over the last 15-20 years? What role has social media played in changing the literary landscape?
It's funny, my kneejerk answer was just, I'm not sure how it's changed? Which is a lazy answer, but has had me a little bit interrogating that response in addition to the question itself. I think, for one, I've been doing this for so long, so consistently, and it's sometimes hard to see or notice changes when you're seeing something daily. Like, "I don't look or feel like I've aged at all in the last five years!" And then you actually look at a picture of yourself from five years ago and go, "oh."
One of the biggest changes is social media. I think back to when I first got involved in this world and... none of that existed yet! I think Twitter especially was so great for indie lit and it's been sad seeing that slowly devolve, but then I think back, and remind myself Hobart was doing well and was a blast before and it'll be fine. If anything, I think maybe we've over-relied on Twitter for exposure the last few years. So maybe it's good, in some ways, to be made to rethink and reevaluate things?
I think some might argue the landscape has devolved over that timespan but I definitely wouldn't. I think that's often coming from a place of looking backward through rose-tinted glasses, and as much as I'm prone to nostalgia, it's rarely at the expense of seeing the past as better than the present. Whether that's realism or my kinda doofusy optimism, I don't know, but I think there's amazing work happening right now and I'm having as much fun being involved in it as ever.
Who are some of your favorite indie presses right now?
I like Clash Books a lot. Malarkey. I blurbed the novel by Austin Ross that they put out and it's fantastic. I'm incredibly biased but I really love Autofocus Books. (Incredibly biased because they put out my essay collection and also a craft anthology I edited; but I wanted to work with them specifically because I love them so much.)
I was very excited when I saw Short Story, Long come out, since I'd been thinking of doing almost the exact same thing (make a place for longer short stories). Previously, you were the editor of Hobart Magazine for about twenty years. What was the impetus behind starting a new literary magazine, and why substack?
I left Hobart a little over a year ago now, after doing it for twenty years, and when I did so, I presumed, after taking something of a break, I'd probably start another something. That break largely had me realizing I actually enjoyed the lessening responsibility and commitment, and I started accepting the idea that maybe I didn't need to start and do a new thing. Some time passed though, and as much as I often think of myself as kinda lazy, I guess I'm not. I'm often happiest and feel most excited about the world when I'm working on something, and I started thinking about the aspects of Hobart that I most enjoyed and kinda brainstorming what might be fun to do that wouldn't be too overwhelming.
At the same time, after spending the last handful of years largely working on either ongoing novels or short-short, flash pieces, I went through a year or so of writing more "traditional" length (3k-8k words) stories. And when I looked around at where to submit them, there weren't a ton of places that jumped to mind. Some of that is on me — I didn't know because that wasn't the world I'd been in and submitting to for year. But part of that actually harkens back to the above question. Twenty years ago, online journals were taken a lot less seriously than they are now; they were thought of as having way less cred and "should I submit to online journals" was a pretty common question back then. They were kinda the disregarded stepchild or whatever (which can def be its own kind of punk rock fun). That meant there were way more print journals, and print loved those longer stories. Online has existed long enough now that there's no longer any kind of stigma around them, and they're cheaper, and just easier to produce than a print journal, but there's also this presumption (largely but not entirely true) that people only want to read short stuff on a screen, so there's a lot of venues for flash and fewer for these longer stories.
So, I was thinking about that through the lens of wondering where to send my own stories, and that combined with thinking about how much I loved editing and publishing long stories with Hobart, and as much as I love doing HAD, it really is built for the very kind of short-short stuff I was just talking about, so I started thinking about what a home for longer stories might look like, and the idea kinda grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go and I just kept thinking about it.
Substack felt like a kinda perfect fit for a handful of reasons. It meant I didn't have to build a website, for one! I also really liked the idea that it is a newsletter that gets sent to people's emails, but also has a nice website. Having done all this for so long, I think of it primarily as a website, but I think most people actually read the stories in their email. (Thought I could be wrong.) And then I liked too the subscription model. My desire from the get-go was to be able to pay writers, and also to pair every story with art and to be able to pay the artist. Right now, exactly enough people have opted for a paid subscription over the free option for the money in to equal the money out; I think that holds true if I keep getting 3 or 4 new subscribers every month. If I get more than that, I'll start paying writers and artists more; if subscriptions plateau, maybe I have to consider whether or not it is sustainable at some point.
There was quite the kerfuffle over Hobart last year. I was critical of much of what happened, but I'd be curious to hear your view on what happened and why. Why did you feel it was necessary to step away from Hobart? Was it purely over the Alex Perez interview and Elizabeth Ellen's editorial stance?
I don't really talk about it much, to be honest. It feels both more complicated and more simple than it probably seems. Elizabeth and I were co-editors on the journal and at some point stepping away felt cleaner and easier and like a better path forward than continuing to co-edit a journal with my ex.
Along with your editorial work, you've also written novels and nonfiction. Do you find one easier or more natural than the others? Do you ever feel that writing in one mode or editing takes away from the others?
I started with fiction, and that's primarily what I think of myself as, and nonfiction used to feel really unnatural and was something I really had to wrestle with much more... but the more I've written across genres, the more natural each feels. I think, at times, editing has definitely taken away from my writing; and, again, at times, I used to feel guilty about that, but I never really do anymore. I love editing and publishing, and it's all part of this literary world and life that I love and that really energizes me. So, it definitely sometimes means I write a little less, but that's ok. And, really, it all feeds each other. I'm constantly being inspired to write by something I'm publishing, and taking an editing story into my classroom and using it to become a better teacher, and getting excited about reading and editing and publishing by working with my students, and etc. and etc., with all three really working in tandem and conversation with each other.
I like that a lot, the idea that all these are in conversation. What are you working on now, besides Short Story, Long?
I have a novel in progress I'm working on, and a story collection, and then I edit HAD with Crow Jonah Norlander, and that journal is a total blast (but was really built kind of specifically for very very short work and so missing editing and publishing longer stories is really what prompted SSL.
Thanks, Aaron.
My novels:
Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster
Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion
Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure
Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera
The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse.
Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl.
Sleeping Giants - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse and The Blood Dancers
Broken Katana - Sequel to Iron Wolf.
Libertatia; or, The Onion King - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse, The Blood Dancers, and Sleeping Giants
Noir: A Love Story - An oral history of a doomed romance.
Some free books for your trouble: