Literary Taste and Its Limits
4 min read
One day, while we were reading submissions, Fish Lu hesitated for a while. He had come across a poem that, he said, was not written in a style he would use himself, or a style he would normally choose to read. To put it more plainly, it wasn't a style he particularly liked. But what made him hesitate was that he thought the poem was quite good within its own style. "Solid, patient," he said.
If someone doesn't like a certain style of writing but still thinks a work written in that style is good, then what exactly do we mean when we say a piece of writing is "good"? Does it mean that it fits our own tastes, or that it has achieved something worth appreciating in its own way? The two are not always the same thing.
In the end, we decided to publish the poem in Whale Review.
In today's world of online literature and writing, "small-circle" and "all-inclusive" approaches to writing and publishing are two fairly common models (by which I mean approaches with relatively focused aesthetic preferences and those with relatively open ones). When we talked about this, Fish and I agreed almost immediately that we wanted Whale Review to follow the second approach. Fish's reason was that he wanted to read more writing in different styles and traditions, and broaden his own view of literature. Sometimes, the things we believe in aren't necessarily right. Writing that takes us outside our comfort zones may challenge us, bring about changes, or lead to something unexpected. And perhaps those changes will be good ones.
The "small-circle" approach to writing and running a journal certainly has its attractions. For example, it can have a more distinct style, closer relationships among its members (which also means more mutual support), and higher barriers to entry (which outsiders may see as a sign of taste or status). It can be easier to build a clear literary identity, and it may even be a very effective way to run a journal or pursue a writing career. It can also give people a greater sense of certainty and security about their tastes (by comparison, reading works from different styles and traditions often means having to question our own tastes again and again). And there are other advantages. But life is full of choices, and running a journal is no different. We can't take two different paths at the same time.
For me, I feel that the "all-inclusive" approach to writing and running a journal suits my nature better, and Fish's too. I believe everyone should follow their own nature, be themselves, and make the most of their strengths, because we do our best when we are being ourselves. I don't believe one style of writing is necessarily superior to another, or that one kind of literary taste is necessarily superior to another. So we decided that, whatever style or tradition a piece of writing belongs to, as long as we think it's good enough, it should have an equal chance to be read by others in Whale Review. We trust readers to make their own choices, and we hope they will keep finding new inspiration and ideas here.
The last thing we discussed that day was the "barrier to entry" for submissions. I do not mean to refer to any particular journal here, but simply to discuss a phenomenon. Suppose a journal has a particularly high "barrier to entry" (or, in a sense, a particularly low acceptance rate). This does not necessarily mean that the journal is of high quality or has particularly refined literary taste. There may be many factors limiting the number of works it accepts. For example, it may be a journal that pays its contributors, so a limited budget will naturally limit the number of writers it can publish. Or it may be a journal run by editors in their spare time, alongside their regular jobs. With limited time, they may only be able to publish an issue every six months, which will also limit the number of writers they can accept. Editors may also consider the diversity of their contributors. Some journals may even deliberately limit the number of works they publish in order to maintain an image of being "selective," "distinctive," or "prestigious." And there may be many other reasons. If we leave aside all these "non-literary" factors, what remains depends, to a large extent, on the editors' own ideas about literature and their personal tastes.
Writing in 2026, many people have long held the view that there is no single, universally accepted standard of "high quality" or "good literary taste," and that no one has the right to monopolise such judgements, not even a famous writer. Of course, the fact that there is no single standard of taste doesn't mean we can't discuss, compare, or make arguments about the quality of writing. For example, we can still discuss whether a poem uses language precisely, whether its structure works, or whether its imagery is effective. We just need to understand that different literary traditions and different writing experiences may lead to different understandings of these questions.
So Fish and I finally decided that we would simply focus on the quality of the writing we receive, rather than on keeping our acceptance rate low. We will publish all the works we consider good enough. Of course, our aesthetic preferences as editors cannot determine the quality of anyone's work either. They simply reflect what we want Whale Review to be at this stage.
Author: Xi Nan (西楠) is a writer and translator working in English, Spanish and Chinese. Her own work explores memory, time, displacement and the complexities of human relationships, mostly drawing on everyday life and personal experience. Her published works and books can be found through an online search. She now publishes primarily in Whale Review, the independent online literary journal she co-founded with her husband Fish Lu (魯魚). She currently lives in England.