Indira Singh

C62 Indira Singh
2012.026.0160
Susan Michael [00:00:19] It came out about, what, a month ago?
Indira Singh [00:00:21] Mm-hm.
Susan Michael [00:00:21] A month ago.
Indira Singh [00:00:22] That’s right.
Susan Michael [00:00:22] It’s called “Aspen Leaves.” Indra is the editor. A number of people in Aspen and the vicinity helped her put this first issue together, but I’ve got to say that, even though I’m on the list, it was Indra’s idea in the first place. And it is, among other things, Indra’s real achievement. Peggy Clifford mentioned in her review of the magazine that it takes a “fine madness” to start a magazine of this sort. What I’d like… my first question for you, Indra, is how do you define “fine madness”? And in general, can you explain to the listening public what your magazine is going to do? What kind of magazine it is?
Indira Singh [00:01:04] Well, I believe “fine madness” is something that can appropriately describe any sort of artistic achievement. Art is, by any means, a “fine madness,” and it’s a dream, perhaps. Literary magazines are a dream in this country. This one, specifically, was a dream that came to be about two years ago. A few friends and myself were talking about Margaret Anderson in Paris and her starting “The Little Review,” which was just a small little pamphlet in which she would publish all the things her friends wrote. And we said, “Oh, wouldn’t that be nice? You know, if we could just put out something like this and have all our friends in it?” As it turned out to be a considerably different sort of a thing, and I think, larger in scope. And, as far as this issue of “Aspen Leaves” goes, it… as critical as I can be, which is perhaps not too much, I think it is a very fine output of literature, poetry and essays. And I think it will continue to be so. Our aim is mainly… we set up a foundation to… it’s a nonprofit educational foundation, and the main aim is to help the writer, is to enhance the literary arts in Aspen. And, you know, Susan, you know, we… in Aspen, everybody is out nurturing music and dance and, you know, the other applied arts. And where is literature? Where is the…? And literature is, you know, it is one of the fine arts that has really not gone away from its main aim. It is still… it is one of the true art forms. It’s one of the true international art forms. I mean, language, of course, is one of… I mean, it is the only way we communicate, and it’s the most enduring and versatile form of an art form. So, I don’t know, there’s so many aims and areas we can cover in “Aspen Leaves,” but our main idea is to set up a foundation in Aspen, put out a quality magazine, and in doing so, help the writer, and enhance the literary arts in Aspen.
Susan Michael [00:03:28] Okay, out of that answer, I have 20 questions! But I’ll go at it categorically for the moment. The magazine… let me put it this way: a lot of efforts that come out of Aspen don’t really come out of Aspen, they stay in Aspen. And that is, the contributors to whatever activity it might be are Aspenites, et cetera. You have made an effort to make this a more national, international effort.
Indira Singh [00:03:58] Indeed.
Susan Michael [00:04:00] The authors represented from the glossary in the back, I find, are from all over the country. How did you find these people? What kind of… you are going to… I’m
sure if you get a manuscript from an Aspenite or a Coloradan that you feel is worthy, you’re going to use it. But how did you come about, come up with these people in this particular issue?
Indira Singh [00:04:23] Well, we sent out brochures. We sent out about 500 brochures to different colleges and universities, top places, all over the world, and through word of mouth, through just generative interest, that a new magazine was starting, which is a celebration, as Peggy said, indeed. We received about 600 manuscripts. And when I say manuscripts, I mean one manuscript might contain about ten poems. So there was a lot of material to go through, which came… it came from all over the country. Some was published, some was by people who had been published before, and some was by people who had never, you know, it was their first piece. And one thing that I feel that we did, and we are continuing to do, is for each piece that was submitted, we wrote a critical analogy. We wrote a critical thing telling to them what is good about their piece. We actually read the piece. We, you know, we paid attention to the writer. We just didn’t send them back a slip saying, “Well, this is not good enough to be published. Sorry, this is not our editorial policy.” We went over through the thing saying, “This could be better” or… We maintained a very strong rapport with the individuals who were sending these things to us, which has turned out to be very interesting because we would get letters back saying, “Wow, this is a damn good way to start a magazine!” You know? “We’ve never received a two-page letter telling us what is good and what is bad and what you’re going to accept” and this and that. It was very interesting. It was a learning experience for our staff, certainly. We spent a lot of time. There were about 4 or 5 people on our staff. We each went through every single piece that was sent to us. It was time consuming, but it was learning, and it was a learning experience not only for us, but for the individual who sent the things to us.
