Meet the Editor: Blake Kinnett
In this Meet the Editor series, we’re asking our assistant editors about their work on the Schooner and thoughts on their respective genres. Read our fifth installment with assistant nonfiction editor Blake Kinnett below.
Blake Kinnett
Assistant Nonfiction Editor
What brought you to UNL and to working with the Schooner?
I came to UNL because realistically, I knew that a PhD program would be the last point in my life where I was paid to do the kind of writing I wanted to do. For me, the only way to improve at being a writer is to read a lot and write a lot, and working for literary journals is a good way to see what’s going on in the literary world, what preoccupations people currently have.
What do you look for when reading submissions?
I think my answer is the same as most other editors’ answers, if they were being honest, which is: I kind of know it when I see it. In general, I’m interested in kind of weird stuff. I like memoir, but I’m more interested in the essay form. These days I’m really into music writing and historical nonfiction – if there’s a weird moment or figure in history that you think ought to be more well-known, then write that essay and send it to the Schooner.
Can you recall one piece you were moved by and why?
The honorable mention of the 2024 creative nonfiction prize, “The Shape of Her Hands,” by Amy Nolan. There was this image that really stuck out to me – the image of the dead turtle’s paw reaching out. Memoir isn’t usually my thing, like I said, but a compelling premise and detail-oriented storytelling is really what’s most important for me in creative nonfiction.
Has working as an editor for Prairie Schooner impacted your own creative work?
It’s taught me a lot more about my own aesthetics as a writer, for sure. Reading for literary journals, you figure out quickly what your pet peeves are. And when you read with a sharp eye for detail toward someone else’s work, eventually you turn that eye onto your own work. Why would I tolerate in my own work something I can’t tolerate in someone else’s?
How do you balance narrative intimacy with ethical storytelling?
This is the question, right? What is ethical storytelling? Do we have a greater obligation to the truth as we experienced it or to the people in our lives? I know that for me, there are certain things in my family life that I won’t write about because I think it could only harm people in my family. At the same time, if you’re not totally honest and intimate with your audience, they can feel like you’re cheating them out of something, or that you’re hiding something from them. I actually think that’s not necessarily a bad thing – I think every writer is entitled to secrets. But it is something to consider.
What do you find most compelling about creative nonfiction as a genre?
Creative nonfiction allows writers to explore the dark and cavernous parts of the self that sometimes don’t reveal themselves in fiction. Creative nonfiction is about saying the things that are difficult to say and perhaps should not be said at all. We capture those dark, cavernous selves as they are in a singular moment, and that’s another thing I like about creative nonfiction: it captures not writer-as-person, but writer-in-the-moment.
What would you like to see more of in contemporary nonfiction?
Music writing. Historical nonfiction. Literary criticism blended with memoir. All things that people are currently doing, but what I’d like to see more of. Tell me what punk music has done for your life. Tell me about your favorite obscure gay historical figure. Tell me how Dracula changed the way you feel about motherhood. I’m currently reading a massive book on The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and I’m having a blast.
Blake Kinnett is a writer from southern Kentucky. Their work has appeared in The Good Life Review, Still: The Journal, and Sonora Review. They live in Lincoln Nebraska with their twelve-year-old boy cat.