#16: Five for Them, One for Me, with the editors of Rock and a Hard Place

RHP is open for submissions through Thursday, February 15

Let’s get this out of the way now: Rock and a Hard Place is a publication that means a lot to me. It’s one I started reading as I looked to expand into writing short stories, and from the first issue I bought, I was drawn to the intensity and grittiness of the writing within its pages. RHP bought one of my first stories (“The Ocean at Their Shoulders”) and has subsequently published two others in anthologies (“17 Year Cicadas” and “Haggling Over Price.”)

But even if they’d done nothing but send me rejections, I’d call Rock and a Hard Place a vital and important home for exciting and oftentimes disturbing work. If journalism’s job is to tell truths that “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” then RHP fills that bill with its fiction. Published within its pages have been writers such as S.J. Rozan, S.A. Cosby, Bobby Mathews, C.W. Blackwell, and Nick Kolakowski, and stories that, as the masthead states, serve as “A Chronicle of Bad Decisions and Desperate People.” There aren’t many happy endings here, and there’s no glitter or gloss. But there is truly incredible storytelling, detailing the not-so-quiet desperation of the lives of common men and women trying to find their ways in the world.

Rock and a Hard Place is accepting submissions for its next issue through Thursday, February 15.

Its editors are also the latest “Five for Them, One for Me.”

Let’s go.

FIVE FOR THEM

1. Rock and a Hard Place has established a strong foothold in the world of crime fiction in just a few years. What was the origin point for the magazine? 

Picture it: New Jersey, 2019 – three intrepid explorers into the darker side of humanity venture forth to plumb the depths, so to speak, collecting fellow kindred spirits along the way.

Rock and a Hard Place began in the imagination of our fearless leader, Roger Nokes, who had been kicking around the crime fiction and noir scene, and wanted to create a space for something that was a little more socially conscious and a little less gratuitous (maybe not so much gratuitous, because some of our stories definitely go to a place; maybe the word I’m looking for is sensationalistic?), while also encouraging noir and dark fiction as a vehicle for honest-to-God literature, and not just pulp. Roger talked up his idea with Jonathan Elliott, our original Producing Editor, who had this amazing talent for seeing the potential in an idea or a person, and amplifying passion. Jon also had a knack for connecting people (he was, and, in many ways, still is, the glue that holds us together), and he brought in little old me. For my part, I brought in some experience in flash and short fiction, a couple Noirs at the Bar, a vehement hatred of bullies and systems of oppression, and stubborn Polish genes that will keep me banging my forehead bloody against the wall if you tell me it can’t be knocked over.

We were fortunate, before that first issue ever got underway, that we had some people who believed in what we were trying to do. We benefited from some good advice, from crime fiction lit zine veterans like Todd Robinson, who was generous with wisdom (and also did his level best to dissuade us from tilting at this windmill… how he managed ThugLit as an editorial team of one is just insane). And some of what we were trying to do–specifically noir and crime fiction as literature–it wasn’t a new concept; it had been done by Todd with Thuglit, and Steve Weddle with Needle, and others, but these venues had sunsetted. So we got in at the right time, filled a niche that was carved out by other trailblazers, and benefited from the foundation that others laid for us.

There’s a couple more secrets to RHP’s success. First, from that initial trio of Roger, Jon and me, we added some other amazing team members, each of whom brought in a new flavor and some additional spice into our noir soup. Al Tucher brings in gravitas and an innate sense of noir story mechanics (and reads and digests stories like a man possessed); Paul Garth is a community builder who also has such a fantastic grasp on character development; R.D. (Morgan) Sullivan is our compass, making sure we never punch down and use our platform for good, while also having a laser eye to get to the heart and meat of a story; and Rob Smith is one of the dark-funniest dudes I’ve ever met, and infuses humor and empathy not just in his own writing, but in the overall team dynamic, bringing fun into the reading process.  Individually, we’re all good editors. Taken as a whole, we boost each others’ strengths and smooth over the deficiencies.

