Potrait of an Editor as an Artist: We're all in it together

I do feel like this title is somewhat pretentious but I also feel like it’s better than some of my other ideas: Confessions of a Literary Journal Editor, What Journal Editors Laugh about but Never Tell. Those seem played out and cheesy so I went with pretentious and snoody.

Anyway, the idea behind this entry (and more to come after) is to give writers and editors a forum to discuss getting published and publishing in small journals. I’ll start off by telling stories and giving advice that I have gathered during the last three years I have worked with literary journals.

Now, those of you who have submitted to this journal, or are thinking about submitting, don’t worry I am not going to talk about Vibrant Gray. For the last two years I worked with a small journal in New York. I won’t give out the name directly since the current editorial staff (most of who I worked with) tends to be more tactful and discreet than I. A Google search will tell which journal this is, but since I have two last names it takes some searching.

My first piece of advice is that we are all in this together. I know that’s pretty cheesy but I feel like the larger community of writers tends to forget this. I don’t know that I have ever met an editor for a small literary journal or press who is not a writer themselves. I am sure there are some out there, but I haven’t met them.

My story to illustrate this point: while working on this print journal we receive a letter from an angry poet. The letter included two rejection letters we had sent him and note he had written. The poet was angry because the first rejection letter included a note that said we appreciated his work and would like to see more. The second rejection letter had nothing. The poet gripped about getting his hopes up and accused us of pulling a poor Southern boy’s leg.

As I said, this journal was small, we had a print run of just over a thousand, but yet we got over a thousand submissions for every bi-annual issue. It’s possible the poem was weeded out by other readers and editors before the first appreciative editor saw it. Another possibility is the original editor was gone. The journal was sponsored by our university which meant the whole staff changed every two or three years.

But, if the editors of Vibrant Gray were in this situation I feel that we would be just as disappointed as the poet. Since we are a new journal and receive maybe a hundred submissions per issue, we would definitely notice the poet and be just as upset that we still didn’t feel that his work fit in our journal.

My point is that publishing is a tough and tedious process. So is working as an editor. Remember most editors are writers too. They feel your pain.