Search This Blog

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

et tu, Oprah?


A reader sent this one in, but it begs the question. Why hath she forsaken us?

14 comments:

The Rejecter said...

I know someone who did a piece for Oprah magazine. Like any magazine, really, they have a specific idea of what they want in the magazine and high standards and generally employ an in-house staff and a lot of freelance writers.

Does it do fiction? I don't even know. I've never read it.

Anonymous said...

She did abandon us! She used to promote contemporary books, and then switched over to promoting only the classics. I guess because dead writers wouldn't give her a hard time the way some idiot authors did, ruining it for the rest of us.

I used to dream that I would publish my novel, and Oprah would have me on her show, and then every O-viewer would read my book. And now without her editors are more convinced that nothing sells. It really is too bad.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, fug O.

Writer, Rejected said...

Whoa there, cowboy! Let's not get Oprah pissed at us too. We love the big O; she is good and mighty and powerful. She can help the dying publishing world so easily. And we need to lure her back to *wanting* to promote contemporary books and writers, especially us little guys, remember?

Anonymous said...

Um, Anonymous #1 -- is not Middlesex a contemporary book? And she chose that for her bookclub. Sure it was published a few years ago but I would hardly call it a classic. It's contemporary and DAMN GOOD! Pulitzer Prize winning good.

Anonymous said...

Point being, Editor: O is having the country read Carson McCullers and John Steinbeck when she used to choose unexpected writers, who could have been any one of us. And now once in a great, great while an obvious star of the publishing industry. Big deal.(Besides, Middlesex is an insanely overrated book.)

Cheryl Hagedorn said...

This site has such a cool concept. I'd love to contribute but you must be doing something I'm not. I can't even get a rejection - only silence.

Writer, Rejected said...

Cheryl: Send in a list of places that have gone unjustly silent over your submissions. We'll post them here if you'd like.

Anonymous said...

There's a big space between the logo on the letterhead and the place where the rejection begins. It makes me see a little too clearly that there is perhaps an unjust ginormous gap between the little rejected writer and the big and powerful O. Hmmm.

Anonymous said...

It doesn't beg the question. It raises the question.

Anonymous said...

Writer, Rejected: You're the Whack! Thank you for creating such an amazing and entertaining blog.

Are you single? ;) i don't even care if you're M or F! (And I'm not bi.)

Writer, Rejected said...

e: Are we talking *petitio principii* in strict terms of logic? Or are we just enjoying that English is a living language and the phrase can commonly be understood to mean "suggests the question?" Just wondering.

Anonymous said...

"Begging the question" is a perfectly acceptable phrase, but it means something different. You were not discussing a petitio principii, and that's why "raises the question" would have been the phrase of choice. Apart from that, I enjoyed your post.

Anonymous said...

What I think is that Oprah went to all-classics because she wanted people to "get it" that she is all about literature as literature and would not be used as a marketing tool, which is what she'd become through her book club. Oprah's always looking at the stars, even as she rakes in the cash. That's what makes her such an enigma in the end.