New Lit on the Block :: Slippage Lit
I have a friend who likes to order items on a menu that are sound fun to say when we go out to eat. That’s how I first came to try calamari and bibimbap. It’s also a way to discover great new lit mags, like Slippage Lit, whose co-editors, Jacob Parsons and Admir Šiljak, along with Social Media Editor Semina Pekmezović, admit they chose the name because they just like the way it sounds. But that’s not the only reason.
I have a friend who likes to order items on a menu that are sound fun to say when we go out to eat. That’s how I first came to try calamari and bibimbap. It’s also a way to discover great new lit mags, like Slippage Lit, whose co-editors, Jacob Parsons and Admir Šiljak, along with Social Media Editor Semina Pekmezović, admit they chose the name because they just like the way it sounds. But that’s not the only reason.
“We decided on Slippage Lit,” they said, “because part of the idea of our magazine is that we look for the sort of work that doesn’t get enough attention, the great work that slips through cracks.” That great work includes poetry, fiction and nonfiction up to 5000 words for web publication in March, July, and November.
Slippage Lit was founded in late 2018 in Sarajevo “by two Bosnians and one geographically-challenged Australian.” Jacob and Admir are themselves both writers who have studied literature at university. Slippage Lit, they admit, is “a new, but not wholly unfamiliar venture for us. Mostly though, it’s our enthusiasm for unusual and underappreciated styles of literature that best qualifies us to do what we do.”
The editors add that they started Slippage Lit “because we were curious and enthusiastic about bringing a new literary journal to life. Literary magazines are a very important, yet underappreciated, part of the literary industry, and it was a project that excited us. Once we decided we wanted to pursue this, we thought about why Slippage Lit needed to exist and what we could offer that was unique. Through considering this, we developed our mission of providing a platform for the strange or outdated, yet still high-quality literary work.”
Writers who feel their work would be a good match can expect a well-developed submissions and editorial process from Slippage Lit. “We receive all submissions via e-mail and read them as soon as we can,” Admir and Jacob explain. “Then, we meet once every few days and go through all the submissions one by one, deciding what to do with them. We receive far more work than we can publish, which means we send a lot of rejection emails. We have a ‘maybe’ pile, for when we feel we need to revisit and spend more time with the submission to make a decision. We try to keep that pile small though and reply as promptly as we can. Then there are the few submissions that we read and both feel strongly enough about to immediately send out an acceptance letter. Important to us is not only the quality of the piece, but also if it fits the mission of the magazine. Luckily, both of us are largely on the same page, and we can always come to agree on how to handle each submission.”
For readers, that thoughtful process results in a finely tuned, quality publication of unique writing. “Readers can expect to find the sorts of writing that they don’t often come across. From long poems that require constantly scrolling down the page, to challenging, realism-abandoning short stories, to list essays featuring Florida Man and Justin Bieber. Our tastes are eclectic and looking through our issues is sure to surprise and delight readers.”
Contributors to the first two issues include Glen Armstrong, Evelynn Black, Annie Blake, Robert Boucheron, Steve Carr, Suzanne Craig-Whytock, Emilie Collyer, Warren J Cox, Julia Ernesti (art), Adam Ford, Nick Fuller Googins, Shannon Frost Greenstein, Shona Hawkes, Toshiya Kamei, Robbie Maakestad, Finley MacDonald, Lukas Maier (art), Em Meller, Sarah Priscus, Iliana Vargas, Ben Walter, Mariah Whelan, and Christopher Woods.
Although Jacob and Admir admit, “Bringing out one issue of a magazine is difficult, bringing out issue after issue and maintaining the quality and remaining an inviting place for readers and writers alike, is more difficult,” they are committed to the future of Slippage Lit.
Their motivation comes from the very reason they started the publication: “Interacting with writers and sending acceptance letters are great joys that come with running a literary magazine. Also seeing an issue come together and noticing how the different works, selected independently, inform and interact with each other when compiled into a single issue is one of the unexpected, but welcome joys we’ve discovered while working on this magazine. It’s a wonderful thing to work with other writers and be a part of an experience like this.”
And NewPages welcomes Slippage Lit as a wonderful new addition to the literary community!
