Indie Editors Series: Harvey Liu
“I like to think of editing as a kindness, both from the writer to their own work, and from the editor to the writer. To edit is to read attentively and empathetically, to look at the work and find the heart within it, and to arrange it so that others can appreciate it the way the author intended. Even rejection is a kindness, when interpreted as the editor restricting the wider public from seeing a work until it’s ready to be seen. Editing is never about reducing, attacking or ridiculing a work. Rather, it is believing in a work, and in its potential to be even better.”
Perfectly summed up as “A Little Home for New Australian Writing”, Locative Magazine is the new indie literary platform you need on your radar.
Operating on unceded Gadigal and Dharug land, Locative Magazine is an online publication of Australian fiction and poetry, founded on the earnest belief that there are many wonderful pieces of work out there still looking for a place to call home.
And it seems like writers and readers are in very good hands, with editor Harvey Liu looking after things! Harvey shares how Locative Magazine got it’s unique name, the lessons learned personally and professionally through starting the platform, and why he wants “the weird, knobby parts” of your writing!
Hi Harvey! Tell us a little more about your background as a writer and editor – how did you get started in this space?
It’s been a very winding path getting here. I enjoyed English at school and I chose secondary teaching at university. I found myself liking the literature part of my course more than the teaching part, and my personality didn’t lean towards being in front of a classroom. But I’d started a writing practice because it felt insincere to force teenagers to write creatively when I didn’t do it myself, so I dabbled in short stories and poetry competitions. I was quite humbled by some very bad first attempts, but it helped me see writing as a craft to practice and improve at. After a few years I decided on a whim to submit some writing to Peril Magazine, reflecting on my teaching practice, and I was overjoyed to have it accepted, and to be paid for my work.
That moment spurred me to enrol in a Masters of Creative Writing, which was tremendously helpful to my creative practice. After that, I participated in a program with Western Sydney University called The Writing Zone, where emerging authors were mentored to write and edit each others’ work – also immensely helpful. I found that I enjoyed writing and editing in equal parts, and the idea of starting a zine was already there as I was completing those programs. By that point I had seen more of the Australian writing community and fallen in love with all it has to offer, so I wanted to create more space for Australian writers and readers to participate.
I won’t lie; I had to Google ‘Locative’ to discover its meaning (“relating to or denoting a case in some languages of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, expressing location” for those who are curious!). How did you come to this name for your publication and what does it mean to you?
I studied Latin in high school and the locative case is a rare grammatical case that referred to places and cities, and the word is something that’s stuck with me. It became a little in-joke in my class when translating passages that something could be the locative case, because it was unexpected and it would confound the grammar of your sentence if you didn’t notice it. So in my mind, Locative Magazine means to make a piece of writing unexpected and interesting because of its connection to a physical place.
I’ve made the explanation more eloquent retroactively; the initial intention was that I’d wanted to launch a publication in 2023 and needed a name that wasn’t taken and was easily searchable. By the time November rolled around I went with the first thing I could think of that fit those criteria.
Starting a new indie literary platform is no easy feat, so well done for making such a fantastic start with Locative Magazine. What made you decide to start the publication, and what (if any) gaps are you hoping to meet in the Australian small press scene?
Thank you for saying that! The start was the most stressful part, worrying about whether I was doing it right. I think there was a lot of research and imitation in my process, which aligns with my overall goals.
I really admire what a lot of indie Australian publications are doing to help emerging writers hone their craft and get their name out, and to establish a more defined style and identity for Australian writing. I see Locative as aiming to be part of a larger ecosystem of active literary publications for writers to submit to. I think especially with grassroots publications, there’s strength in numbers. For authors who are just starting out, I love the idea of there being multiple choices for their submission, and multiple chances for someone to accept their work.
More practically speaking, I wanted to provide more opportunities for fiction writers who are working in the longer word counts. I find online publication offers a lot of freedom in terms of structure, formatting and length. I love everything about the short story medium – I admire how diverse and open-ended it is, with so much possibility and yet so much history behind it. I love poetry too, and have found myself loving it more having edited a lot for Locative, but if I can help support and platform new Australian short story writers, I’ll feel like I’ve done my bit.
How have your personal perceptions of editing grown or changed since publishing your first issue? Any big surprises or learning curves?
