Literary Citizenship

I've been thinking a lot about literary citizenship lately. I collect random samples of the feedback my students are giving each other. I know from my own experiences in workshops that the amount of time and effort some students give to their classmates work will not be reciprocated. I hate that. The only thing I can do is lecture them on how giving feedback is as valuable, if not more, than receiving it on your work, and then grade their feedback accordingly.

I've been thinking about how I can be a better literary citizen. I think I do small things like tweeting in support of others' works, attending readings, and purchasing books. I support online lit mags by sharing their links on Twitter and Facebook as well. But, if you look in the sidebar, print mags are just as important to me as online mags and I don't feel like I do enough to support them even though I send them my work hoping to get it published. My subscription to Rattle just ended, but I got that from entering their contest. I believe I just subscribed to Crab Orchard that same way. That's all well and good but I wouldn' t have subscribed had I not been submitting my work.

So I was excited to see a link to the Writer's Relief Lit Mag Love Contest. This is a contest that you enter by getting 2 new subscriptions to lit mags and then sharing the link to the contest with others. I subscribed to Tin House and Poetry because I've had it in my mind to do it and I could also subscribe online. I was surprised that the first few mags I tried to subscribe to didn't have an online option. If I have to mail something in, I won't do it right away. Sad, but true.

Anyway, I'm excited. I honestly forget that I can spend a little money again. I got used to being a broke student. My next step is to buy some of my friends'/acquaintances' books that I couldn't afford as a student. I feel like once you write a bunch of stuff and send it out, you've got to do something to sustain the literary community you hope to be part of.