For the June Glimmer Train bulletin, I wrote about how I called it quits 300 pages into a novel I was writing a couple of years ago, and, suddenly freed, I began writing a completely different book, which would become No One You Know.

Read it here. I also wrote a longer piece for the May 2008 issue of Writers Ask, called “On Accidentally Finding Your Way,” which is sort of about research.

P.S. A subscription to Glimmer Train would make a great Fathers’ Day gift! Subscribe here. Check out the latest issue here.

Why I love Glimmer Train: back in 1999, before I’d published my first book, before I’d published much of anything, Glimmer Train accepted a short story of mine from the slush pile, “Down the Shore Everything’s All Right.” They didn’t care that no one had ever heard of me, or that I hadn’t inked a six-figure book deal or won any big prizes. All they cared about was the story.

Since 1990, the founders and editors of the magazine, Linda Swanson Davies and Susan Burmeister-Brown, have consistently resisted the temptation to publish big names just because they’re big names. Instead, they have made a habit of supporting beginning writers and mid list authors by publishing them, promoting them, and paying them (handsomely!) for their work. Of course, you’ll find lots of famous authors within the pages of Glimmer Train–Andre Dubus, Robert Olen Butler, Julia Alvarez, A Manette Ansay, Russell Banks, Richard Bausch, Tim O’Brien…the list goes on– but it’s clear from reading any issue of the magazine that quality is what comes first, stories that make you think and feel, characters that you remember long after you’ve passed the magazine on to someone else.

A writer friend of mine recently complained that a friend of his, a well-known author and writer of short stories, had been rejected by Glimmer Train. This person seemed rather incensed–how dare they reject his famous friend, he seemed to be saying, as if his name alone should grant him inclusion. This is an attitude all too prevalent among some literary journals, where who you know and how hot you are at the moment is more important than your actual submission.

On the Glimmer Train website, the editors have this to say about their original vision for the magazine: What we really wanted to do was to publish great short fiction by both familiar voices and fresh new ones, fiction we would personally look forward to reading. The stories would be more than well-written, they would be emotionally meaningful, would affect us and our view of the world, enlarge our perspectives on it. Nearly two decades later, they have remained true to this vision, and the world of literary fiction is better for it.