Friday Five: Z.H. Gill, editor of Burial Magazine

Content warning: strong language that some readers may find offensive.

On this, the day after Z.H. Gill‘s least favorite holiday (as he himself acknowledges), I am filled with gratitude to introduce you to Z.H., the founder and editor of a relatively new online literary journal, Burial Magazine.

It’s been fewer than six months since Burial arrived on the literary scene like a thunderbolt hurled from Mount Olympus, erupting in a strange purple glow marked with white text of startling, brash, and often stunning, often unconventional prose and poetry. With its text-heavy, minimalist design and powerful writing, Burial is a distinctive niche in the world of online literary magazines.

When Z.H. isn’t working on Burial, Z.H. is working on his own writing and filmmaking. Based in East Hollywood, California, where he lives with Hans the Cat, Z.H.’s writing appears in X-R-A-Y, Minor Literature[s], Pithead Chapel, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere.

1. Tell us about the origin of Burial Magazine. What made you decide to create it, and why the name?

Hah. There’s not really any very interesting origin story behind the mag. It was something a partner and I had talked about starting together for many years—to the extent that I bought the domain, though I no longer own it (but if anyone wants to hook it up, my DMs are open…). In the end, she never got her shit together. My “at” on Twitter has been @BurialMagazine for many years, people were even calling me “Burial Mag” long before I ever started the site. So it was basically a magazine-in-waiting for a great long while, and eventually I just decided it was time to strike out on my own after my partner indicated with some finality that she was totally unwilling or unable to work with me, and after many writers I admired—some in the quote-un-quote underground, some a little more normal—indicated that they’d run out of places to send stories and poems (of clear merit) to. And these writers a lot of the time just weren’t making the sort of work that’d necessarily end up in a Sewanee or a swamp pink (which I say with zero disparagement toward those esteemed publications). I’d helped Mark Wadley a little bit with BRUISER Mag—I still read submissions there, too (by the way, you should totally interview Mark, he’s an awesome dude and the community-building he’s done in Baltimore with BRUISER is just remarkable, not to mention the writing coming out there)—but I wanted to do things my own way, too. It was my first time seeing “behind the music” at a lit mag, though, so it was really helpful with figuring out what I liked and what I wanted to do. Aaron Burch (of Hobart/HAD/Short Story, Long) also is a big inspiration in this regard. He’s a DIY-lifer building what he wants to see and that’s basically what I’m trying to do here.

As soon as I “soft launched” the mag on Twitter, writers I’d admired for years started sending me stuff, and I went, “Wow, I guess this could really work,” and so far it has. Talented folks continue to send me stuff, it all should keep working for as long as this is the case.

Now some other amazing people are seeing what I’m doing and joining the freak-ecosystem themselves (extra-big shout out to my friend Bobby and his new poetry mag, The Michigan City Review of Books, in this regard, a real FOB [Friend of Burial]). I’ve only been at this since the summer but already I feel immensely blessed, plus a little shocked by the attention I’ve received. As for the name, I say this in the mag guidelines, and it really is pretty much the reason: I just like the music of Burial, the electronic musician. And yeah, it’s a cool, moody-sounding name, not much rocket science behind it on my part, in all honesty. 

2. What advice would you give writers who might want to submit to Burial?

This will sound silly but: please read the fucking guidelines, people. I know they’re long, but I wrote them to be as entertaining as such a treatise can be. They contain a lot of information that many submitters ignore (including some very specific rules, like the “5 year rule,” i.e. accepted writers have to wait 5 years to submit to Burial again–I’m cheeky in the guidelines about this, but I’m being very intentional there, I am not trying to be a repository for individual writers, I am doing something quite specific and I hope you are, too; I want to feature work writers are especially proud of—when writers tell me they’re sending along a piece of theirs which they really, truly love but have struggled placing [because it’s weird, usually], my eyes light up like gasoline-soaked firecrackers). So yeah, that can be a little annoying. Like, lots of people sending stuff without bios. Please send me a bio, even a cryptic one if you must; I don’t like to publish entirely blind, I want to know a bit about who you are. That being said, I’ve pubbed people who were first-time lit-mag submitters and people who were 1000th-time lit-mag submitters. I want the fancies and the unclean to coexist at Burial because I like a lot of different kinds of writing. And I even want folks who don’t usually write to send me writing. Eventually, I hope to publish work from everyone I love in my life, whether they consider themselves writers/artists or not. I don’t have any great advice for individual pieces, though. Just: Write Good, Make It Easier On Me Editorially (spellcheck [mostly] works, guys), and, most especially, Don’t Be A Fucking Nazi. 

