Seattle’s ‘James Franco Review’ gives all writers celebrity status

In March, actor and director James Franco released a book of poetry. This achievement landed him interviews, like on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and readings in front of huge crowds. But the poetry was not met with rave reviews. There’s a poem about Lindsay Lohan. One about Heath Ledger. But because of his Hollywood status, Franco was given far more exposure than the average poet.

“James Franco wasn’t necessarily any different from any mediocre MFA student, but yet he got the attention of Graywolf Press,” says Vashon Island writer and writing teacher, Corinne Manning, paraphrasing a quote from David Orr in a New York Times book review. “Whereas that mediocre MFA student would be struggling to get the attention of a really tiny poetry press that has two part-time, underpaid workers.”

But James Franco’s success got Corinne thinking.

“What if we all started submitting our work under James Franco, wouldn’t that change the literary scene? Imagine the kinds of narratives that would get published if that door would swing open just as wide as it does for James Franco. Then I got the idea: what if I created a review called The James Franco Review and the submission process was blind? It seemed important too that the editors would have to change really regularly to kind of prove the point that editors choose very much on taste.”

At the beginning of this month, The James Franco Review was born. But the content has nothing to do with the real James Franco. Every person who submits a piece of fiction, non-fiction or poetry to the literary journal will be identified as James Franco, so the editors have zero bias when they choose which works to publish. Only when a piece is published will the author’s real name appear along with it.

“I think we could get in trouble if everyone was James Franco. I think that would be the line that James Franco wouldn’t want us to cross. Since the idea is visibility, and kind of bringing new voices onto the scene, we’re really excited to publish the person’s name next to their work.”

When she was in grad school, Corinne and a friend considered submitting work to journals under male pseudonyms, to see if it would help their chances of getting published. A professor told them it wasn’t a bad idea.

“Years ago, a friend of mine had won a contest. The judge was a very well known male author. He had read everybody blind, so he chose her work as the winner, and then when he found out it was a woman, he was really shocked and he said, ‘I thought that was a man who wrote that based on the way that it was written.’ I just think there’s a lot that comes up with gender and writing and I think there is a lot that needs to change.”

The James Franco Review has already been featured nationally, in the LA Times and Salon.com, which is pretty amazing coverage for a literary journal. Even if it’s the famous name that has attracted the attention, it’s still excellent exposure for the literary arts. Corinne says she’s gotten lots of submissions. All of them, of course, from James Franco.