The second contributing factor to our success is that we got one issue out, and then COVID hit. And while that would have scuttled some other literary ventures out the chute, it gave us a place to dump the stress and anxiety of a world on fire, to say something about scenes of police brutality in the wake of the George Floyd murder (among other murders perpetrated by “the law”), to address issues of rising trans / homophobia or income inequality or a broken mental health system, among other societal ugliness. So in that respect, RHP for us isn’t just a crime fiction literary magazine or independent press–it’s very mission-focused, and I think being upfront about that, readers have responded well to it. We’re grateful for every reader and we hope they keep coming back.

— Jay Butkowski, Managing Editor

2. What are the traits you look for that make a good RHP story? 

First, we want the basics that are outlined in our submissions guidelines. We want stories that focus on characters that are without power and struggling. We want stories that prominently feature problems with human society from the perspectives of those hurting. We love stories that have elements from different genres, but they have to seriously examine power, marginalization, despair and related issues. Weird or speculative elements are welcome, but we’ve never taken high-concept fantasy or sci-fi.

There are then a few things that can make a story stand out beyond those basics. Because we are interested in struggle, I think that means a story is more likely to resonate with us if it has strong characters at the center. 

Though we like plot, I think we’re more of a character first publication. Make us feel what this character is going through. They do not have to be good or even decent, but make us feel it. Stories that work the most for us are the ones that feel like a punch to the gut.

We also want unique stories. They don’t have to be crazy, though they can be. We read a lot. Give us something that stands out. 

Then, as the later questions here suggest, we don’t want anything that’s punching down or just in bad taste. We love terrible things in stories, for sure, but spare us gore for the sake of it. 

— Roger Nokes, Editor-in-chief

3. You have several editors working together on each issue of the magazine and the anthologies. With differing opinions and personalities, what's the process look like when you're working through stories and finding that unified editorial voice?

There are a couple processes involved in finding and editing stories, and, though it’s not the most exciting answer in the world, a huge part of it comes down to, we all know each other and our strengths and weaknesses and interests and tastes, and, using that, we’ve been able to come up with a process that has really started to hum over the last few couple of issues. 

To start, every submission goes on a spreadsheet, and then, as we read them, we note our thoughts on the story on the spreadsheet, then rank the story a 1-10. Ideally, every editor reads everything before we discuss, but sometimes that’s just not possible if we don’t want each issue to take a full year, so we’ll break out into teams with editors who have tastes that aren’t 100% aligned. For example, I usually get paired with Al quite a bit, because we have pretty different tastes. That seems like a weird approach if you’re looking for editorial clarity, but it actually makes sense for us. If Al and I both think a story is great? It’s probably pretty goddamn great. If we both agree it isn’t what we’re looking for? No need for anyone else to read it. 

Where it gets interesting is when we disagree, which is where our ranking comes in. Let’s say I give a story a 10, and Al gives it a one. That averages out to a five, and any story that has an averaged score of 5 on our sheet is something that everyone has to read and share thoughts on. And then, once everyone has read it, we can make our case for inclusion or rejection, and, from there, we start collecting the YESes and building issues. 

I don’t want to get too inside baseball here, but I’ve lost count of the number of stories that certain editors have loved, but others had issues with, and, because of someone feeling pretty good about a story and another feeling VERY strongly against, it doesn’t make the issue. Or the number of stories which everyone has been very excited about but which one editor absolutely could not sign off on, so it gets cut. These kinds of things don’t happen often, but they do happen, and it’s just another reminder that editing, whether you’re working with a writer, or with your other editors, is a thoroughly collaborative process. 

Once we have stories picked we get to work on the actual editing. A lot of the work that makes the magazine cohesive are already in place - we’ve picked stories that fit our aesthetic and feature our kinds of characters and plots - so we’ll work with a style guide to make sure everything is consistent across the issue or book. Sometimes stories need a little more love though, in which case we’ll do developmental editing. 

A big part of developmental editing is recognizing three things, I think.
First, it’s not my story, or the magazine's story, it’s the writer’s story, so our suggestions need to always be steering them towards the best version of THEIR story. It can actually be really counterproductive if we try to force it to be too RHP.  

Second, editing is collaborative. Any time I send out an email discussing developmental edits, I go out of my way to ensure the writer understands my ideas are suggestions - and that I am absolutely open to hearing their ideas or seeing ideas incorporated that are things I hadn’t even thought of. I don’t ever want a writer to send a story back they don’t believe in, or love as much as they did when they initially submitted it, because of our edits.

