The Orange Zest: The Ghost Factory

A literary journal can be an artistic effort, and more often than not it is. One of the more artistic journals that I have come across in the last year is Chicago's The Ghost Factory. The design is sleak, black and white, beautiful in its simplicity, and the fact that it is a full-sized journal only adds to its balance and style. Designed, edited and published by David Peak, The Ghost Factory focuses the American experience, our "cultural identity". The artists he has selected to bring his journal to life have explored the images of American life and have been a pivotal aspect the journal's appeal. This week I asked David a few questions about The Ghost Factory, its mission, its design, and its future.

Orange Alert (OA): Ghost Factory has a unique mission, "to explore the variety of life in the United States" and to focus on "cultural Identity." How did you settle on this mission, and how does this affect the way you might view a submission?
David Peak (DP): For as long as I can remember I've never felt comfortable using words like heritage or nationality. I've never felt rooted anywhere. It's something I've always wanted to explore, as a writer, and as a human being.

The idea for Ghost Factory stems from that feeling of displacement that a lot of Americans have--this collective shame we harbor, that the rest of the world views us as uncultured and ignorant. I think that's bullshit. I wanted to collect stories and poems celebrating the wealth of diversity I saw and felt around me everyday, just being a Chicagoan, riding the train, going to readings and workshops.

When it comes to submissions I do my best to remain open-minded. I try to get a sense of how the author is tackling this concept of "cultural identity," and if it resonates me, if it hits on something larger than me, I'll take a few days to think about it. It's the pieces that stick with me that I wind up putting in the journal. The ones that become a part of my consciousness, my world-understanding.

OA: How did you decide to print the journal as a full-size magazine as opposed to a smaller journal?
DP: Well, I've always been a big fan of Sy Safransky's magazine The Sun, ever since I read it for the first time maybe four or five years ago, and when I finally decided to start a magazine of my own, I looked at what Sy had done as a model of integrity and vision.

In other words, I ripped him off.

But, really, I just wanted to create something that had weight, that you could spread open and absorb, let your eyes wander through the white space.

OA: I could not find any credit in Issue #2, who does the covers for the journal?
DP: I view every issue as a collaboration with the artist. Each issue we've worked with someone new. A local artist, Emily Alexander, did the first one. And Scott Goodman did the second one--which I still think is a knockout. Scott's got some incredible art on display at his site. Right now I've been shooting emails back and forth with Chi Birmingham, hashing out our plans for the third issue.

All of our artists are credited as contributors with the writers. And most of them have come to my attention through my cousin James. James always seems to know extraordinarily talented people, so I go to him for recommendations.

Everyone's got a website now. I love it.

OA: Do you think being an annual publication limits readership, enhances readership, or has no effect? Have you thought about doing more frequent releases or possibly an on-line edition?
DP: It definitely limits our readership--which is both good and bad. I love the idea of emerging once a year, distributing, and then going back to sleep, like an exotic squid mating and dying off. I'd like to think that it leaves people feeling like they witnessed something special. But I think that's a little too romantic. The reality is that we just don't get the kind of exposure a quarterly journal might, or a monthly.

I'm talking with some people about getting something going online. And sometimes I threaten to put the brakes on the entire thing. It changes from day to day, like any living, breathing thing. That's just the human in me.

Issue #3 of The Ghost Factory will surface this April, and David will be holding a reading at Women and Children First here in Chicago to celebrate the launch. Keep an eye on his site for details and a list of readers. Issue #2 is still available and can be order by contacting David Peak.

**The Orange Zest is a new weekly feature that will highlight a product that is independently produced and designed or created in an artistic way. If you have created something send me an e-mail and let me know.