Tell Us About Red-Headed Stepchild, A Very Unusual Poetry Journal
13 years ago, Deborah Blakely Averill, a good friend and wonderful writer, and I wanted to start a literary magazine. She and I both had similar backgrounds: teenagers in the 8os, part of the punk rock scene, really big on thrift stores, repurposing, DIY own style.
Originally, we didn’t think of rejects. And, then at some point, I said we should only do rejects-like dumpster diving for poetry. It is the essence of what our aesthetics, our beliefs are. We have always loved the outsiders, the dark horse, the things that people pass on. I’m in recovery, and that’s a huge part of that aesthetic, as well. (Averill died in 2018).
We got a ton of submissions when we opened. It shocked me how much it resonated. Poets and rejection go together like peas and carrots.
Read the full interview with Malaika King Albrecht in The Blue Mountain Review, January 2022.
