In this post we hear from Declan Meade, editor of the literary magazine The Stinging Fly

The Stinging Fly was established “to seek out, publish and promote the very best new Irish and international writing”. It features short stories and poetry as well as book reviews and author interviews. I asked founding editor Declan Meade about the challenges and possibilities in running this well regarded literary magazine as well as his wider views on writing and the short story in particular.

The Stinging Fly was established in 1997, with the first issue coming out in 1998. Can you tell us a bit about that? What was the motivation for its foundation?

I had moved to Dublin in 1995 and was interested in writing. I joined a couple of writers' groups and did a few different workshops at the Irish Writers' Centre and with Dublin City Council. After any of those sessions, the participants would invariably gather together and complain about the dearth of publishing outlets for new writers. After a couple of years hearing this, I eventually got together with a friend, Aoife Kavanagh, who had just done a publishing course in Galway and we decided we'd put together a magazine of new writing.

What are the challenges for print journals such as the Stinging Fly and what have been your particular challenges?

The challenges change over time but essentially I would see survival as the key challenge. How does the journal sustain itself? How do the people involved sustain themselves? Essentially it comes down to resources—human, time, money—making those stretch. There is the frustration of never having enough time to do everything you might want to do. That’s hardly a unique complaint though.

Funding has been a big issue for us. The early days of having no money at all, and then very gradually building up the amount we receive from the Arts Council. Now trying to maintain it at a level that will allow us to continue to develop. Distribution remains a big challenge too - getting the journal to places around the country where people will be able to buy it. Being able to market it properly so that people will know about it.

How do you account for the Stinging Fly's longevity, despite the challenges?

There has been my own determination to keep it going - the belief that it was worth doing. From the start, I've tried to make every issue as good as it could possibly be and that has helped to sustain my interest. It has also sustained the interest of those people who have watched the magazine from the start because they have seen it develop over time. People have been very supportive of me and of the magazine and that has helped enormously. I still think of it essentially as a magazine even if it does have more of the air of a 'proper', 'grown-up' journal these days. For quite a long time, the question that spun round my head has been: 'What can a little magazine do?' I still try to come up with different answers to that question.

What has the magazine accomplished over those years and what have been its highlights?

Well, none of the above would mean anything if there wasn't good work coming into us all the time. So our accomplishment is really just to have managed to stick around and to have picked out a lot of good work by a whole range of writers as it has come in. I don't do highlights as such.

When we promote Irish writing, what are we promoting, something identifiable in topic or style or just good writing from those who happen to be or live in Ireland?

I think there is definitely writing that is identifiably Irish and I think it's really important that we should have access to it - as readers, or more generally as a society, or as a community. It's important that we get to read and share our stories with one another. It's important that we get to hear all the different stories and that we get to see all the different sides of the same story. There's a Joseph Brodsky quote I came across recently: 'By itself reality per se isn't worth a damn. It's perception that promotes reality to meaning.' There is definitely an Irish way of seeing things and it's important that we capture that and celebrate it and hold on to it.

Equally though we need to be open to writing from elsewhere and what we can learn about ourselves and others from that.

Good writing matters more than anything else, of course—and that has nothing whatsoever to do with where the writer is from. I'd certainly want for The Stinging Fly to be associated first and foremost with the publication and promotion of good writing.

The Stinging Fly has also established an imprint. How significant a development was that and how do you see it progressing?

It was really a logical next step for us in terms of what we had been doing with the magazine up to that point and seeing that there was more work that needed to be done. In terms of helping writers along, there is only so much the magazine can do. Mainstream or large-scale publishing seems to have an increasing number of blind spots. There are categories of writers and readers they no longer seem to be interested in catering for.

With The Stinging Fly Press, we have focused mainly up to now on the short story, producing anthologies and single-author collections. The anthologies have proved to be a step up from publication in the magazine for our writers. People do seem to take stories more seriously if they're in a book. Our anthologies have been fairly widely reviewed, while the material in the magazine gets very little critical attention. Then obviously the single-author collections are important because there are so few publishers willing to take on short story collections by first-time authors.

