Today’s rant is about editors of literary journals. Okay, okay…before you pelt me with leftover wine and cheese from one of your schmoozy parties, I guess I should learn to be more politically correct. Today’s rant is about crappy editors of literary journals. Not all editors are crappy. Some of my best friends are editors. There. Are you happy now?
I’m just a little annoyed with a few of the bigger dogs today (and a couple of the little ones). Currently, there are two dozen pieces of my work “on hold,” because of the crappiness of editors. Reject me, please! Let me get on with my life!
What is up with making me wait eight months to a year-and-a-half, and still there is no response from your highness? Have you never heard of e-mail? How about a spam e-mail? Dear Losers: Your poems and short stories are being held hostage. Do not complain, or your career will be shot. Do not think for a moment that this means you are being considered. Chances are, you’ll receive a form rejection note six months from now. Have a crappy day.
At least I would know you received my work!
Oh wait…that’s right. What was I thinking? That would mean acknowledging the fact that poets and writers are human beings who deserve the same professional courtesy you give anyone else. We can’t have that.
Some of you even insist on snail mail submissions!!!! Heaven forbid that we should save a tree or dip the ends of our toes into the twenty first century. And you refuse to let me submit elsewhere or even post MY OWN damned work on a blog, yet you make me wait endlessly for a simple response?
Why? Because you have the power. You know I would wet my drawers to be in your slick journal. Because it might help an idiot like me get some recognition, connections, and more publications that could maybe…possibly…perhaps lead to a little (gasp) money to buy some fancy wine and cheese of my own.
Meanwhile, my work…my life’s blood…is at your mercy. Did you receive it? Is it still in the slushpile? Under a dusty desk? Next to somebody’s toilet? In a bird cage? Did anybody even read it? I don’t know. You can’t be bothered to drop my self addressed, stamped reply postcard in the mail. And all I hear are crickets when I wait six months per your guidelines to politely inquire about the status of my submission.
You suck.
Yes, I know you are king pen of the world. You are the established machine. You are the academic literary world at its most snobby elite.
You can make or break peons like me. But would it be so difficult to recruit a few more freshmen interns on your staff (or monkeys…what the hell), so they can pin a rejection letter to my story and throw it back in the SASE I so carefully included with my submission? Is that too much to ask?
It wouldn’t be hard to train the monkeys to recognize three line stanzas or really witty foreign phrases. We all know your oh-so-progressive journal is “open to all styles and voices.” Yeah, right. But don’t get me started on that one today.
And I don’t care about your personal problems. Or the fact that your mother-in-law’s coming to visit. Or your ingrown toenail. Or how you receive “thousands of submissions” from us losers a day. Yeah, yeah…cry me a river (and see the monkey idea above).
Response times should be humane, regardless of what’s going on in your life, regardless of what you don’t get paid, regardless of the size of the slushpile. ‘Cause, honey. You signed up for it.
Yes, I’m just another annoying, crazy writer who thinks a three to six month response time is not too much to ask.
Gasp.
Stay tuned for Editor Rant Part II…when I will describe the worst editor to ever take up space on this beautiful planet.
rage on–let them have it
I hear you. I can tell when they finally DO write, if ever, that some insipid snotty little 19 year old with no world experience and Daddy paying for everything kid is reading or not reading and just sending stupid rejections like: You must have sent each poem in a different email. Or how about the editor of a good journal, who used to be an editor for one of the top publishing houses who can’t “understand” a poem about child abuse. Or another snotty middle aged editor who says I should study poetry while the crap she publishes is drivel and she has the nerve to tell me to study when I was nominated for Pushcart. But the worst are the ones where you wait and wait and wait, and then you query and they still don’t answer.
AND the idiotic journal from Canada beginning with the letter E, that said they didn’t have TIME to read my submission after nine months. THEN WHY HAVE SUBMISSIONS AT ALL?
Or the literary agent who said about my chapters: You are very talented, the emotional and descriptive content is wonderful, BUT I DON’T LIKE IT.
THEY ARE NOT GODS – like in every business, mediocrity rules.
Nietzsche was right. The mediocre will do almost anything to keep the cream down on the bottom. Envy is the root of all evil.
