Writers on Literary Magazines | An Interview with Sam Fishman

This interview is with Sam Fishman, whose short story, Showtime, was published in 128 Lit in print and online in 2022.

Mikaela: What was the inspiration for or where did you get your idea for your story, Showtime?

Sam: Pretty much everything I write is a combination of a real life experience I’ve had with a fictional element that exaggerates or changes the autobiographical elements. I’m almost always just trying to capture how I feel in the moment I’m writing—I’ll follow that journey improvisationally, even if it strays significantly from whatever the factual elements are. It’s pretty rare that I have a “good” idea and then say, “Wow what a good idea,” and put it in my back pocket until writing it one day. I feel self-consciously Los Angeles about what I’m about to say, but: your body is smarter than you are, and if you turn your brain off and let it write for you, you’ll be able to surprise yourself, and therefore, your reader.

M: How did you discover 128 Lit? 

S: I took a class from a really great writer and editor, Leah Sophia Dworkin, who told me about the magazine.

M: What was the process like for you as a writer when it came to submitting your work to a literary magazine, and then being accepted? 

S: I rarely ever submitted anything in my early twenties because my identity was so tied up in being a good writer that if I found out I wasn’t a good one I would’ve had nothing left. Every now and then I’d get the confidence to send something and just blast it out and try to forget about it. Pretty much every blind submission I ever sent (probably not that many) was rejected, and then I wrote a long note to a guy I didn’t know personally but whose work I was familiar with and who knew a friend-of-a-friend of mine and by that time. I think I was 26. My work was good enough and that was that.

M: I noticed on your website that not only have you been published, but you’ve also written a short for FX! What does it feel like to be a published writer? 

S: It feels better than not being published anywhere and worse than not having a book published. Just joking. Actually, I don’t think getting a story/book published makes people feel better—I think the way you feel has nothing to do with being published or not. Maybe for a day or a week it does, but the way you feel is the way you feel and is based on all the basic psychological and biological factors of your life.

M: What do you think the role of literary magazines is in the book publishing world? 

S: I’d just like to preface that I literally know nothing about this, so whatever I say about it is pretty much useless and doesn’t reflect reality at all–but if I’m answering your question, I feel like the role of literary magazines in the publishing world is extremely small and has only continued to shrink. I think it used to be that in your journey as a writer you’d get increasingly reputable lit mags to publish your work until one day an agent asked you if you had a manuscript and then you’d send that and get a book.

It probably helps to do that still, but to be honest with you, having stories published has never really done anything for me in terms of networking/praise/opportunity. I think in most cases it won’t change anyone’s life as a writer at all.

What lit mags can do is give writers in this incredibly validation-starved field a bone–because it is nice to be recognized, in whatever way that happens. Even if no one is reading the story you just published, it feels good for someone, anyone, to tell you you’re good enough. Lit mags are also a fantastic opportunity to get free notes from an editor you (hopefully) respect, which to be honest has been the best part of it for me.

M: Are you working on any writing right now? If so, tell me about it! 

S: Yeah, I’m working on a novel (Showtime is an excerpt from it).