Susan Michael [00:06:15] Okay. You mentioned editorial policy, which leads to another one of my 20 questions. If… can you at this point define an editorial policy? And part of that question then is: what were you looking for in terms of an editorial policy when you read these 600 manuscripts?
Indira Singh [00:06:31] We’re very open. I don’t think… I think it’s wrong for a magazine to be closed to anything, to anything that is creative, to anything that is good and quality. Our main aim was quality. We published some things that some little old ladies might consider risqué as far as poetry went. Our short stories came from a wide area, not only ethnic backgrounds. One was specifically in a Jewish area. One came from the Midwest. It was Kansas farming. The other dealt with an aspect of homosexuality. So we were very open. I don’t think… I think it is wrong for an editorial board to be closed. We’re closed to something that is not of quality. Let me put it that way. We’re open to anything that is good, anything that has merit and value in what it says and how it says. The message and the medium, both are the relative things, but the way something is said, even… we had one poem, for example, that was a dozen lines and it was called “Roses.” And each one of the lines started out by saying “dozen,” “dozen,” “dozen,” and it is very difficult, but… and some people just thought, “Well, this is a very cliche type of a poem,” but when you look at it, the form and the… it had to take something more, you know, than just an ordinary mind to create something like that. Our aim is quality. Our aim is to pursue quality, to aid those who have something good to say and provide a quality magazine where to say it.
Susan Michael [00:08:10] Each one of us has biases, though. Let me see if I can explain what I’m driving at. I’m sure if I were involved in the choosing of manuscripts, I tend to have a little more cerebral mind, perhaps, than you do, Indra, but I’m sure that there would be subjects that would appeal to me that would be, if I were involved in a literary effort, a form that appeals to me within the fact of fine quality. Did you discover some biases like these?
Indira Singh [00:08:41] Well, you see, our staff is large enough and their biases are large enough, and that… For example, if somebody would like something… everybody went over everything, and at the end, long run, it sort of included a smattering of the best. So biases do tend to come through, but not overall in general. But I had, you know, five people on the staff who, to deal with, and my own biases could not particularly go through. So as an editor, even though I have the full responsibility of what goes in, the staff takes pride in what goes in too. And now pride is a matter, you know? It’s something that we feel, our staff feels and I feel, that we’re proud of what we’ve put in here.
Susan Michael [00:09:24] You ought to be. You ought to be. You mentioned, excuse me, you mentioned earlier something about it’s hard, it being hard to start a literary magazine, and you said “in this country.” Is it easier in any other country?
Indira Singh [00:09:37] Well, I tell you, it’s really interesting. America, God bless her… no, I shouldn’t say this. America is one of the few countries, and just a few major countries, that does not subsidize the arts. England subsidizes theater, playwrights, artists, writers, for one. There are many different countries who do that. America just does not.
Susan Michael [00:10:04] Oh, excuse me, it does. Up to a point.
Indira Singh [00:10:06] It does it to a point, indeed.
Susan Michael [00:10:07] But it doesn’t support artists. There’s a National Endowment for the Arts.
Indira Singh [00:10:10] I understand, but…
Susan Michael [00:10:12] But it’s a question of degree, I suppose.
Indira Singh [00:10:14] Indeed. When you think about it, especially the literary arts, which I’m speaking of, only 2% of all the grants that are available in this country go towards the literary arts. I mean, that is incredible. Somebody told me one time that $0.08 out of a dollar is spent towards defense budget, and an incredible sum of less than $0.01 goes towards the arts, when you talk about music, dance, theater. And out of all that, 2% goes to literature. Museums and so forth receive about 27%, art and architecture, 21 and so forth. But literature is really… we’ve not given enough credit in this country to what is really happening. You see, you have to understand that a writer is a citizen of a language, not a country. Is a citizen of perhaps many languages, but not of a specific country. And we in America, by not purely giving as much as we can to the literary arts, have actually kept other people from other countries giving to us in that same area. Do you know what I’m talking about? Somebody from Argentina is very reluctant to publish something in this country, because he feels it’s not going to receive the proper audience. It’s not going to receive the proper type of a magazine. You know, somebody who’s been unpublished there. So when we’re cutting Americans off, we’re cutting the whole international field off. A writer, you know, is a citizen of no country. And I really strongly believe that. He’s also a native of everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But subsidy in this country, as far as arts go, is so limited. And I think it’s high time for American philanthropy, you know, to participate more actively in the encouragement of the literary culture. Literature is really seriously the last art form. It has tried so far to pay its own way, you know? Writers will mimeograph their things if they can’t get anybody else to publish it. But now is the time. It desperately needs all the help if it’s to keep from dying. And I really think that it will die, I really think that the Renaissance will
never come. And that is very sad. I mean, I can get very sad about this whole subject because I think, indeed, it is something that we have neglected so, so sorely in this country.
