About Quibble Lit
Founded in 2022, Quibble Lit is an indie lit mag of prose, verse, and art. After two years of publishing artists and authors online, we’ve entered the world of print with Volume I of Quibble Quarterly - Ripple.
Quibble publishes in a dual format, debuting its pieces online and coalescing into a purchasable printed volume.
We accept free submissions and contributing authors receive one complimentary issue.
The origin of “Quibble” as a name was mostly for a novel sake of appreciation for its texture and phonetics. I liked the word. I thought it sounded funny. It was also a word I felt I could use in context, even without an explicit understanding for its meaning or definition.
More than just a publishing outlet, Quibble is a quest to help redefine literature discourse and consumption in an age of new media.
Built on the belief that any mere quibble – any small, seemingly trivial argument or contemplation – has the potential to become significant, even transformative, to our perspectives, our mission is to elevate cultural discourse and evaluation of literary arts.
We aim to do this by curating high-quality contemporary writing, offering increasingly easier ways for artists and audiences to connect, creating communal engagement to encourage accountability and development, and challenging the status quo around the value of writing.
Why quibble?
quib·ble - [kwi-bəl ]
verb
1: to evade the point of an argument by caviling about words
noun
1: an evasion of or shift from the point
2: a minor objection or criticism
At the intersection of these definitions, and in conjunction with our platform for arts, what does “Quibble” mean?
Our first “petty objection” is refuting the sad state we find creative writing in a new age of media.
Our second quibble is with the need to validate or substantiate our existence and name with some convoluted interpretation of what “Quibble” really means. We don’t have to do that. There doesn’t have to be a good reason Quibble is called Quibble. Sure, I sort of just did set up a whole schema, but I didn’t need to do that, or to have a mission statement, before I did something. I didn’t have those things before I started collecting and promoting original literature and artwork, even though I was calling it Quibble at that point.
Quibble came about after I experimented some in the gig economy. I recognized that what I really wanted was not to chase after writing jobs I didn’t like, but find a way to engage with creative writing and offer a solution to the pain I was experiencing, to give an outlet and audience for literary endeavors.
I had an idea and a direction, but couldn’t possibly guess or get a sense for what Quibble would come to mean, the scope or depth of ways it would engage with my life and all the parts within.
The value is malleable.
As meaning-makers, creative writing and rhetoric are the forms we have to understand and process our thoughts and experiences; we learn to structure our thoughts through example and study and practice. The more practice we have, the more precise and capable our expressions become.
When you read a poem or a story or an essay, there’s an immediate value extractable that’s highly subjective. Every reader or consumer or thinker is going to have a bit different of an experience, outlook, and reaction to the stimuli.
In addition, there’s a progressive, passive value. We never know where an idea may take us, or when it might come back to us.
When we read, we add another voice, another constant, a source for discernment with which we can further and better orient our own selves. We are exercising judgment: putting our beliefs and values to the test, and hardening or broadening our resolve in them. When we write, we are harnessing that sharpened voice, and bravely, uniquely, dancing in language, in a way where its possible to bestow pieces of your own persona and pay back to the ancient game and all it gave you.
Created in 2022 and operated by editor Garrett Souliere, Quibble is a literature review (and print magazine starting in 2024) publishing creative writing paired alongside original artwork.
Garrett’s first experience with publishing came during his time studying at VCU, where he took on the role of head fiction editor for plain china, an online anthology of the best undergraduate writing started by Rebecca Godwin during her time teaching at Bennington College, in its first year inheriting the project. He was later made associate editor and selected to represent the publication at the 2015 Forum for Undergraduate Student Editors at Widener University.
If you have feedback, or would like to get involved with Quibble, please reach out to Editor@quibblelit.com