Queerly Bookish Interview: Heather Lefebvre
September 5, 2012I recently interviewed Heather Lefebvre, Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Broad! (A Gentlelady’s Magazine). Heather and I went to Brandeis together, and I’ve been a reader of Broad! since it began. The magazine is overtly women-oriented and very queer friendly, so I thought I’d give Diffuse 5 readers the inside scoop.
Tegan (Diffuse 5): Tell me about Broad!. How did it start, and what is its mission?
Heather: It started at my day job, I work for a university, and through our Twitter feed I found a link to VIDA’s The Count for 2010 in the summer of 2011. The Count is a survey of about 12 major literary magazines. They measure how many women are published compared to men, how many reviews of women’s work there are, and how many female reviewers they have. They all did exceptionally terribly. The best ratio they had was something like 65/35 men being published and reviewed versus women.
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I remember looking at it and thinking, “This is outrageous! This is 2011, why is this still occurring?” And then I thought, “I should do something about this. I will start my own literary magazine that only publishes women!” Because that will solve everything, obviously. [laughs] That would solve all of our problems.
Tegan: What are some of your inspirations for doing the magazine? Are there writers or publications in particular that you admire?
Heather: McSweeney’s — they’re far more polished than I am. I’m a big fan of Electric Literature. They were the first literary magazine to be primarily digitally-based, not just online, but also as an app, or a Kindle ebook. They have this whole community right now, an audio branch, a blog. Electric Literature, Autostraddle, Rookie, and The Rumpus — I love The Rumpus so much! – those are all models for what I want Broad! to become.
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I want to build a much more tangible and active community of readers, writers, editors, and artists around Broad!. Right now it doesn’t really feel like a community because there’s no interaction between those groups. I want to find a way for everyone to connect with each other.
Tegan: Can you tell me more about your vision for the future of Broad!?
Heather: Building a community is a big part of it. At some point I’d like to have a print edition. There are organizations that offer grants for projects like this, for women-run projects. I’m hoping to apply for a grant for the next issue. Also, at some point, I’d like to work on a way of monetizing it, so we can pay our staffers, and pay our contributors. We don’t make any money, but we don’t take any money, which I like, but eventually, as it keeps expanding, I don’t think that will be tenable.
Tegan: I’ve noticed that more than a few of your contributors have identified themselves as queer in their bios in the magazine. Do you think there’s something about the magazine or its mission that encourages queer people to submit or to be out as queer in their bios? Or how do you think that came about?
Heather: Yeah, I do actually. From the very beginning I was very clear that we publish women writers, women meaning female bodied and/or female identified, because I don’t want to exclude transwomen at all. I think it does draw people because it’s feminist, I try to be trans-friendly, I try to be friendly towards less privileged demographics. I mean, who cares what you identify as, or what color you are, or how old you are, if the writing’s good, then I want it.
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And I think being covered on Autostraddle definitely – obviously – had something to do with the ratio of queer women writers we have submitting to us.
Tegan: So far, what is your favorite part about doing Broad!?
Heather: Oh man … all of it is just very exciting. But I love seeing the finished product, I love emailing the people we’re accepting, and I love reading submissions. I mean it takes a long time and it gets tiring, but I always read each one in its entirety. Even if maybe the writing’s not quite there yet, I still read the whole thing, because they sent it to me. I like finding the little moments in someone’s submission where you’re like, “That! That is perfect, that is amazing, you are so talented, do more of that right there.”
The submissions period for the Winter 2012 issue of Broad! runs through Saturday, October 13. On their website, you can check out their submission guidelines or download PDFs of the first two issues – you can also read the issues online.
For the next post, I’ll be reviewing Caryl Churchill’s 1978 play, Cloud Nine. I’m interested in seeing it performed live someday, but its also a well-known piece of literature within some circles.
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Tegan likes writing, books, and literary happenings around town, she is combining those interests here by writing about books and literary events. She is a museum professional by day and a freelance writer by night – and sometimes the other way around. She writes about local history at Cambridge Considered: the colorful history of Cambridge, MA. She’s also a knitter, music enthusiast, UU, and social geek. Find her on Twitter @tegankehoe.
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Diffuse 5 is a website providing events, news, articles and interviews for the lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer community in Boston and beyond.
2 Responses to Queerly Bookish Interview: Heather Lefebvre
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Tegan Kehoe says:
Thanks, I’m glad you are enjoying it! -Tegan
I’ll be bookmarking this site to read more, thanks for taking the time to write it