Life is so full of ironies, Nanette, because I was just reading your poetry on “ditch.” “Drown” took my breath away, as did “in vain.” Excellent!!! Anyone who says you should study poetry has his/her head implanted firmly up his/her own ass.
You’re so right about the rule of mediocrity. I guess I’m naive to think that people in the arts should rise above the politics of it all. Unfortunately, it’s often a big machine, like any other business. Part II of my rant, involves an editor’s comments about my poem about rape. I’ll try to post that tomorrow.
The good news is the internet revolution, which is giving them a run for their money, and giving “the rest of us” a voice and place in the creative world. It has also given rise to some excellent e-zines.
I encourage everyone to check out Nanette’s work and buy her book. Also check out Scot’s blog (see his address on his comment above). It is awesome and contains links to several other excellent sites.
As my blog ages, I may not have time to comment on every post, but I will try to give credit where it’s due. There’s some excellent work out there. Thanks for your comments!
If you sent an SASE before the price of postage went up a penny, from 41 cents to 42, would the mercs add the extra penny stamp or leave their prey in snail-mail limbo?
That’s a great question, Paul! I sent them an additional SASE after the price went up (since I’m so freaking rich). Thanks for stopping by.
I rarely submit anymore, but if/when I do, I check Duotrope first to see what a magazine’s response times look like, whether they accept electronic submissions, and whether they accept simultaneous subs. If they’re slow, they’d better accept sim subs. And if they’re snail mail only, forget it. There are enough good journals out there that the ones who can’t be reasonable about their responses can pretty much go to hell.
Amen, brother. I should have mentioned Duotrope’s. That’s where I found a home for a couple of my newer publications. I check Duotrope’s almost daily.
And I’m in love with Smokelong Quarterly. When I stop being such a long-winded jackass, I’m going to submit. Excellent, excellent journal. Excuse my drooling and groveling…I’ve been in a hermit’s cave for a long time, so connecting with the creative world is new and exciting to me. But it really is a fine site, and everyone should check it out.
I’m also getting over some of the old school submissions stuff I was taught back when dinosaurs roamed the earth in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Like, for example, getting published in the “Iowa Review” was supposed to be the pinnacle of your career. Whatever.
[…] Slushpile points to this bit on journal magazines entitled: Dear Editor: Shove It […]
Ploughshares took almost a year to give me a lousy form letter. I wonder if it’s because I’m not a prof anywhere — these poems were good. The Paris Review claims to never have recd. a story I’d sent them a year ago. The New Yorker has been silent for about a year now on my submission. Crazyhorse tells me oops, they somehow lost it since it’s been more than 6 months. Others don’t bother to reply to my multiple queries and follow-ups after 7-10 months of waiting. Evergreen Review never bothers to send rejections but just rudely lets you assume it’s a no. Poetry magazine only publishes the work of teachers and MFA students, I mean that exclusively — they should rename themselves Academic Poetry Establishment Mutual Back-Scratching Magazine and CV Padding Service, those phonies. National Poetry Review sends back your poems without even a rejection slip, makes you infer that they don’t want them. Oh and lots of other lousy journals with their lousy ways. None of them pay. None of them are read by anyone, so what does it matter anyway? I’m just surprised nobody’s started a high profile site on the www for short stories and poetry, no nonsense, good stuff, high paying and high profile. Can’t it be done?
Hi, Jill: I like that “Academic Poetry Establishment Mutual Back Scratching Magazine and CV Padding Service.”
I was trying to think of an acronym for that…APE…Hey! There’s that monkey theme again. Or maybe Academic BS for short?
I guess poets and writers are going to have to stop putting up with the crap. I’m obviously guilty of it.
But no more!
And I won’t buy journals from the ones who have treated me like crap, either. Let’s send a message with the wallet. That speaks very loudly.
Do check out Duotrope’s Digest. It has a world of good stuff. Thanks for stopping by.
Congrats – this is a wailing wall issue for any writer who’s felt duped (with the inevitable pangs of naivety/anger) after having waited an eternity only to still have no closure.
Any periodical which takes over 6 months to respond should not receive submissions. Period. There’s no room for pre-Perestroika bullshit like this. It’s demeaning to those of us who give a damn about our work.