Susan Michael [00:12:48] Well, literature might be in a constant state of crisis with this lack of support, but I’m not sure that you can say it’s going to die because every generation produces somebody who’s going to, perhaps from an older writer’s point of view, start beating his head against the same old stone wall that the older writer has been beating his head against.
Indira Singh [00:13:08] So I don’t want to sound like literature is struggling against McLuhanism and death and grips, you know? It’s not as bad. The potency of literature, you know, whether it’s old, whether it’s a classic form, whether it’s a new form, it’s always there. The imminent danger is of its being inaccessible. And that is what is happening. We’re not giving enough money for small magazines, for small quality literature to come out. It is inaccessibility that I’m talking about. That’s really where the danger lies, that’s really where the form will die out. People… writers will just stop, uh, not writing, but they will stop printing, you know, because printing costs are up, you know, postage, things have gone up. So it’s very difficult for a small magazine to stay alive. And it’s very difficult for a small magazine to enhance the literary arts by aiding its writers. Writers have to… I mean, 90% of the people… it’s really funny when I sit and read the, what we call the roots, what is the contributors’ notes in this magazine. You know, one is a bartender, one is… I mean, he says, “Writing is not my profession. I can’t afford to do it,” you know?
Susan Michael [00:14:22] Well, that’s one of a long line of tradition. We could mention all of our fine people. Edgar Allan Poe never having enough money, living in a garret to support his family.
Indira Singh [00:14:32] But, you see, you also have to realize that 80% of the American writers who were famous before 1912, people like Hemingway, Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, these were people who were first introduced and encouraged by small, noncommercial literary magazines. And that happened at that time because there was money going out in that direction. Now there isn’t.
Susan Michael [00:14:53] I was going to ask you that. Let’s keep ahead on this and have a little message, but we’ll be back on “Commentary” in a moment.
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Susan Michael [00:15:34] My guest today on “Commentary,” to reintroduce us if you’ve tuned in late, is Indira Singh. Indra is the editor of a small literary magazine, we call it small, called “Aspen Leaves.” Its first issue was published in mid-September. We’ve been talking about, again to refresh your memory, after a 30 second break, the state of literature, I guess you could say, in general, in the United States, where small literary magazines like “Aspen Leaves” come into the picture of encouraging writers and new forms of literature. To start off again, Indra, I remember reading recently in The New York Times Book Review, a small article always in there called “The Last Word.” The author was bemoaning the fact of the relative lack of outlets for writers. He began to list, as far as national magazines were concerned, as far as the big ones,
the big guys, he could come up with Harper’s. He could come up with Esquire. Atlantic does a certain amount, but I think if you look at one of the magazines, if you look at Harper’s, just pick up a copy of Harper’s or Atlantic at Carl’s Pharmacy, and you’ll see just from the, what… where their magazine is skewed. There’s going to be an article on Watergate. There’s going to be an article on the use of money. There’s going to be the usual editorial pages, and then there’s going to be a page of poems. Maybe, if you’re lucky, a centerfold, and therefore being two pages of poems, and one or, if you’re lucky, two short stories.
