Let me rephrase that: we don't know.
It's either tea made from limes, or maybe tea made from
the leaves of the tree limes grow on (assuming they
grow on trees and not, say, underground-- we're not
farmers, you know), or possibly regular tea flavored
with limes.
What is Lime Tea?
Lime Tea is an online literary
magazine, with new content every Friday, which features
good writing in a variety of forms, by a variety of
writers, relating to a single theme which changes each
month. Think of it as the results of a sort of literary
Rorschach Test administered monthly to the contributors.
(If you'd like to further imagine these same contributors
with electrodes attached to their scalps, perhaps occasionally
receiving mild electric shocks, go right ahead.)
Good writing, eh? Well, few
magazines profess to feature "bad writing." Can you
be more specific? You can't just blithely toss off the
phrase "good writing" without further comment.
Oh, we can't, can't we? Just watch us.
Everybody wants to hem and haw all day about what constitutes
good writing, but we can't help noticing that nobody
seems to have much of a problem recognizing bad writing
when they see it.
But all right: good writing, for our
purposes, is writing that demonstrates ease and facility
with the language. It is graceful, fluid, and inventive.
It is composed of well-constructed sentences replete
with resonant images and cunning rhetorical devices.
It neither plods nor grates.
We mention all this to underscore the
fact that the quality of the writing in a given piece--
rather than its form, genre, subject matter, or ideology--
is our main criterion in seeking work to include in
the magazine. (Of course, if the subject matter really
embarrasses us, or the ideology actively makes us want
to puke, we probably won't run the piece.)
When/how often does Lime
Tea come out? Why is it always late?
The format is slightly confusing,
but in general it works like this:
Lime Tea comes out with new
content every Monday. A month's worth of Mondays is
considered one issue and will be archived as such. What
makes that month's worth of Mondays count as one issue
is the fact that each month is devoted to a single theme.
When it is late, it's because we have
day jobs, personal crises, husbands, wives, children,
girlfriends, boyfriends, dogs, dental appointments,
and shingles. Basically, we're all huge drama queens
for whom a mosquito bite can ruin the whole week.
Also, it should be remembered that Lime
Tea was more or less conceived as an outlet for
writers with more talent than ambition. Such people
tend to be bad with deadlines. If they were good with
deadlines, they'd be writing for The Atlantic.
If you're tired of coming to the site
only to discover that the new issue isn't out yet, sign
up for the mailing
list, and we'll tell you right away when the site
has been updated.
What sorts of pieces might
one expect to see in the magazine? (And don't just say
"good ones.")
Okay, how about "short ones?" Seriously;
though there's no theoretical limit to the length of
works we can include (we don't have to buy paper, after
all), if a piece is inordinately long, it had better
be inordinately compelling. Just at the basic physical
level, it's harder to read a long piece on a computer
screen than it is to read a piece of the same length
on paper. Add to that the cultural expectation of brevity
attached (for good or ill) to Internet content, and
one begins to suspect that anything longer than 3500
words will be pretty unusual. Most pieces will probably
run from 500 to 2500 words.
As to form, we welcome personal essays, humor, short fiction and pretty much any other literary
form you can think of, as well as lots you can't. Contributors
are actively encouraged to subvert traditional literary
structures-- that is, to screw around. Weird lists, faux
criticism, open letters, instruction manuals-- whatever
the writer feels like doing that day is fair game.
That said, if there's any type of piece
that we specialize in, it's probably personal essays
which recount something that actually happened, or almost
happened, to the writer. Truth may or may not be stranger
than fiction, but it's certainly true that you have
to spend less time making it up.
Are there any types of work
you won't include?
Yes. Lime Tea is a literary magazine,
not a journalistic one. So, to be blunt, we don't run
journalistic pieces. We don't "cover" current events
or entertainment the way, say, Salon might, with CD
or film reviews, news, or (God forbid) lifestyle pieces.
We do have a "Link of the Week" now, and the
few words we say about this might conceivably be called
a review. But not really.
That's not to say that we won't run material
dealing with music, film, current events, or whatever
it is lifestyle pieces are about. For example, it's
not difficult to imagine an interesting essay about
how Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon made the writer
realize that the older brother he'd idolized for most
of his childhood was actually sort of a stoner chump
with a bad haircut. Even if the piece discusses the
record in some detail, the personal angle keeps it from
being straight music journalism. We may see current
events, politics, etc. dealt with in an analogous fashion.
A good rule of thumb in this area: if
it doesn't require research or sourced quotes, if it
contains unsubstantiated assertions or outright lies,
or if it elevates personal experience and opinion over
objective fact… we'll probably print it.
The picture at the top of
the page doesn't seem to have anything to do with the
story beneath it.
That's because they're selected randomly.
Try reloading the page until you see a picture that
you feel is more appropriate.
I'm interested in contributing
to Lime Tea. What does it pay?
Click here
to learn more about contributing. As to compensation:
Like many small literary magazines, Lime Tea
pays in copies. Since it's an online magazine, the only
limit to the number of copies you get is the number
you're willing to print out!
Suddenly, I'm not so interested
in contributing to Lime Tea anymore. Why should
I write for a magazine that doesn't pay?
Frankly, we'd be suspicious if you didn't
ask this question, since writers of the caliber we're
looking for either do get paid to write or at least
have a reasonable expectation of getting paid to write
in the foreseeable future.
Getting paid to write is great, and most
of us are or have been professional writers or journalists
ourselves. However, if you have similar experience,
you've probably noticed that the editors who sign your
paychecks tend to be more interested in things like
"Driving the New Buick Skylark" and "Citizens Protest
Sewer Bond Issue" than they are in the contents of your
soul. Lime Tea offers you the opportunity to indulge
your interests, to write whatever and however you want,
and, most importantly, to show off. All those brilliant
analogies and clever turns of phrase that perish in
a tide of red ink at your day job? They're welcome here.
Regardless of your professional status,
if you nurture literary aspirations beyond, say, getting
six figures to ghost-write a diet book (not that we
don't all wish we could get six figures to ghost-write
a diet book, because we do), Lime Tea provides a venue
in which to hone your skills, get feedback on your work,
and receive a modicum of exposure in a more literary
milieu. Perhaps not least significantly, agreeing to
contribute to the magazine will give you a reason to
finally get round to writing that highfalutin stuff
you've been meaning to get into.
Finally, if you're already getting paid
tons of money to write whatever you want, whenever you
want, and are read and adored by millions for doing
so, your name is David Sedaris, and you should send
us a check out of pity.
Famous like Avril Lavigne? No. Famous
like Yo La Tengo? Maybe. The details of the plan are
beyond the scope of the present article, but rest assured
that there is a plan, and it has details.
Do you have a pithy final
question with which to end this article?
