By Karol Nielsen
PROMPT — Despite ...
I became a literary magazine editor after my memoir excerpt was named a notable essay in The Best American Essays. The magazine editor that published my work hired me as nonfiction editor and later he promoted me to senior editor responsible for all prose. It was a painful job. Works I loved sometimes got rejected. The slush pile was full of terrible essays and stories. I made sure to read them all. I burned out after a few years and quit. But the urge to publish good work persisted. I saw raw, powerful posts on Twitter, before it became X. I created a magazine for micro poetry, prose, and humor and published good work. I thought I would never burn out with short works, but I did. The platform I used to host my magazine had technical issues. I had to insert HTML code for paragraph breaks. Understand I have a full-time day job and I don’t have time for this nonsense. I still pay for the website hosting service. Maybe I will publish another issue. Maybe not. But it is my baby. I want it to live on.
Karol Nielsen is the author of two memoirs and three poetry chapbooks. Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her full-length collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. She writes from New York City.