Rhetorical Analysis: Gulf Coast

        Gulf Coast began in 1982 as a student-run publication out of the allegedly illustrious University of Houston, initially run by renowned creative nonfiction writer Philip Lopate, famously of that piece that he talks about his penis that nobody can seem to get over. Gulf Coast has multiple editors for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and with each editorial position limited to a term of two years, one personality or predilection cannot dominate the process of selecting works for publication. According to their own statement, the editors of Gulf Coast seek "to promote and publish quality literature in [their] local and national communities while simultaneously teaching excellence in literary publishing to graduate and undergraduate students." Unfortunately this doesn't offer much in the way of suggestions for submissions.

        Gulf Coast currently charges a $2 reading fee, which they say goes towards the $50 per page honorariums of the writers they choose to publish. Submissions are from September 1st through March 1st, and must be previously unpublished and sent through the appropriate channels only. For creative nonfiction, pieces must be no longer than 7000 words, and simultaneous submissions are allowed.

        The website for the journal currently hosts a blog, but all of its posts appear to be written by current or former editors. Although the journal does publish some of the types of creative nonfiction we've been working on in class, it also publishes other types of nonfiction, and the majority of the pieces that is publishes are purely fiction. The creative nonfiction pieces it does publish are mostly short, about a page or two, but some are quite a bit longer. The pieces that were available online dealt with fairly traditional subjects, mostly familial relationships and life experiences, without any obvious political or ethical slant. There does not appear to be anything particularly fringe or progressive about the creative nonfiction published in Gulf Coast. Much of the work is very reflective narrative, and doesn't appear to push any agenda whatsoever. Nor do the pieces push the boundary of the literary. Their arrangement is standard, and only the most basic segmenting can be seen to break up individual works. In general this does not appear to be a journal to publish experimental creative nonfiction. 

        Overall, due to the length of time that this journal has been publishing the the prestigious name of its cofounder, Gulf Coast is a journal that is likely to publish established writers. As it says, it aims to publish writers from its southeast Texas community, and writers from its broader international audience, but is not more specific than that. It is not political or idealogical, and the fact that it has a reading fee and pays a sizable amount per page also suggest its seriousness. It seems like one would have to do universally acknowledged good work to get published here.

http://gulfcoastmag.org/