Benjamin Aleshire is the editor and publisher of The Salon, a biannual poetry magazine published by the Honey Bee Press. He lives and works out of Burlington VT; writing poetry, singing and producing The Salon, amongst other contributions to the arts.
I sat down with Ben to ask him a few questions about The Salon's success, direction and the pros and cons of working in print when the world is slowly inching toward digital.
Paul: Is there an appeal to working in a non-digital medium?
Ben: The appeal is that you don't have to stare at a screen and that you can work directly with your hands. Machines make things less human and there's a value to human things.
Paul: Do you have any interest in transitioning The Salon to digital in any form?
Ben: No. We are trying to make The Salon less digital. It is important to avoid the herd mentality that the Internet fosters. Newspapers and other online media use things like Facebook and Twitter to galvanize a story, but the idea that Internet opens up a larger market in poetry is a misconception. Just because it can be found online doesn't mean people will, they value information less.
Paul: Is there a unique value to producing a product that people actually pick up and read, that they hold in their hands rather than on a screen?
Ben: Yes, there is something special about holding a book in hand. As long as it stays affordable, we'll incorporate the web only so far as it helps to promote The Salon through things like sample readings, videos of authors reading at festivals or bookstores and guidelines for submissions.
Paul: Do you think technology is removing people from the arts, creating a gap between the people who produce works of art and the people who enjoy them?
Ben: The Internet is swallowing all of American life: it's a way of paying for information without realizing it. There's a false concept that the Internet is free, but it forces people to pay for services and forces people to buy gadgets. They are manufacturing necessity through planned obsolescence, making us upgrade products that are all essentially the same.
Paul: Does The Salon meet with success because it is a VT company? Would a literary magazine of this sort have success in a different part of the country?
Ben: We tried to tap into the Vermont brand while rejecting the pastoral fetish of cows and maple syrup. Vermont is special in that it has one of the most fertile writing communities, geographically small, but progressive and interested. But really, anyone could do what The Salon does, it just takes a lot of determination and time. You have to love it enough to be a non-profit.
Paul: Where do you see The Salon going in the future?
Ben: Eventually I would like to find a stable source of funding, grants are good, but they can come and go and are highly competitive. Maybe in the future we will get hooked up with a school to absorb some of the costs, but the problem with college journals is that they have funding but no motivation to sell the magazine. They can simply plop a stack of their magazine on a table in the library and make it available. Without distribution concerns, there is the fear that publishers could get lazy, the motivation deteriorates and everyone suffers.
Related links: Vermont Joy Parade, Burlington City Arts, Sample from the latest Salon, Image courtesy of The Salon
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