Alex Smith of Red China

A statement of Red China Magazine reads, “We are fickle and unsure of ourselves. The only thing of which we are sure of is our taste, our confidence in what we believe is good. We chose Red China, its title, iconic imagery and palette, for its continuity and face value. We hope that this choice should act as a stable point of departure, a consistent forum for the dynamic work we hope to showcase...”

Following that, what’s the real deal with Red China Magazine?

The real deal is that we're trying to publish some good writing and art, some provocative essays, and establish ourselves in a vastly overpopulated market, where money and ‘who you know’ go much further than anything else.
 
When we got close to the literary magazine scene we found elitism and cliquey behavior and we were astounded. These are magazines that most people don’t even read, after all. And, yet, there were unapproachable editors and unapproachable writers. Most magazines are filled with highly talented networkers and a bevy of intern-slaves. We were attempting to level the playing field a little, but we also thought it’d be challenging to make something happen in our lives that would allow contributors to reach an audience.
 
We’ve calmed down a lot (our sister magazine, the Dick Pig Review, has done something interesting in applying anonymity as a rule). We’re still incredibly small, and we don’t always get what we want, but for now we’re still around, and we’re eking out issues until we exhaust ourselves.
 
As a writer and poet yourself, how does Red China reflect your own work or vice versa. I mean, whats the difference in terms of cause and effect between writing and editing/publishing?
 
It’s difficult to separate the two in that reading, reading books and reading submissions and working with contributors on their work, informs my work. I learn a lot from that process. In the end, my writing is my aesthetic. Any writer would be lying or stupid if they said that they weren’t writing what they wanted to see ‘out there.’ So I guess we look for contributions, and find things in the corners of contributions, that excite these parts of us.
 
Two years, four issues what determines a new issue? Timing? Content? Energy?
 
All of the above. Originally we wanted to go out twice a year, but when it didn’t happen we didn’t beat ourselves up—we felt the quality of the issues was improving, so we didn’t bother. Now we’re more like an annual, but with the Dick Pig releasing intermittently throughout the year, we feel we can maintain a presence and keep readers reading.
 
Sometimes we’re expecting stuff from people, and we wait till they’re done before we go into the collecting process. It’s also a matter of how busy we are in our day-to-day schedules. Part of the reason why we don’t put too much pressure on ourselves is because we’re worried that it might put us to bed. Pressure and money is what kills magazines.



























Red China is primarily a web-based magazine, but also available in print. And each of the four issues has a distinctive and unique design to them (if I may say so). Discuss, please, the relationship between all that: web, print, and the design involved for the four issues.
 
We sit down and talk about themes, what would interest us, what goes with our style, what makes us laugh, and usually come up with a loose concept, and design from there, trying to maintain a cohesion that our readers can relate to.
 
We try to carry over our ideas from the web to our print issues, but they’re inevitablly different animals. Since our readership is primarily an on-line one, we often try to make our print issues as clean as possible, like a collection of the work on the site for someone that wants something more tangible, less ephemeral.

---

What are you reading these days?
 
I’m reading a book of poems called Sun by Michael Palmer. I’m reading Andre Dubus’s Adultery and Other Choices.
 
To date, one of your most influential moments as a writer:
 
One of the times I was most influenced? It was probably the reaction my mom had to a poem I wrote about a squirrel in kindergarten. That’s all I needed to make the life decision, in the end.
 
Some say poetry and painting is dead. What say you, sir?
 
I say poetry and painting are dead to the people who it should be dead for.

Websites

http://www.redchinamagazine.com
http://www.dickpigreview.com

---