A Conversation with Edward Mullany,
Editor with Anderbo and Matchbook

For Prick of the Spindle, Vol. 4.1, March 2010

By Mel Bosworth

Edward Mullany is an associate editor at the online literary journals Anderbo and Matchbook. He also manages the Matchbook group at the online writing community Fictionaut, where he’s notorious for sparking challenging conversations. He also contributes to the literary site Big Other, maintains the blog Notes About Permanent Things, and writes poetry and fiction.

Edward Mullany fills his days well. He was recently kind enough to chat with me about the beginnings of an e-zine, the surge of technology, innovation in writing, and the deceptive quickness of ethereal news anchors.

MB: Tell me a bit about the genesis and progression of Matchbook and Anderbo.

EM: Matchbook developed out of conversations Brian Mihok and I had early last year, when we were living in Northampton, MA. We wanted to create a forum for a kind of work we were interested in—short, indeterminate prose—and to give each work we accepted a generous amount of time, by itself, on our site’s homepage. We aim for a sort of simplicity of effect in both the work we accept and the way we present that work. Brian is in Buffalo now, and I’m in New York, but most of what we do is online, so it’s easy to work together by email. We’ve just announced a new series that will feature visual art and poetry, and that will be sent out as postcards. As always, a Critical Thought will be included (on the reverse side of the postcard), but on the front, instead of prose, you’ll see visual art or a poem. People can check out the guidelines and subscription info here. We're planning on sending these postcards en masse to all sorts of literary journals and arts organizations, as well as to individual subscribers, in order to give as much exposure as possible to our artists and writers.

Anderbo is a little different in its genesis. It was created in 2005 by Rick Rofihe, who is well known in New York for his work as a writer and a teacher, as well as for the support he has given to young writers. I'm one of several associate editors who read the stories and poems and essays submitted, and who then respond to Rick, who is Editor-in-Chief. An interesting note about Rick is that between 1988 and 1991, he published nine stories in The New Yorker. His collection of stories, published in 1991 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is called Father Must.

MB: Something I particularly enjoy about Matchbook is the “Critical Thought” written by each author to accompany their work. What inspired this addition?

EM: I can't remember exactly how we settled on the decision to present the work this way—with the Critical Thought alongside the prose—but it had to do with the idea of giving writers the opportunity to discuss process, or theory, or even their own biography in a way that isn't often afforded them. You sometimes hear, among artists and writers, that the "work should speak for itself," and while I think this is true, I also think that criticism as a form of contextualization can help us understand the work in a different and important light.

MB: The two journals are similar in terms of aesthetic, although Anderbo is more prone to publish longer works. What is the editorial process like at each of these journals?

EM: At Matchbook, Brian and I alone read all the submissions. At Anderbo, there are a number of associate editors who work independently of each other to respond to the submissions. Both systems can work, and both have different challenges associated with them.

MB: iPhones, iPads, Kindles, E-Readers, so on. In this accelerated digital age, where the options for readers continue to grow, how important is it for writers and publishers alike to embrace new technology? And is it safe to say, at this point, that handheld, digital reading devices aren't just a passing fad?  

EM: I think the issue is less clear for writers than it is for publishers, because for publishers the issue has less to do with art and more to do with business. To embrace the new technology, for publishers, is a good business decision, but writers can't be concerned with business decisions without affecting their relationship to their writing. A writer who thinks overly about how her book will accommodate the new technology is in danger of corrupting her art. This is true because, unless a writer is not an artist, writing must proceed out of something like disinterest, or what Chekhov referred to as 'coldness'; the writer's loyalty must be to language above all else. Even our preoccupations and themes depend on our use of language.

At the same time, for a contemporary writer to ignore the new technology as an element of our 'cultural moment' is to misapprehend the role of a writer. The writer is a sort of prophet in that he or she needs to be able to process everything that has happened and everything that is happening in order to speak to the people of his or her time. One of the reasons we can't write like Raymond Carver and be successful at it (besides the fact that every great writer is inimitable) is because his style was as much a 'comment' on the time in which he lived as was his subject and his characters. That time is gone.

Regarding reading devices; I don't think they're a fad, though neither do I think it's clear what effect they will have.

MB: I’ve noticed the terms “metafiction” and “hypertext” popping up quite a bit lately, and the hypertext piece by Scott Garson over at Matchbook is something I often revisit. What can you tell me about them? Is hypertext something that’s limited to online writing, or can it be executed effectively in a print setting?

EM: Scott's piece is great. Part of the reason it succeeds is because it recognizes the fact that form and content are inextricable. In other words, Scott doesn't use hypertext as a gimmick; in his piece, hypertext has as much to do with the impression the story has on us as does the plot. In fact, it is the plot in the same way that the narrator's history with his cousin is the plot. This is true because the way the reader 'travels' through the links evokes a feeling of nostalgia and regret in the same way the plot does. The form and content speak to each other.

Hypertext is most commonly associated with the links you find in an online setting, but it's also been discussed in terms of the printed page. For instance, you can consider the footnotes in the works of writers like David Foster Wallace as a form of hypertext. I guess everything that refers us to something else, that allows us to digress from the mainstream narrative, if only temporarily, is a form of hypertext. I wonder what this suggests about the world around us—so full of billboards, ads, etc. There is a great story by George Saunders, "My Flamboyant Grandson," set in a near or theoretical future, where a person can't walk down the streets of New York without seeing personalized, holographic ads jumping out at them.

MB:When I click on “Volumes” at Matchbook, I’m told “Just you wait.” What’s Matchbook got up its sleeve?  

EM: We'd like at some point to collect our authors' work into yearly printed anthologies (or something like that). The exact form these collections would take we're not yet sure of.

MB:You are a busy guy, Edward. In addition to editing, publishing, reviewing, reading, being a husband, sleeping, eating, and the million other things I’m sure I’ve missed, you also write fiction and poetry. What do you hope to accomplish as a writer in say, the next ten years?

EM: A lot of things! I suppose mainly I want to get better, and to write all the things I ought to write. Right now I've got a manuscript of stories, and two poetry manuscripts, and I'd like to see them published. But my mind is always on the next thing, or is always waiting for the next thing to occur to me.  

I want to explore new forms in every project, to change my method of expression even if my themes remain the same.  

MB: Bonus Question: What’s the last dream you remember having?

EM: Katie Couric was fleeing the authorities, though it wasn't clear for what.

To see some current works in hypertext, visit Susan Gibb's Evilution, The Writer, and The Body Has Its Say.

Mel Bosworth is the author of When the Cats Razzed the Chickens (Folded Word Press, 2009). He lives, works, and writes in western Massachusetts. Visit him at http://eddiesocko.blogspot.com/

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