Submission Sunday 4.2.23: Editor Interview with Lauren Westerfield

Editor-in-Chief of Blood Orange Review & Nonfiction Editor at Split/Lip Press

Discussed: cozy apartments around Los Angeles; choosing an MFA program; The Rumpus; invisible literary internet acquaintanceships; shared aesthetics; experimental nonfiction; blended career moves; literary journal management; essay collections; flow and shimmer; hybrid/cross-genre work; caffeine-fueled road trips; editing and publication; rejection; authentic connections; networking; submission goals; ideal markets; slippery selfhood; leaving California; sea salt and citrus fruit; writing a book that secretly wants to be about cats

When I started this newsletter, I was really looking forward to the content I planned to offer paid subscribers, such as interviews with editors at literary journals who could spill the tea about what happens on the other side of Submittable. Our first editor interview with Yennie Cheung of The Coachella Review was way back in August, so it is TIME.

I was delighted when Lauren Westerfield agreed to be our next interview with an editor. I’ve known Lauren for almost ten years (!), since she first took one of my WWLA nonfiction workshops, and she has gone on to forge an impressive literary career. She is the author of Depth Control, a hybrid essay/autofiction collection forthcoming from Unsolicited Press. Her essays and poetry have most recently appeared in FENCE, Seneca Review, Willow Springs, Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, and Ninth Letter. We’ll talk a little more about her editorial work below, but Lauren is also the recipient of a 2022 Fellowship in Literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts in support of her current book project, a memoir in essays exploring epigenetics, illness, artmaking, addiction, autonomy, sexuality, power, and shame. She lives in Moscow, Idaho with her cat, Lou.