Our Mission:
Night Train's mission was to serve new, emerging and established writers by 1) creating opportunities for them to have their work published on our site and annually in an attractive literary journal with a wide distribution; and 2) delivering outstanding customer service through open and honest communication and quick response times; and, finally, to serve our readers by bringing to them the very best short fiction and poetry we can find.
Back in 2002 when we started, our introduction to Night Train attempted to set the stage for who we were and what we were trying to accomplish. We think that hasn't changed, so we include From the Editors for your reading pleasure.
History:
Night Train was founded in January, 2002 by Rusty Barnes and Rod Siino in Somerville, Massachusetts. The two had met in 1992 while attending the MFA program at Emerson College in Boston. Ten years later, their paths crossed again, and the dream discussed became reality one sunny and cold afternoon. The name of the publication was much harder to decide than the decision to go ahead and do the thing itself. A few days into it, while in Rod’s Davis Square apartment listening to music and considering and rejecting one idea after another, the name emerged. Call it good fortune, pure coincidence or sheer desperation, but when Oscar Peterson’s version of the jazz standard “Night Train” began to play on the stereo, we knew we had it.
During our tenure, we've received acclaim from sources as diverse as newpages.com, popmatters.com, laurahird.com, Literary Magazine Review, the Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix (lamented), the New York Times, The Writer, National Public Radio, the Million Writers Award, the Pushcart Prize, and many other local and national outlets.
We evolved from a hard-copy short story publication supplemented by our web site, to a web-only short story and poetry publication, to what we have now, which is web-based with a hard-copy collection of short stories and poetry to be published annually. We took a break to regenerate ourselves between 2012 and 2014, when we re-launched. Our first Anthology, Night Train: The First Ten Years, was published in 2014, and our final issue was published in April in 2015.
Masthead:
Founders/Editors: Rusty Barnes & Rod Siino
Fiction Editor: Alicia Gifford
Poetry Editor: Rusty Barnes
Associate Editor: Anna Lea Jancewicz
Associate Editor: Katie Moore
Associate Editor: Misty Skaggs
Social Media Editor: Anthony Ronzio
Original Graphic and Logo Designer: Souxsie Campbell
Cover Photographers: Darlene DeVita (I, II, III, VI and Anthology); Tracy Tekverk (IV), Michael Garlington (V), Anna Lea Jancewicz (NT 2015)
Web Technical Guru: Kaolin Fire
Site Design and Maintenance: Rod Siino