Yes, one can argue (and it’s out there on many sites) that there are a lot of bad writers out there. Bad writers who have the same submission addresses that we do. And yes, bad writers are just as likely to submit as good ones. In essence, the argument is that bad writers pee in pool before the rest of us get to swim. That said, I fail to see the point in starting a lit mag in the first place if one cannot foretell such an issue happening in the first place.
The New Yorker – do they even respond anymore? Maybe they did respond to me, but they sent a carrier pigeon to an old address?
Makes you want to give up.
Thanks for the rant space š
M
I love “pee in pool.” That’s hilarious! Every goober (or Hollywood starlet) with a PC and a rhyme about unicorns is a poet. I have that subject as part of another rant, but I decided not to post it for now.
I didn’t describe it as well as you do, though.
I’m guilty of peeing in the pool, too. If I send something out that is unfinished or just plain sucks (yep…yep…I have), I usually know better “in my gut.” But my big ole ego tells me it’s the greatest thing in the world, so I send it anyway. Then I’m peeing in the pool, too. Hmmm…
I’m glad you stopped by to rant. If y’all saw me in real life, you’d never suspect I was the angry poet ranter. Ah, but there’s that dark side, right?
I really like the photographs on your site!
Thanks, Julie. And yes, it should be made clear that I too have peed in the pool in the past. That’s one of the problems with being born without latent literary editing skills (“This story rocks! I must’ve gone over it *three* times already. Hel-lo Harpers!”). So yes, to add to what I previously wrote, sometimes – depending upon age, maturity, skill – we tend to do it to ourselves collectively.
(insert image of snake eating tail)
[…] a good bit of ranting about poetry editors from The Buffaloe Pen. Nice way to inject some venom and energy into your Monday […]
Yes! Wow…I’m not even confident enough to feel that way yet. Somehow, I think it’s normal for me to be at the editor’s mercy…and also I never even thought they shouldn’t make me send snailmail entries, though I’ve gotten where I don’t even submit to journals that require that! I’m lazy…
Anyway, I recently got a rejection from an ezine the NEXT DAY! That almost bothered me more…I’m thinking…you didn’t even read it you sons of bitches! Their loss, eh? I try to look at it that way. I’ve heard of people wallpapering their walls with rejection letters…the form ones are SO annoying, aren’t they? I received those when rejected from PhD programs…after all the work I did…damn, that was frustrating too…
Oh yeah…rants can be good food for the soul! I should say that I’m really a big fan of most editors I’ve “met” through submitting, even the ones who have rejected me. I usually learn from the rejection. But every now and then, the slow ones make me HOWL like a wolf. On occasion, one gives me a snarky comment along with a rejection, and that used to bother me until I realized that at least I had gotten a rise out of somebody…ha!
The only editor I’ve ever spent any time truly disliking was the a-hole one from my rape poem. I’m guessing he’s a rare kind of scum bag, though.
I’m probably just weird, but I don’t mind the form rejections if they come relatively quick. Six months doesn’t seem like too much to ask, especially if they say they’ll respond in 3-6 months.
But don’t ever think you’re not good enough, Holly. Because you are!
North American Review returned my cover letter with a coffee ring stain.
Do I win a prize?
************************************************************
I’m sorry, sean. I didn’t see you here at first, because I’m an idiot. A cover letter with a coffee ring on it? And nothing else? I bet it smelled like Starbucks.
Well, let’s see…prizes. Hmmmm… Any ideas, anybody? I’m a poet not affiliated with a university, so I’m obviously broke. Maybe a free drink? (Anything but coffee).
Thanks for reading, sean. Sorry it took me so long to say hello. -Julie
Oh this was deeeeliscious, Julie. š I had a manuscript (novel) out to an editor at a major NY pub house, who *requested it!* from my then-agent for a new line they were starting up (and they wanted it FAST!) almost a year without hearing anything (“four to six months” when unrequested stuff is sent in… uh huh), then the agent and I decided to go separate ways (friendly break up ). She let the publisher know, and I called once a month for a while (“we’ll check and get back to you”–very polite and friendly) then every two, then every three. After three years (kept going for sheer perverseness) I gave up. I wonder if they still talk about me? š
Oh, Nan! What an ordeal. It’s their loss, though. Truly, it is! I’ve been meaning to put up a piece about you, and I get so far behind…chasing my tail and never seem to catch up with what I want to get done. But I plan on it, because the world needs to know about you!
