The end of “level:deepsouth”
It was a good idea from the start, which made this a hard decision. In December 2023, level:deepsouth will close up shop and go offline. The project is now in a read-only format. Submissions are no longer being accepted.
For me, level:deepsouth was always about publishing stories from Generation X in the South and sharing them with readers, not about making money or establishing a business. “Open source” – to borrow a term – is a tough model, since it doesn’t prioritize the revenue that would sustain the project. That approach to the project meant that submissions were always more important to me than dollars. However, over its first three years, from March 2020 through March 2023, submissions became harder and harder to come by. I had tried in various ways and through various avenues to attract submissions, but for whatever reasons, those efforts have yielded less fruit than I’d hoped. I bought Facebook ads and NewPages ads, and those led to clicks on the “submit” page, but few queries and submissions. In my mind, a project like this one would only thrive and become meaningful through the steady publication of first-person stories. Unfortunately, by this last summer, I had to face the sad fact that that too few of those were coming in.
Knowing that, I had to give some thought to the idea of paying contributors, which would inevitably attract more writers. But there just wasn’t money for that. I have funded the project myself and have looked into other funding sources – grants, GoFundMe, institutional support, etc. – but haven’t found any viable routes to take. level:deepsouth is not at all unique in being a non-paying literary publication. One way that it is unique, however: most non-paying, independently edited publications last about a year to a year-and-a-half. level:deepsouth lasted almost four years— three times the average. Beside that, it offered writers more than a one-issue presence.
While I am proud of every work that was published in the anthology, my decision to close the project is prompted by what I have not been able to procure as an editor. level:deepsouth contains strong works that serve the project’s goal, but as a whole, a certain diversity of experiences from Generation X in the South is still lacking. Last March, at the three-year anniversary, I set and pursued a goal to publish a healthy number of new stories by first-time contributors. I have would have been glad to see queries from any Southern state, but particularly glad about stories from Arkansas, Mississippi, or South Carolina. Those states had no representation in the anthology at all. Equally interesting would be submissions about growing up in east Texas, Louisiana, or North Carolina, states that have one contribution each. Another striking deficiency that I tried to remedy but can’t explain is that no submissions by writers of color were ever sent in. Despite efforts to include these experiences, to achieve a fuller representation, and to fill the gaps, the works necessary to do that did not come in. After more than three years, I am accepting that I probably won’t be able to accomplish this goal (especially without funding for author payments).
My ultimate standard for whether to close the project or not was: if the anthology in its current form came across an acquisitions editor’s desk as a manuscript, would that editor say yes to publishing it? I had to admit that, as a whole, the project’s strengths are real and significant, but its incompleteness is inarguable. As the project’s editor, then, I would have to remedy that for it to be viable. Yet, if I don’t how to remedy the problems; otherwise, I would have kept the project going as a work-in-progress. An editor can keeping seeking, requesting, and soliciting works, but if the writers don’t send them . . .
I still believe that a substantial compilation of nonfiction essays from GenXers who grew up in the South is a worthy project. To be candid: before I ever created level:deepsouth, I pitched the subject as a manuscript proposal to a couple of publishing houses, only to be told that they didn’t believe that there is public interest in such a work. I also pitched it on a two different fellowship applications as the project to be undertaken, and those weren’t approved either. In creating level:deepsouth, I took the bull by the horns and moved forward with what I did have: editorial skill, basic web skills, a personal knowledge of the subject matter, a few bucks of my own. But that hasn’t been enough to carry it all the way to where it needs to be.
Ultimately, much of the content that I produced for the project will migrate here: a few blog posts, two reviews, one essay, and all of the content in “the lists.” That last one will be published here on four pages titled GenX in the South: A Bibliography, A Discography (Plus), A Videography, and Random Stuff.