I’m genuinely not sure how the press is going to develop. We are bringing out a collection by a writer called Mary Costello in April this year and there are a couple of other writers who are close to having collections ready. There is a lot of uncertainty in the whole book-publishing sphere right now and we’re not immune to any of that. The type of publishing we do is always going to be reliant on subsidies of some sort – and right now we are waiting to hear from the Arts Council in February about our funding will be for the 12 months after March.

Why are short stories important?

A short story is no more or no less important than a painting, a film, a song, a poem. All of these things can mean everything or nothing.

What, for you, makes an outstanding short story, what should the short story writer be aiming to do?

Stories can and do work on all sorts of levels. The short story writer need only worry about writing the story, getting it down on the page, or up on the screen, sentence by sentence. As a reader I want to feel like I'm right there within the moment of the story, inside the character's head or just over his or her shoulder. I want to be told a story. I want to be given the opportunity to think, feel or see differently. I don't mind if you make me laugh or cry. I can take it.

In the world of publishing we hear differing stories about the viability of short stories. We often hear that short stories in collection form don't sell. In recent times however we also hear that short stories are the ideal consumable bites for devices like the eReader. How as a publisher do you see the dissemination of stories to readers changing if at all? Does the medium matter?

We hear so many different things - and some of the chatter can be detrimental. I think we should have a moratorium on discussing the fate or the viability of the short story for a while. We should just all agree to say to whomever should ask that the short story is grand - and maybe then it would be.

People are already reading short stories in different ways and there are new publishers here and elsewhere (The South Circular, Ether Books) who are already disseminating stories via phones, eReaders, etc... All of this is good - it all strengthens my contention that the short story is grand!

Would you ever consider, (as many have done), moving the Stinging Fly being an electronic only publication?

No. This is not for me. But we already have some content of the magazine online and we will be adding more. We also have additional stuff on the website and we'll be doing more of that too. We are also going to start making our books available digitally over the next few months. I would see both happening together rather than choosing one over the other.

I'm very attached to the physical object that is the magazine/book and I really enjoy working with print and design to make something that is durable, attractive, dare I say beautiful. But there are great opportunities working with the new technologies to promote and disseminate the work - it makes sense to take advantage of those too.

The Stinging Fly holds regular readings and you recently took it to New York, how does this fit in with what the Stinging Fly is aiming to achieve?

Well, New York was a great opportunity for us via Culture Ireland and their Imagine Ireland festival. It completely ties in with promoting the work to a wider audience. Also bringing different writers together. Essentially all of our events are about publicising the magazine and the work that is in it, giving the writers an opportunity to read their work to an audience while at the same time making connections with fellow writers. This is a very important part of what we do, particularly for the writers who are starting out. It gets them out of the house.

Is the future of the Stinging Fly about evolution or consolidation?

I think we have a bit of evolving still to do. In many ways we have got this far and become what we've become through responding to the needs of the writers we have worked with. I'd like to hold on to that spirit and flexibility as much as possible.

I'd like to thank Declan Meade for joining us on www.writing.ie. For more on the Stinging Fly see the website.

The Stinging Fly welcomes postal submissions of short stories and poetry during between January 1^st and March 31^st. Dave Lordan is guest editing the summer edition and submissions for that edition should arrive by January 31^st but all submissions will be considered for the two later issues. For full submission guidelines see here. 

For anyone wishing to familarize themselves with the magazine there is an excellent introductory offer which includes two back issues of the journal, a copy of the current edition and two books, for just €40 (€45 overseas). There is also a yearly subscription for €40(€45 overseas).

The Stinging Fly imprint are delighted to announce that Mary Costello's short story collection The China Factory is the next to be released. Watch out for the launch in April.