Dan Wickett on Dzanc’s The Collagist

If Short Story Month this past May didn’t prove that Dan Wickett needs less sleep than mere mortals, his latest venture at Dzanc will.

Beginning August 15, 2009, Ann Arbor-based nonprofit Dzanc Books‘ executive director Dan Wickett, founder/publisher Steven Gillis, designer Steven Seighman, and editor Matt Bell (along with poetry editor Matt Olzmann) will launch the monthly online journal The Collagist.

Each of the journal’s issues will feature four short stories, from flash to novella; four poets; one one to three essays, ranging from personal essays to literary criticism; two to three book reviews, arranged in advance; and one novel excerpt due to be published within three months of issue release.

ASF caught up with the excited, dedicated, and sleep-deprived Mr. Wickett to find out more about the journal and how it fits in Dzanc’s plan.

ASF: Why The Collagist? I mean (a) why start a new online journal and (b) why this online journal, The Collagist?

Wickett: Dzanc Books was created to publish and promote literary writing and adding an online journal to our roster does both of these. While hearing that a nonprofit is set up for publishing probably initially lends one to think of books, there are still writers out there, in both the early and later stages of their writing, that have individual pieces looking for a home, and not full manuscripts.

We have also always paid close attention to the journal world, both print and online, and a fair amount of authors can affirm that we solicit work based on individual stories that we’ve read. What better way to continue being ahead of the game on authors, in this regard, than to have our own journal?

ASF: Titles intrigue us. Tell us how you choose The Collagist for this journal’s title.

Wickett: The Collagist represents our intent/feel that we hope to represent a lot of great forms of writing. We were inspired by Conrad Marca-Relli, a great painter, and artist, who was always referred to as a collagist.

ASF: Ann Arbor icon Shaman Drum is closing. This news sucks–and it’s indicative of how terribly tough a fiscal world it is these days. Where are your funds coming from that you can be viable in the market?

Wickett: Seeing Shaman Drum close is indeed very sad news, and not solely from a Dzanc Books point of view at all. The city loses a great bookstore, a place to find out about city events, a place that held 20-plus readings per month and has some of the friendliest people around on their staff.

We didn’t form until we knew we had the initial funding that would help carry us through some tough times. That said, we have also tried to become as creative as possible with our fundraising–as you’ve noted, it’s a terrible fiscal climate and those giving grants and corporate donations have dried up over the past couple of years. We’ve run things such as the Dzanc Write-a-Thon (which we’ll do again this November) and the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions, an extremely affordable one-to-one mentoring program that has started off great. We’ve got a few more ideas coming in the near future as well that you and your readers will hear about just as soon as they’re ready to launch.

We’ve also learned some lessons with the publishing side of things–how to read pre-sales reports and determine print runs and things like that, helping us to reduce potential wasted spending.

ASF: Many of our readers will be excited to learn of The Collagist‘s birth. Can you explain a bit just what it takes (or what you expect it to take) in terms of money and staff and time to run this online journal?

Wickett: It takes an incredible amount of excitement and dedication. I think we can be lumped in with many other journals out there that have what appears to be too small a staff, not enough money, and nowhere near enough time, to be doing what we do.

Steve [Gillis] and I have learned a few things since first talking about Dzanc in early 2006 and even more since forming in late 2006–neither of us sleep much, we both are positive that when we’re excited about something (be it a manuscript, an idea, a new program) that we just need to jump right into it, and that we have a hard time working with people that don’t share those traits (well, we cut a little slack on the sleeping issue).

We feel very fortunate to have developed a great working relationship with both Steven Seighman and Matt Bell. They are as dedicated and, at times, as crazy as the two of us and were also both excited and ready to roll the sleeves up and get working. The bonus is they all also do fantastic work–we don’t think there’s a better designer in the world than Steven and Matt is about as exciting and up and coming writer/editor as we’ve seen in years.

The idea for The Collagist was one Steve had, he and I went back and forth on a few of the ideas for maybe a few weeks and then BOOM, we were off and running, planning in bigger details, looking for an editor, bringing Matt on board, having Steven design the site, and making sure everything was as ready as could be for the announcement on June 10 and that first issue August 15.

ASF: On Thursday, June 11, our ASF blog featured a Q&A with Jake Adam York (editor of Copper Nickel and the man behind the Facebook cause Support Literary Journals), who concedes that journal subscribers are more important for their head count as their dollar count. Actually, his exact quote is, “I believe a journal’s ability to offer a number to quantify its readers is much more useful than the money subscribers provide.” My instinct tells me that this is one way Dzanc can and plans to broaden and deepen its reach–by offering a quality journal as another arm of its business. In what tangible and intangible ways does The Collagist help Dzanc?

Wickett: I’ve read a few essays by Jake Adam York and find him to be an incredibly bright man. We agree with his statement and with your instinct. As noted above, we do look for potential books when reading journals and do think we’ll be very surprised if a couple of The Collagist authors don’t eventually see books published by Dzanc Books. In terms of tangible, any way we can get the word out about Dzanc Books, and continue to do so, it helps in terms of donations and support. It’s been happening more lately but we’ve been getting unsolicited checks in the mail–donation written in the memo line–maybe once or twice per month. These are fantastic–I don’t know that people realize just how much $10 or $20 helps. It might cover my postage costs for a week or a day. It may cover copying costs for PR materials. It’s $10 or $20 that will go towards our setting up another Dzanc Writer in Residence Program, or towards the Dzanc Prize.

We believe that this new arm will help spread the name Dzanc Books to a larger audience, or remind some out there that we exist, and hope that the more they look into us, the more interested they are in supporting what it is that we do on a daily basis.

ASF: What is going to make the difference between those indie presses and journals that survive and thrive and those that fall away?

Wickett: Determination, and staying current with things. Continuing to do new things that keep your name out in front of people and have them wondering what’s next. And in the case of those doing anything with print, starting off with the proper funding–you’re probably not going to come out the chute with a big name and audience, you’re going to need to have the funding that allows you to stick around long enough to develop things.

ASF: Last question: Any suggestions for indies to become self-sustaining or better their business model (or are we looking right at it with The Collagist)?

Wickett: I think it’s pretty much answered [in my previous reply], but to add a bit, be creative, continue to come up with new ideas and new ways to make, or raise, money. Continue to look at how you’ve done things, and how they’ve worked out, and plan accordingly in the future (that is, perhaps different sized print runs, different means of advertising, or garnering reviews, et cetera).