Indira Singh [00:17:19] You see, the reason is, these magazines cannot live if they continue to put out 20 pages. For example, if they put a section of a novel or 20 pages of a very good, solid short story, it’s difficult to sell that to the public. You see, literature… I get back to that same thing. It’s not glamorous enough. I mean, it’s not like a production of “My Fair Lady.” There are no roses being handed out to, you know, people in that area unless you were published in the big vein, unless you have a solid book from Random House out which is selling, unless you’re known in the New York circuit and then you make it. Otherwise, writers, I mean, you know, there’s nothing glamorous about it. Therefore, magazines, on what I call the pulp rate, you know, they… it’s easier for them to send a magazine out than it is for us. It costs us more to send that same type of magazine out than it costs them. And they can… they need the advertisers, they need all these things, so they can continue to do that. Esquire used to be one of those magazines, you know, which dared the public and would present them something which perhaps they had no idea about, and yet would be a dramatic sort of, a different art form in literature. But that is dying out, and it’s very sad. You see, I would like to see more magazines attempt to present literature with the same degree of immediacy as that which is achieved by a newspaper or a popular magazine. And that is very difficult. It’s very difficult to find that section of public, but I really think that it can be done. I mean, when Rolling Stone first started out… now this is totally away from the thing, but which… Rolling Stone has turned out to be a very different sort of a magazine now. But for example, in that same format, if a magazine totally devoted to solid literature could come out and survive, that would be great.
Susan Michael [00:19:26] Ah, survival. That leads right into my question about “Aspen Leaves.” How are you going to survive financially? You are a nonprofit, a special nonprofit organization. What are your plans as far as…?
Indira Singh [00:19:41] Well, I’d like to stress this: first of all, we are the second magazine in this country to achieve… a small literary magazine to get a nonprofit status. The first one is a dramatic magazine located in New York. Most small literary magazines are associated with universities. They get grants and money from them. Therefore, they have certain policies and so forth they follow. Now we are nonprofit. We are hoping, and we’re getting a considerable amount of good, you know, critiquing from people. But we’re hoping that this nonprofit is what will keep us alive. We’re continuously looking for benefactors and contributors and subscribers, and we feel our purpose is strong enough and is real enough and is a need that… it needs to be nurtured. I mean, I really feel survival is going to be hard. I won’t tell, you know, I’m not making any bones about it. It’s going to be difficult. We can’t totally depend on ourselves. We’re selling the magazine for $2. By the time our printing costs, by the time of our handling and mailing costs come, it is almost $2. We’re not making a penny out of what we sell. We’re sending 500 copies of this magazine free to educational institutions and libraries. Just to tell them who we are. We’ll do this with every magazine. It is to, you know, tell the writer where to, where he can get published. Use it as a storehouse. So we’re not going to make any money by selling. We’re going to make money from people who believe in us, who believe in the arts, who believe in literature still. And I hope they’re there because they’re sorely needed all over the country. It’s not just for us. They’re needed all over the country. Literary magazines, small ones,
noncommercial ones, need benefactors, need people. And we’re on a nonprofit basis, and we feel this is an asset. We can provide the person, hopefully, with something else.
Susan Michael [00:21:43] I don’t think anyone expects an enterprise such as yours to be profitable. I talked with the director of the Lincoln Center, let me see if I can get this straight, Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. Last year, he managed to run the organization at a final debt of $200,000. And his Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center is considered one of the most exciting and successful… successful in all ways. We don’t expect, I would not expect your magazine to become a profitable venture, but you’d also lose your nonprofit status. I would, you know, what you have to do is engender the support…
Indira Singh [00:22:29] Right, we have to maintain it. And we are going to put all the money that comes in towards putting another issue out. We’re going to have… we’re going to be giving out grants and scholarships to writers. People… and those people don’t even have to be published in a magazine. For example, if there’s somebody out in New Mexico working on a novel, we feel he doesn’t have the time to do that, we can give him a couple of hundred bucks and say, “Here, have the time. Finish it. Whether or not we publish it or not. But it’s good work and it’s good stuff. So do it.” We just want to encourage people on that level.
Susan Michael [00:22:59] You mentioned something about a workshop, plans for a workshop here in Aspen. What about that?
Indira Singh [00:23:04] We’re right now working with the State Department in Washington, trying to get… we’re going to definitely have a workshop this summer. Probably get somebody from… an author, not from this country, to come out and conduct workshops which will be open to all the universities and colleges. We will send out brochures in this country, make them available. It will be sort of a lecture and a combination of a learning process involved for anybody who’s interested. We’re planning to do more of these. We’re planning to as well work with the educational institutions in the Roaring Fork Valley, and in Colorado, for that matter, in that our staff will provide whatever knowledge we have in the literary arts, in creative writing and so forth.
