Emma Neale
(Photo by Caroline Davies)
“There are a few times, each issue, when my heart races and I’m tempted to burst into cryptic celebrations on social media before publication...
But I have to practise my most mature delayed gratification! I forgot to breathe when I first read Tracy Slaughter’s ‘The Mine Wife’ which was in my first issue, Landfall 235. Danny Bultitude’s short story ‘Artificial Cold, Genuine Heat’, from the same issue, was just so bonkers, weird and funny that I still shake my head when I remember it. I feel a mixture of anticipation and excitement when all the submissions are in front of me. I begin at the top of the pile and keep steadily peeling off the layers. I’ve read more than 500 individual pieces for Landfall 240. I think for every issue so far I’ve initially wanted thousands of words above the physical limit and a feverish whittling down is another stage in the process. There have been exhilarating occasions, like when Patricia Grace agreed to send me a short story for issue 239, and it turned out to be ‘Green Dress’, which had an eerie personal resonance. Like the character in the story, I married in green, and it upset my maternal grandmother, who believed it was bad luck. She and my father both died within a year of my wedding. Yet above anything personal, ‘Green Dress’ is a wonderful, poignant story; comic and crackling with tension and an ominous undercurrent.
The journal is the first place of publication for the writing in its pages and copyright remains with each author, so pieces often go on to a second life. Work reappears in single-author books, anthologies, or online publications; they can be set to music, inspire visual art, inform stage and why not film performances? There’s a sense of tradition and longevity in the journal and I think this encourages writers to feel they’re participating in something larger than themselves. There’s leeway for me to reach out and proactively ask for work and, I hope, this contributes to the sense that Landfall is as much somewhere for established writers to show excellent, maturing and inventive work as they change and explore as it is for new writers. The flipside is that I also enter dialogue with newer writers whose work has that X-factor shimmer, but which isn’t quite ready. I might offer suggestions and accept a new version. When this happens, and that author goes on to publish more and more, it’s an absolute thrill and gives me a feeling of taking part in something larger and more significant than making my own packed lunch!”
Emma Neale is the editor of Landfall, New Zealand’s longest running arts and literary journal.