editors speak

Christopher Millin, Managing Editor, CROW TOES QUARTERLY

If you haven’t checked out the website for Crow Toes Quarterly, you should. It’s packed with creepy fun. And their interactive stuff is great -- even if I do doubt the psychic ability of that scarecrow. And I can tell you -- I'll not be telling a lie again any time soon after reading “The Anklebiters.” So, I’m delighted to have a chance to chat (via email) with Christopher Millin, the managing editor and publisher of Crow Toes Quarterly about this super little magazine.

KMW: Can you tell me what brought about the creation of Crow Toes Quarterly -- it's such a unique magazine. It reminds me of some of my favorite stories from when I was a kid; I just loved scary stuff. How did it come into being?
CM: Crow Toes Quarterly was born out of my love for dark, quirky children’s literature. I grew up on the stories of Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Ray Bradbury and the Brothers Grimm, and more recently I have become a huge Lemony Snicket fan. These stories inspired me to become a writer. A couple of years ago I was in a Publishing Program at a local college and one of the assignments was to create a business plan for a magazine of our choice. I had been having some success in the world of children’s literature with the acceptance of one of my middle-reader novels for publication, so I thought I would carry that through into my assignment. In my research I came to realize that in Canada, and North America as a whole, there were very few literature magazines for children. The majority of the magazines that did exist were filled with literature written by children. As an adult writer of children’s literature I began to wonder what kind of opportunities existed for me in terms of getting my work published and I came to find very few. The consensus among my fellow students and peers was that there were a lot of people out there just like me writing stories for children, but not knowing what to do with those stories once they were finished. I wanted to change that. After school I was compelled to take my assignment and make it a reality.

KMW: Since launch -- what kinds of challenges and serendipitous delights have you encountered? What's it like to start a new magazine?
CM: We consciously went into Crow Toes Quarterly with the goal of keeping it advertisement free, which has meant we have had to be very creative when it comes to finding money. Our idea was, and still is, to build a large subscriber base that would propel the magazine forward, but if nobody has ever heard of you before, this is quite a hard thing to accomplish. This is our challenge at the moment.

The hardest part for us, though, has been getting people to believe that we are a real publication and that we are sincere in our objective, which is to get children so inspired by what they read that they pick up a pen and write a story themselves. It seems that when anyone is trying to do something for the benefit of children, it is always looked upon with an ounce or two of trepidation.

KMW: I see you accept material from outside Canada (thank you) -- a lot of new Canadian magazines don't do that. What made you decide to throw open the doors to the rest of us writers who love spooky good writing?
CM: There are so many wonderful authors who never get a chance to have their stories read and a reality is many of these authors come from outside of Canada. Though we limit the amount of international content we publish, we would definitely never want to pass up a great story.

KMW: I see in your submission guidelines that you're looking for "playfully dark" -- in some of the examples on the site, things can get fairly dark. One character is eaten. But there's a sense of dark humor that reminds me of the gruesome kid rhymes we chanted long ago -- so is this one of those, "we'll know it when we see it" things or can you quantify the limits of how dark you'll go with stories?
CM: “Playfully dark” is a very subjective term. To me, it means a certain type of setting, or a certain type of atmosphere, or an odd type of dialogue in the story. It means metaphorical and literal shades of grays, browns and greens, and colors outside of the lines. To me, it means anything that isn’t sugarcoated. A sugarcoated story is not what I want to read and apparently, it is not what children want to always have to read either. There are obvious lines one cannot cross when writing for children and I definitely have a list of things I will not accept if they come my way. Included on this list are expletives, gratuitous and meaningless violence and anything sexual. We have a list of “Influences” on our website that we consider “playfully dark” and this should give contributors a better idea of what we are looking for.

I really don’t think kids have had the opportunity to experience a publication like Crow Toes Quarterly, where bad people sometimes win and the good people sometimes end up at the bottom of deep holes. I have gone to schools and spoken to many children about the magazine and literature and I have learned that often times they don’t want the happy ending. With many children’s literature magazines, a happy ending is usually what they get.

KMW: I see you're looking for illustration too -- if a writer knew an illustrator who did appropriately dark art (the dark arts...okay, that made me laugh, clearly I'm having an odd morning) would you look favorably on a submission of both story and art?
CM: It is always the story that comes first at Crow Toes Quarterly. If it is a good story and it is accompanied by complimentary artwork, it is a bonus for us. We definitely encourage authors to include artwork with their submission, because we will allot up to 12 pages for a feature story.

KMW: Your guidelines only mention stories, but your site has some poetry (the trials of the poor stick figure guy in the villain's poem made me laugh) -- do you accept poetry?
CM: Though CTQ’s focus is short fiction, poetry will always be an integral part of our magazine. It is clear there are a lot of poets out there looking for a home for their work, because poetry submissions outnumber short story submissions almost three to one. For aspiring and established poets, all I can say is check out our website, and if you can, check out an issue of our magazine to get a feel for the types of things we publish, then base your submission on that. There are no real word limits to the poetry submissions we are looking for, because I believe true poetry shouldn’t have limits.

KMW: I know you don't pay (though, yes, a hearty pat on the back is always nice) -- do you work with contracts or are your pieces run with "one time use" rights only?
CM: Once the work is accepted we obtain copyright of the story or work of art and “one time use” rights. Once the issue is published copyright reverts back to the author or artist. This is just to ensure the work doesn’t appear in two places at the same time, an issue we unfortunately had to deal with early on.

KMW: So does Ogilvy, the Narrator, and the Villain reference real people or are they entirely creative constructs?
CM: The CTQ staff is completely fictional, however, each character is based on an aspect of my personality. Ogilvy is the quiet, people pleaser in me. Our Staff Villain is the perfectionist in me. Poinsettia Park is the traveler in me. And The Narrator embodies the storyteller in me. The creation of the magazine is just another story in the Crow Toes Quarterly world. Fictionalizing my staff allows me to have a little fun with a process that can often be quite taxing. All the goings-on at the CTQ office are well documented in The Narrator’s Blog on the CTQ website. I dare you to check it out.

KMW: What kind of plans does Crow Toes Quarterly have for the future?
CM: We are still so new that our future plans mainly consist of getting our name out and on the tips of the tongues of readers everywhere. Crow Toes Quarterly would eventually like to expand its distribution to the U.S. and around the world, but getting subscribers and making a name for us in the Canadian market is our priority right now.

KMW: We wish CTQ the very best of luck – and urge our readers to check out the website, grab an issue…and don’t forget to look at SPECIAL REPORT for more on CTQ.

This page last updated on 01 June 2007