I had a similar incident, though it wasn’t a major NY house and I’ve never had an agent. They ASKED to see my dang novel. Then two years later, they acted like I was bothering them whenever I called. Meanwhile, I couldn’t show it to anybody else. Growl!!
Then another place did the same thing and ended up telling me the plot was too “negative.” Okay. I can take criticism, but why did it take them two years to realize the plot was too negative? Sheesh!
But you have shown them, Nan. Your talent shines through regardless of the cruddy people you’ve had to deal with. You always get me charged up. I love your visits. Thanks so much!
Ya know what you have to do in those cases? If, after the period goes by that they claim to respond by (and it always does…), and you give them an extra month for good measure, tell them that “someone else is interested” (they needn’t know it’s you yourself and you, of course) and that you’d appreciate an answer within a time frame that seems reasonable to you (another month?). When that time goes by, let it be known that you will be sending it out whether you’ve heard from them or not.
This might of course come back to bite you (“okay, Ms Impatience, here’s your rejection slip…”) (hey, you wouldn’t have wanted to work with someone that vindictive anyway!) but at least you have given them written notice of your intent and a fair chance to respond. Keeping something for over a year as an “exclusive” is simply (IMVHO…) unconscionable, and I think that any editor or agent worth his or her salt would probably concur. They always tell us writers we’re so thin skinned and so unbusinesslike… HMF. So, okay, this is a business, and this is your product, and YOU, not THEY, are in charge of the thing until they’ve made you sign a contract giving them your first born (and all the rights, even those yet to be discovered, til the end of time for your poem or story)!
As for my own experience, meh, the mss wasn’t really ready for prime time (the agent was a greenhorn–ex text-book editor lol–but she liked the story… guess she wasn’t as familiar with what the NY houses are looking for in romance fiction as she should have been)(and that’s probably how I landed an agent HEH!). Got some friendly rejection letters from other publishers, other than the one that was so all fired in a hurry to look at it, though. š
And thank you for all your compliments. My head is getting too big to fit through the door, so now I’m stuck here at the computer forever!! (happy dance… lol)
That’s some great advice, Nan. You’re right about the time frame…and if they reject it because we inquire why it’s taking so long, then to hell with them.
I actually appreciate a quick rejection if they’re not interested at all. There’s a place I LOVE that rejected me quickly, and I still love them. Sure, it was disappointing, but they were very professional about it and treated me with respect. They were right, too. I’ve got a long way to go with my novel. There’s a good story in there somewhere, but it needs at least a year (maybe even two) of hard work.
When it’s ready to go out again, I’m gonna try to do what you do from now on. My problem is that I’ve always been too meek when approaching editors. After reading this post, everybody’s probably thinking…HUH? MEEK? LOL!
But yeah…I actually am. It’s easy to be tough when ranting on my blog. Much harder to speak up in “real” time.
Thanks again, Nan. You can let your head get as big as the moon, and it’ll still fit in here:)
wonderful. you don’t even know how often i’ve felt this way. or maybe you do. i think all of us “struggling poets” who are unaffiliated feel this way most often.
well said, Julie…..and the peed in the pool comment above is just brilliant. but, i want to go on record here that i’ve never peed in the pool. figuratively that is. literally, yes, many times. hell, who am i kidding. figuratively, many times. it happens.
i’m gonna go through all your RANTS now….you and i have some similar thoughts on this whole business we call poetry, and i can’t wait to read what you’ve written about it.
Hi, Justin. I need to do another poetry rant. It’s been a while. This one got me a reputation as a pissed off poet, but I was actually laughing when I wrote it. Though I do mean every word of it. A little bitching is good for the soul sometimes. Ha! Thanks and take care:)
and a lot of bitching is better! well, a reputation as a pissed off poet isn’t the worst thing in the world. nay, i say it’s even a good thing. people who won’t publish you because of your reputation wouldn’t anyways; and they’re the ones who only publish BECAUSE of good reputation and not good writing.
I have learned how to get by – I make up stories of deprivation so that people feel bad and give me things. They are SCUM and should be forced to give to me. I will be sitting hear waiting and scratching my ass in the meantime.