DCist favorites Barrelhouse turned five this year. That’s quite a feat, especially when you consider America’s general disinterest in reading. Barrelhouse’s ongoing success is keeping them busy — in the last three months alone they’ve received close to 900 submissions of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, all of which needs to be read by an editor before ever reaching print. To their extensive to-do list, they’ve added monthly readings at Wonderland (called “Barrelhouse Presents”) featuring writers from other indie lit organizations, like Chicago’s Artifice (last Thursday night) or the small press Dzanc Books (back in July). The idea is to introduce D.C. to the thriving national indie lit scene, and, in the process, lend support to their favorite writers and groups. If you’re interested in catching the next reading you can head over to the Black Squirrel tomorrow night for the Reading to Destroy Language! More events are scheduled for February, so stay tuned to their blog for details. In the meantime, we caught up with the editors of Barrelhouse — there are six of them — to discuss D.C., the evolution of Barrelhouse, and what it’s like to run a lit journal.

You’re sitting around with your friends at a local dive bar. The beer and the conversation are flowing. It’s late, and you start thinking of those “let’s-pursue-our-dreams” things you should all do together. Maybe it’s “we should start a band,” or “we should run the Marine Corps marathon” or “we should all knock over a convenience store.” Whatever. Usually nothing ever comes of it, perhaps a good thing, on occasion. The convo digresses, you all…