Oh the joy of being hit up for a holiday subscription by the very folks who rejected you!
Prairie Schooner will sell me the short story collection that beat mine out and a subscription for just $32. See the pretty snowy art work? I guess you can't blame a smal press for trying. I don't even mind being called "Gentle Reader," which if truth be told is an apt description of my approach toward books and fellow authors. But I do not like being referred to as a "Friend of All-Story," which I am not. Something about the Zoetrope attitude really bugs me, even during this lovely time of year.
8 comments:
You know what? I'm so depressed by those pleas to subscribe -- guys, I read you standing in front of the mag rack at the bookstore, but I do read you -- to mags that hate my work, that I've quit submitting. Yes, I have. I'm sick of being on the Tin House mailing list when they think I suck.
Screw lit mags!
Oh, and Zoetrope? Not a real magazine.
"Endowed editor?"
I wonder if the Soviet gulags used this kind of paper and disturbingly gentle wording when they ordered political dissidents to Siberian work camps?
Wait... is that someone wistfully warbling "O Come, All Ye Faithful... Joyful... and Rejected..."?
Quibby
Hark the Herald Quibmeister! Season's greetings to you, my friend.
Anon: I know, I know re: "Endowed Editor." Plus get a load of the crap they are shoveling about being the most award-winning magazine, and so essential, and barf.
I hate this tactic so much. The truth is, I can't afford to subscribe to so many lit mags, which makes the whole enterprise seem even more futile because if I, who wants to be published in these things can't afford to subscribe, then who the hell is?
Zoetrope's behavior bugs me. Their last issue contained four pieces, one of which was the novella upon which Francis Ford Copolla's new film is based; yet another was by Ethan Coen. Yes, that Ethan Coen. The current issue features a whopping five pieces, one of which is a script by Wes Anderson. Theoretically, this could attract people who don't often or ever read short fiction or, God help us, fiction magazines, to pick up an issue, but at what cost? What great story was bumped out of place so a famous filmmaker could get a little more exposure? As with The New Yorker, John or Jane Smith from Podunk Hollow is better off not wasting a stamp.
This is what happens when you leave old soapboxes lying around. Hire a maid, for heaven's sake!
I still have a shitload of unopened lit mags from the past year that I have not bothered reading because I decided they are all too boring and I would just wait until someone else just picked the best stuff out in the "Best Of" collections. There, I said it. And I have no intention of subscribing to any magazine that doesn't except my work, which leaves me with only one possibility so far. Hey, I only started writing two years ago. Give me a break.
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