Certainly, and I think it has helped to think of Locative as a learning experience, since it has let me recontextualise my mistakes as experiments. One of the big mysteries I wanted answers to when I started out was to see what the overall standard of submissions to Australian literary journals was like. And I can say from the sample size I’ve read, that the standard is pretty good! I have no complaints to make. Of the pieces I’ve read I’ve experienced a healthy diversity, and there haven’t been any pieces that I’ve outright hated or found offensive. Of the pieces that are rejected, it’s often that they are particularly niche or too similar to something else that has already been selected.
It's been both more and less work than I’ve anticipated. More work, in that there’s definitely lots of little things that unexpectedly take up time – promotions, formatting, testing the links, fixing all the things I’ve missed – but less work in that all of it feels creatively fulfilling, and there are enough different jobs to do from the beginning to the end of an issue cycle that it hasn’t felt monotonous. I think it’s a huge help too that all the authors I’ve worked with have been so passionate about their craft – that enthusiasm transfers over to me and it pushes me to work harder to make sure their work is well supported.
What advice would you give aspiring writers about the importance of editing in writing?
Editing is often not glamorous. I think the common observation of editing is that it takes the “fun” out of writing – often I hear by the end of the editing process the writer wants nothing to do with the work anymore, and they’re ready to push it out to the world so they can move onto something more enjoyable. I think there’s truth to this sometimes, though I don’t think it should discourage anyone from editing their work.
To remedy this feeling, I like to think of editing as a kindness, both from the writer to their own work, and from the editor to the writer. To edit is to read attentively and empathetically, to look at the work and find the heart within it, and to arrange it so that others can appreciate it the way the author intended. Even rejection is a kindness, when interpreted as the editor restricting the wider public from seeing a work until it’s ready to be seen. Editing is never about reducing, attacking or ridiculing a work. Rather, it is believing in a work, and in its potential to be even better. This is how I have liked to think when editing for Locative, and it’s made it easier to edit my own personal writing too.
And as a bit of a follow-on, what’s one thing you’d like writers to remember/know about sending their work to a new publication and working with an editor like yourself?
For me personally, I love seeing work as it is. I value the author’s genuine and authentic voice more than anything else. If the piece isn’t perfectly polished but there’s a spark to it, then I’m more than happy to work with the author to bring that spark to the surface. I read everything I receive with an open mind, and I try to be accommodating of all styles and genres. Often I find that the weird, knobby parts of a piece of writing can be the most interesting and memorable.
I imagine that larger publications which would expect more polish, owing to the volume of submissions they receive, and I think those expectations can pose an obstacle to writers who are starting out and still trying to find their voice. In that regard, I don’t want Locative to grow too much beyond the bounds of what I am comfortable with – I want to keep being this small publication for established writers to try out unconventional ideas and for newer writers to hone their craft.
Lastly, I believe you’re just about to publish your second issue – what can we expect in this new edition of writing? Any pieces that have really stood out for you? And when will you be open for your next round of submissions?
I think with this second issue I have chosen quite a challenging theme, and I have been energised by the various ways authors have responded to it. There are some works which are formally or thematically experimental, and other works which are more traditional but still engage with the theme in interesting ways. It has been more of a challenge for me, adapting to works that are more specific in terms of their formatting and structure. I think it has resulted in a more conversational style of editing from myself, and a greater willingness to trust the authors with what they bring. Many of the pieces I’ve selected have made me smile or laugh or gasp as I’d read them! I hope that more readers get to experience that feeling too.
Submissions for Issue 3 will open in December! The themes will be Fate // Chance – hopefully a bit more open than the themes for Issue 2. I’m really looking forward to another round of reading and editing!
Harvey Liu is a writer from Sydney, Australia. He has completed a Masters of Creative Writing from the University of Sydney, focusing on short fiction. His work has been featured in publications such as Peril Magazine and Cicerone Journal. In 2021 he participated in The Writing Zone, a program guiding emerging writers run by the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. After 10 years of various jobs across high school teaching, copywriting, tech journalism and administration, Locative Magazine is his first venture into literary publishing. He is of Chinese background and speaks Mandarin with a strong north-eastern accent.
Instagram: @locativezine
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
