NOTE: This magazine went out of business about the time that this article finally appeared - two years after it was accepted. However, the information in it about getting published and the publishing world is still viable. The information on subscriptions at the end has been removed.
The short story is generally considered the stepping stone for new writers. At one time almost every magazine devoted space to the short story. A look back, two to five decades, will show that most of today's well known authors first published in the "pulps". Dozens of magazines devoted their space to the short story. The short story was the backbone of American literature. But times changed..
An increase in the cost of paper hit the publications at the same time as the advent of television. Publication costs had to be cut. The first thing to go was the short story, and the forum for new writers virtually disappeared.
In the 1990 Writer's Market, there are fewer than twenty nationally distributed short story magazines. In the more popular magazines, they have all but eliminated the short story from their publications to make room for advertising. Many of these publications concentrate on established writers who are sure to attract readers. This shuts the door to new writers.
It is, therefore, heartening to see a new short story magazine appear on the book stands of America. A magazine, moreover, whose policy is to look for the literary talents of the future. American Accent is the brain child of Marvin Gelbart of Las Vegas, Nevada. The first issue appeared in the autumn of 1989. Mr. Gelbart's dream of a magazine devoted to the short story and to new writers is rapidly becoming a reality. Manuscripts, requests for guidelines and subscriptions come in from every state in the U.S. The surprise came when he started receiving manuscripts from foreign countries. This served to substantiate his belief that a quality magazine with good clean stories of literary value would be accepted in the marketplace.
American Accent has grown from a first issue of five thousand copies to fifty thousand copies in just three issues, and is presently on the newsstands and bookshelves in all fifty states. In the last Writer's Digest rating American Accent came in as number 41. This is impressive for a magazine that, at that time, had put out only two issues. Marvin Gelbart believes "the reason for the moderate rating was due to being a new publication. We were so deluged with manuscripts, that we fell behind. Most of the people who are sending manuscripts to me have never sent a manuscript to anyone before. Almost six weeks to the day, after receiving a manuscript from a new writer, we will receive a letter asking where the manuscript is. It takes about four months, because of the volume of stories sent to us. In the last six months we have received more than 4,000 manuscripts. We do read everything but with only a limited staff, it requires a lot of time."
Most writers know that the most important part of getting a story across is setting the scene or the mood in the first paragraph. Tight plotting is even more important in a short story than in a novel. In a novel the author has three to four chapters to introduce his character, in a short story he must present his protagonist in the first paragraph, and all secondary characters should be introduced by the third page. Mr. Gelbart and his first readers find that a lot of the stories catch your eye is the very beginning and suddenly lose it at the end. He feels this is because most of these writers haven't planned or outlined their stories. As a result, when they come to the end, they try to make up for this lack of planning by bringing in another fact, another scene, or sometimes even new characters.
Mr. Gelbart is building American Accent around new writers because "you can't take a kid straight out of high school sports and send him up to the pros. You must give him some experience on how to play the game before he gets there. The same goes for writing. People go down to the bookstore and buy a book on the basis of an author's name. What is happening now is that these writers are getting old. It takes time for a new generation of authors to step forward, and, until now, there are no showcases for new authors."
"I firmly believe," states Mr. Gelbart, " the authors we are introducing will be the novelists of the future. I really have more hope now than I did when we started. I see the letters from people who have read the magazine, and there is more interest in the short story and new authors than we anticipated. While it is true the short story will never be the number one seller, there is definitely a place in the market for them."
Writers who wish to submit stories should bear in mind that American Accent tends to go more toward the traditional stories over the experimental. They prefer mainstream, humor, and light reading with an occasional touch of fantasy. However, they look for the quality of the writing, plot, and characterization rather than genre.
"The only thing I haven't published to date is hard science fiction," reveals Mr. Gelbart. "Most people who write science fiction write in their own language, leaving the reader who doesn't usually read science fiction out in the cold. The only story idea that I feel has been overworked is the romance. Most of the romance stories we receive are written as if the writer had taken a manual on how to write true romance and wrote each line by going through the hypothetical manual picking out the way to say things."
To write successfully in the first person, a writer must plan for his ending. "Most who write in the first person make the same fatal mistake. When they get to the end, they switch characters and change point of view. This will lose most readers every time."
When a story comes into American Accent it is listed in the computer and sent out to a reader. All the readers are published authors and work on a four star rating system. If a story gets three stars it is passed on to a second reader. Three star stories hold interest, show promise, with a good beginning and middle but lose it at the end, or perhaps ramble in the middle. "When you talk with most authors who are writing novels, especially mysteries, you'll learn they write down their ending first. They know exactly where they are going. With a short story, this is crucial. In a short story you must make every word count."
When a story gets four stars Mr. Gelbart and his editor Carol Colina revue it for content. Some stories are four star stories but contain explicit sex, extreme violence or some moral law is broken without some form of acknowledgment, or punishment. "We will not accept stories that condone immorality."
"The one thing I find in reading these manuscripts," says Mr. Gelbart, "is most of the beginning writers have not read very much. They need to read the better writers more to see how they go from scene to scene, how they handle characterization and dialogue. You can only learn this from a tremendous amount of reading. These people have been told 'If you write the Great American Novel' you are going to be rich. But the a millionaire, but the people who really write the great novels have read hundreds of them before they wrote one."
It is hoped that American Accent is a forerunner of a revitalized short story market, whose publishers are not afraid to be stepping stones for the authors of tomorrow. This can only be assured by the backing of readers and writers who are interested in this type of literature. "The short story is an art form," says Mr. Gelbart. "It's been passed and set aside and now it's coming back. Like any art form, it needs help. If we are going to make it available for the average reader, we need people to come forward and support it."