WRITEWORDS: What’s your background? Can you tell us about TANK?
RG: I’m a freelance journalist. I’ve been freelance for four years, and write for the Independent on Sunday, Guardian, Glamour and Jane (US). I do features on things that interest me and that (I think) are important – anti-nuclear grannies, Indian toilet-cleaners, gang-rape. Before freelancing, I was Senior Editor of COLORS magazine, the Benetton-sponsored publication with the tagline “a global magazine about local issues.” I wrote issues on Death, Toys, Shopping for the Body, and a gypsy town in Macedonia called Trash. Now I’m features editor – part-time – for TANK. It’s a bimonthly magazine of fashion, art, reportage and essays, and we’re in the middle of our fifth anniversary issue. TANK and the other in-house publications – MINED, a newspaper called ….and? – have won several design awards. Educationally, I have a first-class degree in modern languages from Somerville College, Oxford, and a master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. I’ve never studied journalism.

WW: Who are you publishing at the moment/near future and why did they stand out?
RG: This issue I’ve mostly got pieces by “unknown” writers. My favourite is an essay by Real Live Preacher, a priest in the US who runs a weblog. This issue has the theme Literate, and Preacher writes very well about the difficulties he had with his faith because he couldn’t take it literally. In the past we’ve had extracts by Sven Lindqvist, a Swedish writer who writes almost quirky books, but about serious things. We published an essay of his on weightlifting, but I prefer his book Exterminate All the Brutes, about Africa, murder, and humanity. We’ve run pieces by John Berger which I’ve liked, and by Tarun Tejpal, editor-in-chief of Tehelka.com, an Indian website which brought down some government ministers. There are a couple of specialist writers I like – Tom Morton, who usually writes about art but who has written about Christina Aguilera, and Gareth Evans, who writes about film, but in a reflective (ie. non-reviewing) way. As for standing out - anyone who can write about something interesting, and whose work I don’t have to touch.

WW: Who are your favourite writers/books and why?
RG: I like Michael Ondaatje’s prose writing a lot. His memoir of growing up in Sri Lanka – Running in the Family – is one of my favourites. I don’t have the patience for poetry, though I should – I studied too many books at Oxford, and became a speed reader. That’s not necessarily a good thing. I used to like a few Italian writers – Italo Calvino, for his economy of writing, Sciascia, Gesualdo Bufalino. I’m not sure I’d understand them now. I read a lot and I like quite a bit – recently, of the “big” fiction, I liked Glenn David Gold’s Carter Beats the Devil, Eugenides’ Middlesex, Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers, Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith (but not Tipping the Velvet). I like some crime fiction, for its purity of narrative and prose – Henning Mankell, at the moment, sixties and seventies-era Dick Francis. I don’t like JK Rowling; do like (very much) Philip Pullman. I was bored by the Corrections and I thought Donna Tartt’s latest needed an editor who wasn’t afraid to edit her – it was self-indulgent and dull. Non-fiction: Martha Gellhorn, Neal Ascherson, Neil Belton. Two recent non-fiction books I liked: Stasiland by Anna Funder and We did Nothing by Linda Polman. Magazine writers: Hilary Mantel in the London Review of Books, Elizabeth Gilbert, Lisa Margonelli, Mary Roach, James Meek in the Guardian. I read the New Yorker, LRB, Harpers Magazine, Salon.com, a few blogs.

WW: What excites you about a piece of writing- what keeps you interested?
RG: It’s hard to explain. I usually do the first sentence test – if that doesn’t sustain my interest, I don’t continue. It’s snobby but it usually works. A good piece of writing will stand out because the person has a confidence with language. Rhythm, narrative. no cliches.

WW:And what turns you off?
RG: Clichés. Laziness. Bad editing. Excessive adjectives. Verbiage (Alain de Botton). The word “cheers.”

WW: What do you think are the most common mistakes new writers make?
RG: Trying too hard. Trying to copy other people’s work, subconsciously or not.

WW: What are your plans for Tank in the future?
RG: Finding more great writers who’ll write for very little money. We’re also publishing a series of books of flash fiction (short stories, max 300 words), which have been running in the magazine for the last year or so. We’ve also got plans for a new issue of MINED, and of the newspaper …and?, the two other in-house publications. MINED will have the theme “icons”, and …and? has yet to be decided.

WW: What advice would you give to a new writer starting out?
RG: Be careful with adjectives. Write about something that actually interests you. Keep it simple, keep it clean. Work at it. Always print it out and re-read it. Find a good editor or someone whose opinion you respect to read it – it’s always good to have a reader; even if you disagree with them, things become clearer when you argue something through.

WW: Any tips or tricks or things to avoid?
RG: See above

WW: And if our members want to send you work, what would you say to them? What’s your submission process?
RG: I’m happy to read anything. Proposals should be sent with writing samples. I mean, suitable writing samples – we have long features and essays, so being sent restaurant reviews as a writing sample is no help. Or already-written stories are fine too. We also publish flash fiction, max 300 words.

Do you address particular themes or styles?
No. TANK is very eclectic. No long fiction though, and no straightforward reviews. TANK isn’t time-related, because we have a long lead-time.