HOPKINSON: Tell me a little bit about Banshee. How/why was it originally started?
HENNESSY: Banshee is a literary journal and small press based in Ireland, founded in late 2014 by three writers and friends – Laura Cassidy, Claire Hennessy (myself), and Eimear Ryan. We’ve always had brilliant discussions about what we were reading and what we wanted to see championed more in the literary scene, and had semi-joked about starting up our own publishing house for years – eventually we just decided to go for it. Literary journals are quite niche in many ways, but because of that, and because of the shorter forms, you’re able to say ‘yes’ to pieces and take risks on them more than you can when thinking about a book at a big publisher. Similarly with our select list of books, we look at collections of shorter pieces – poetry, short stories, essays – that we feel we are a good fit for. Taking on a very limited number of titles means we really devote ourselves to the projects – we’re incredibly invested in everything we publish.
HOPKINSON: Who is your target reader audience?
HENNESSY: Although we’re based in Ireland, we have readers all over the world – our aim is to bring out an interesting selection of accessible, high-quality literary work each time.
HOPKINSON: What type of work are you looking for?
HENNESSY: We look for short fiction (under 5k words), flash fiction (under 1k), essays, and poetry. We deliberately don’t have a theme – although one often emerges as we select what will go in a particular issue. We like being surprised.
HOPKINSON: What do you wish you’d see submitted, but rarely comes in?
HENNESSY: While we do get many submissions from writers whose backgrounds or origins often mean their voices are underrepresented in the literary arena, it would be great to see more (whether or not that work explicitly draws on their backgrounds). The wider and more diverse a pool of submissions is, the better.
HOPKINSON: What is your favorite part of being on staff with Banshee?
HENNESSY: There’s an incredible satisfaction every time a new issue or a new book comes back from the printers and it’s a real thing that we can hold in our hands. It’s a lot of work – and we’re juggling our work at Banshee alongside our own writing careers and a whole range of other commitments and responsibilities – but that moment is always exciting.
HOPKINSON: Where can we send submissions?
HENNESSY: To the submissions email address at https://www.bansheelit.com/submit – but please read the guidelines first!
HOPKINSON: If someone has a question, how can they contact you?
HENNESSY: Email or social media is fine.
Click here to read submission guidelines.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 31, 2021 (March and October every year)
SUBMISSION FEE: None
FORMS: short fiction, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry
FORMAT: Print
ISSUE FREQUENCY: Twice a year
SUBMISSION METHOD: Email
SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: Yes
AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME: within 3 months of end of submission period
PAYMENT: small payment in euros + contributor copy
DUOTROPE: https://duotrope.com/listing/21524/banshee
SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
If you like this post, please share with your writerly friends and/or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You can see all the FREE resources my site offers poets/writers on my Start Here page.