Thomas DeLapp
Fresh-faced from a day of teaching and the latest round of journal-proofreading, Eric Rasmussen dropped into a chair at SHIFT with a kombucha and a smile. The editor and founder of Barstow & Grand, now six years deep into publication, is looking forward to the release of the sixth edition this November. This year, things have gotten a little bit easier.
“It’s the passage of time, you know,” Rasmussen said. “Hey, we’ve been doing this for a while. It feels like there’s a little less pressure than in the past.”
Founded in 2016 to establish a local, community journal for Chippewa Valley writers, Barstow & Grand has had to change with the time — expanding to a more general “upper Midwest” audience in 2020 — but still maintains its hometown roots and support.
This year, the book release will again be at Lazy Monk Brewery on November 16th. Mark your calendars! As always, the release will feature time for contributors to read their piece, talk about their process, or just use the open floor. Literature and camaraderie will abound.
2016, Rasmussen said, was a sort of watershed moment for the Valley’s writing community. The founding of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild and Barstow & Grand brought together Eau Claire’s writers in ways they hadn’t been connected before.
“Eau Claire has always been a rich literary place, but now we are all more aware of each other and more comfortable interacting,” Rasmussen said.
Barstow & Grand has held a unique position as a hometown journal that allows it to be both personal and accessible. The expansion to the “upper Midwest” was born out of necessity, Rasmussen said, but has worked out excellently.
“The writing world is ultimately pretty small, so there’s usually those six degrees of separation back to Eau Claire,” he said.
That expansion helped to bring many new voices into the Chippewa Valley alongside those already established community writers — which Rasmussen said has both perks and drawbacks.
“My goal has always been to support this writing community, give them those stepping stones. On the other side of the coin, it’s kinda terrifying to be the person that says yes and no to friends, contacts, former professors of mine. But it’s a responsibility I take very seriously. ”
“My goal has always been to support this writing community, give them those stepping stones,” he said. “On the other side of the coin, it’s kinda terrifying to be the person that says yes and no to friends, contacts, former professors of mine. But it’s a responsibility I take very seriously.”
Elizabeth de Cleyre
credit: Alexandra Mae
Luckily, Rasmussen isn’t the only one on the Barstow & Grand team — and they are welcoming some new members this issue: new prose editor, Elizabeth de Cleyre, and prose reader, Scout Roux.
de Cleyre, besides being a well-established writer and editor, is also the co-founder of Dotter’s Books in Eau Claire. Roux is Barstow & Grand’s first non-local staffer — a Madison based writer who is fiction editor for Nightingale and Sparrow Magazine.
“Elizabeth is a writer and editor at a level that’s just way above us, so that she is willing to work with us is just great,” Rasmussen said. “She’s infused the journal with such an energy. And we are so happy to have Scout on board — they’re helping us spread out a little bit, fulfilling that ‘upper Midwest’ coverage instead of just local people.”
For her first issue, de Cleyre also contributed the issue’s editor’s note, which reflected on the newly remodeled of the L.E. Phillips Memorial Library and the vitality of such spaces. She and Rasmussen agree: the library has long been a cornerstone of Eau Claire’s literary community and character. The remodeling gives them hope for a future full of writing, literature, and conversation.
The library is also, directly, a supporter of Barstow & Grand, and will contribute sound equipment for the book release event on November 16th.
The Chippewa Valley literary community is largely made up of those whose first profession isn’t writing. Balancing writing, then, with other responsibilities isn’t the easiest thing to do — which Rasmussen knows well. However, there are some parallels between teaching high school English and running a literary journal.
A significant percentage of high school teaching is trying to get kids excited about the process, he said. Until they have investment in the material and process, nothing will get done — which is similar to interest in literary journals. It’s hard to keep writing, keep submitting, keep reading.
So how does Rasmussen: teacher, writer, and double editor (he is also fiction editor at Sundog Lit) keep everything balanced?
“People ask that question a lot, and I’ve tried a lot of different answers,” he said. “Bottom line, the people who have a passion just figure it out. Someone who loves to garden, they just figure out how to garden, they don’t sit around and lament that they don’t have time for gardening. You do what you love, and you figure out how to do it. My formula wouldn’t work for anyone else anyways.”
One thing that keeps him going, year after year, is being able to spend extra time with the pieces in the journal. Often, he said, the initial read through of literature isn’t where you find what is impressive. It’s in rereading and reflection that the meaning and value of pieces are revealed.
On the other side, Rasmussen knows the struggles of submitting — he is a writer too, after all. Part of the process is getting pieces accepted, but most of the time: rejection. He even wrote a blog post about his 100th rejection in 2016. So even when writers are rejected from Barstow & Grand, Rasmussen wants them to keep submitting even more.
““If I could visit each local author to say, ‘thanks for your submission, please submit again,’ I would do it.””
“If I could visit each local author to say, ‘thanks for your submission, please submit again,’ I would do it,” he said. “I don’t want anyone in the community to stop submitting because we didn’t take a piece or because we’re not the right home for them. I want to remain as welcoming as possible, and make sure to avoid any illusion that we are too good for you or your writing, or not welcoming of writers that write what you write.”
So, writers: keep writing and submitting. Eric Rasmussen said you have to. After six years of Barstow & Grand, one of the biggest things he’s learned was just how important the personality and connection the Chippewa Valley literary community are.
“I have learned, lately, that anything impressive takes a long time to get established,” Rasmussen said. “I’m confident there will always be literary folks around town trying different projects and doing what excites them. If this was a business, and I needed to feed my family, I’d be worried about how we evolve. But that’s not what we are. This is a passion project, and we’ll do it this way until it doesn’t make sense.”
The 6th issue of Barstow & Grand will be released on November 16th at Lazy Monk Brewery. For more information, visit the Barstow & Grand website.