Susan Michael [00:23:51] You’ve arranged something with the high school or…
Indira Singh [00:23:54] Yes, yes, we’re going to be working with the senior classes at the high school, helping them. We’re going to be conducting sort of like courses, which will… One course will deal specifically with poetry and the merits of poetry, how to write poetry. And we’ll deal with fiction and essays, and we’ll have the specific people in our staff who are, you know, in tune in that area and who manage that area to take over these courses. I think it will be interesting. It will be interesting not only for the students, but as I continuously say, it’s a learning experience for us. I never used to be that much in poetry. My form is short stories, and just working with our staff on the poems… we’re already, for example, in the middle of choosing things for our next issue… and just working through that, I find I’m really learning a great deal about poetry and enjoying it. And that’s what it’s all about, you know? The enjoyment.
Susan Michael [00:24:45] When do you expect your next issue?
Indira Singh [00:24:46] It will be a spring/summer issue. It’ll be selling in Aspen next summer, and it’ll go out to the colleges in the spring. So this is 1974. We will have some very good poetry. We will have translations of Indian and Japanese poetry. We’re getting on an international level.
And we’ll have some very good short stories. I think you’ll find that, if this is good, it will be much better.
Susan Michael [00:25:16] One question. One of the… the lead author in the first issue of “Aspen Leaves” was Eugene McCarthy, the former Senator Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy writes poetry. I do not have the ability to judge whether he writes good poetry, excellent poetry, mediocre poetry or otherwise. I can see why Eugene McCarthy is in this first issue. For instance, this leads back into your comments about getting someone, say, as you said, from Argentina, for your workshop next summer. How do you strike a balance between getting somebody who is good, let’s say… we’ll assume McCarthy’s poems are good just for the argument… but he has a name, and that was good for you to do. How do you balance fine quality with the fact of running a literary magazine, which is competing with all sorts of other forms of reading, if I can use that term, and somehow manage to avoid the name syndrome?
Indira Singh [00:26:26] Yes, I know what you’re talking about. So, the reason, first of all, to go back on McCarthy, the reason we chose his poems, he was here in Aspen, and he gave a reading at the Aspen Institute. He is not a poet. He really… and he feels very shy. When I went to breakfast with him the day we got the poems, he was, he kept on saying, “Now are you sure you like these?” I mean, you know, he kept on being very shy about giving me his poetry. So I don’t think he feels comfortable in this area, and it would be improper for us or the critics to judge his poetry in that manner. There were statements in what they had to say, and there were strong statements. And the fact that he was a political, and a very strong political figure at one time, there were interesting statements, and that’s what I took them to be. The balance is very… we needed a star, as to say, for this first issue, just to push it a little bit, just to be able to say, “Well, we have somebody, you know, who’s a little bit known.” Now, even that is getting to be really unnecessary. Joyce Carol Oates, who is a prolific writer, I mean, she must have a basement full of manuscripts galore. She has things published in every small literary magazine that you pick up. She has a name. She has just came out with a book. Whether those things are good or bad is really difficult to decide. They’re Joyce Carol Oates, and Joyce Carol Oates is a name. I will probably try to get Joyce Carol Oates to put something in the next issue. I don’t know, but it’s something, you see, you need to pull on the market. When the thing stands out on a shelf with the 20 other magazines, somebody who’s a little bit known just pulls a little bit. I don’t think it’s a shame thing. You know, I’m not ashamed of saying that. It’s a very natural capitalistic thing where we’re dealing where we have to be… We’re competing with all these big magazines. We have to do that. I’m not at all ashamed to say that.
Susan Michael [00:28:28] Well, I don’t think you should be. I did want to bring up the fact that I think it is a potential pitfall for a magazine.
Indira Singh [00:28:37] Indeed. I think it is. And I think it can be avoided. Small literary magazines can avoid it more than larger ones, because you probably won’t get the people anyway. I’m that person. No, I’m just being cynical on that.
Susan Michael [00:28:50] On a cynical note… {laughter} Okay, this has been really enjoyable. We’ve been talking to Indira Singh, who’s the editor and prime mover behind a small literary magazine called “Aspen Leaves.”
Indira Singh [00:29:03] {Tape is garbled} …factors and contributors all over. So I thank you very much for giving me this chance to…
Susan Michael [00:29:08] And I would add that she would appreciate your support.
Indira Singh [00:29:10] Yes.
Susan Michael [00:29:13] For the listeners, the issues of “Aspen Leaves,” this first publication, this first issue, are available in local bookstores, and I think it deserves a look. It’s really… I’m proud.