3. What about your own writing journey? How did you become interested in writing?

It’s just something I’ve always done. I remember getting in trouble for writing a provocative short story in my sophomore English class—teacher called my mom and asked me if things were OK at home. To my mom’s credit, she basically told the teacher to fuck off. Word somehow got out about this whole affair and then upperclassmen were printing it out in the newspaper room and reading it, enjoying a little peek into my broken, nincompoopy mind, and my then-future AP English teacher Ms. Chen even got her hands on it and said that an injustice had been done to me. All this felt nice. I really wanted to be a filmmaker, more specifically, back then, but I hated my pervert high school video production teacher so much that I joined the newspaper instead and got knocked off of that path (at least temporarily). Then I went to school for fiction writing, which I don’t really recommend, especially as an undergraduate, which is what I did, at Oberlin College (Lutz from 30 Rock’s alma mater!)—though I certainly did receive a terrific education there. The great Dan Chaon and Sylvia Watanabe were my professors for 90 percent of my creative writing (mostly fiction writing) classes. Both are wonderful writers and humans who put up with a lot of bullshit from me—but put up with me they did. After I graduated (already older than the other kids due to years of mental health catastrophes), I was catatonically/atomically depressed and barely employed for years, too doped up on a stiff cocktail of psych meds to get much writing, or really much of anything at all, done. Before Covid, I went into an IOP (intensive outpatient program) for bipolar depression and finally started rebuilding my personality. Then some friends threw a few cool opportunities at me, bless their hearts, and then some holy strangers did, as well, and I haven’t stopped since, and do not plan to. 

4. How do you find the time to write your own stuff when you’re busy editing the magazine?

I don’t know. I have a lot going on aside from the mag, too—a dayjob, plus a screenplay and a short film in various stages of fabrication (though both are far along). The answer is: I am extremely tired all the time. 

5. How does your passion for filmmaking influence your writing, and vice versa?

I’m pretty medium-agnostic. It’s all essentially the same practice to me. I mean, obviously it isn’t—but it is? And also: I kind of hate filmmaking. Working with others, bleh. And so much waiting around! But when it’s going well it feels like drugs, probably because of all the adrenaline involved. Had a wonderful time shooting/starring in what I guess is my “debut” medium-length short film—with my collaborators/criminal partners Devin Morgan and Chris Freedman, of course—“Chongqing Pink” around LA (mostly in Hollywood and Chinatown) in August for no money, with zero permits and no crew other than Devin. I don’t have a great answer. Writing is my real calling. But because we had only a half-page script, we were writing as we went. I acted in my buddy Charlie Kennedy’s movie recently, too, in North Carolina, which was a blast, but that one’s feature-length, so it was grueling and we’re only half-done (Devin shot that one, as well). I guess acting isn’t really filmmaking, but we did a lot of improv and that’s basically writing. My buddy Max, an extremely talented filmmaker, and I also recently adapted a book we love into a screenplay. Had to negotiate with the deceased writer’s estate and everything. Hope to have more news about that one soon. But anyway, I don’t see them bleeding into each other so much, the writing and the filmmaking, is the thing, it’s just one whole art practice to me, not to get all woo woo. 

BONUS QUESTION: Of your many stories and poems, which two or three are your favorites, and why?

My favorites are:

• “Seymour Cassel” at Minor Literature[s] – because it is a very personal story.
• “Adventurers” at X-R-A-Y – because it turned out well, and is my latest major publication, and Joshua Hebburn at X-R-A-Y both solicited it and added so much to it, editorially. Working with him was probably the best single experience I’ve ever had with a hands-on editor; I think anyone should strike at the chance to work with him if it comes around. 
•  “Web of Coincidences” at Pithead Chapel – because I’ve been working toward a Renata Adler-esque heightened-minimalist form in some of my short fiction and this is the best example of it currently available to the reading public. 
•  “Intimate Lightning” at DON’T SUBMIT! – because it was the first poem I ever wrote that I was proud of.