Third, the story was selected for a reason. There’s something in it that made our hearts sing. It can be easy, I think, to get too overzealous, and to accidentally stomp out the soul of a piece, that thing that made us say, “yeah, we want this.” It’s better to take and print a story that's slightly shaggy, but that still contains that wonderful heart, than to edit it into dullness. 

And that’s that! It’s a lot of work, but at this point, we’ve been doing RHP for a while now, and I think we all recognize what we’re aiming for. Being true to that goal - of telling and sharing stories about desperate people with no good options, of prioritizing the story above all - means that, on some level, we’re always working on that cohesive editorial voice. At this point, it’s in our bones. Which is why this is the best editorial team in crime fiction, if you ask me.
— Paul J. Garth, Associate Editor 

4. RHP stories plumb serious darkness, but occasionally you'll see flashes of dark humor—most notably I'm thinking Scott Von Doviak's “Most Likely to Succeed” and Sam Wiebe's “Invasive Species,” both in your recent THE ONE PERCENT anthology. Talk a little about the role of humor in an RHP story.

Levity isn’t something we set out to look for when approaching RHP stories. I don’t think any of the editors think to themselves “It’s our kind of protagonist, the story is good, the writing is phenomenal, but hell, I didn’t laugh once the whole time!”

That said, we gaze into the darkness quite a bit around these parts. Not a lot of fluff gets submitted, and we don’t print a lot of fluff. We’re looking at stories where the characters are having the worst day of their lives, where they’re picking from two bad decisions, and stories where they’re in the gutter already and doing whatever it takes to get by. The best of our stories leave an ache deep in your chest like your heart’s been rung out like a dishrag. 

It can be heavy.

Humor functions for us the same way it does in Greek tragedies and in Shakespeare’s plays. It is the device by which the reader is allowed to take a breath. To relax. It lets us drop our shoulders from our ears, unclench our hands, and rebuild our defenses before the next blow lands. 

I’d hate to give the impression it’s mandatory; any of our readers know it’s not a standard thing to find in our stories. The authors who can pull it off, however, it’s almost like they’re taking the reader’s hand, promising to guide them through, and letting them know they’re in it with them. 

As for it being dark humor, well–we’re not known for our unicorn farts and starshine highways. 

— R.D. Sullivan, Associate Editor

5. And while RHP fearlessly goes dark, I've never read stories here where the darkness was excessive. You're not putting out work that's "transgressive" just for the sake of it. What is "too far" for an RHP story? When is too much just too much?

I know it when I see it.

Helpful, right? 

Roger mentioned that we like character-driven stories, and it seems to me that the stories that go too dark are often about arbitrary terrible things that could happen to anyone. I don’t want to say our characters deserve what happens to them, but they’re in the ballpark.

Then there’s the subcategory of the too-dark called the conspiracy theory. When a character spouts conspiracy theories, that’s the story. But when the author buys into it—and we do get them—it’s a no.

— Al Tucher, Contributing Editor

ONE FOR ME

All of the RHP editors write and edit dark fiction. On the flip side of that, to get away from the darkness, what's your goofiest pressure release?

I have a BA in Fine Arts that I use to draw cartoons. My parents are so proud. They actually are proud since I have drawn every birthday card for family and friends for the last 30 years. The smartphone era has put a damper on my bored, doodling time but I still drag out the drawing pad and ink out some ideas that mostly I find amusing. Mostly.

— Rob D. Smith, Associate Editor

---

MURDER IN THE MAGIC CITY

I got to be part of Murder in the Magic City this past weekend (February 3-4), and it was a blast. Guests of honor were S.A. Cosby and Wanda Morris, the latter who I got to interview as part of the event (Wanda rocked, BTW). Other writers in attendance included Scott Fad, Lisa Malice, Bobby Mathews, DL Mitchell, Jim Nesbitt, Kristyn Petras, and Lynn Chandler Willis.

MMC is a small and intimate event, and it was a wonderful opportunity to talk with some wonderful writers I hadn’t had a chance to meet, and to engage one-on-one with readers. I can’t recommend it enough for anyone who wants to discover writers or new readers and to talk craft on a real level.

---

That’s all we’ve got for now. Thanks for coming. See you next time, and hey, let’s be careful out there.