Post literary mag meeting musings...
Oct. 28th, 2002 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
godreamThe entire staff of the school lit magazine was in a silly mood today -- which of course did nothing to alleviate the harshness of the critiquing. Don't get me wrong at all: I'm all for honesty. I'm all for rejecting those poems that just need to go. I realize that there may be an awful lot of those latter, and that we did seem to run into even more than usual today.
The question I'm pondering, though, is this: regardless of whether the author is in the room, shouldn't we try to behave as if s/he were? Shouldn't we be... well, for lack of a better word, nice? Not say anything we wouldn't want to own up to in front of the author?
On the other hand: through equivocating doubtless we'd let through some submissions that aren't up to the 'zine's standards. Is it worth it? And isn't criticism the most valuable kind of input an author can get?
But can't we criticize constructively? I mean, we don't sit here going, "boy this sucks", we have reasons... but I feel like this is a bit more serious than the way we're considering it.
But it's only a high school lit magazine, for goodness sake, this is not the New York Times we're editing here. And noone's heart is going to be broken by a rejection letter.
...really?
And if so then they're guilty of the same crime I am, that of taking this far too seriously.
This whole thing is making me leery of going for it: submitting and then calling this self-defense.
Ah, I don't know. Maybe I just have too much free time on my hands.
The question I'm pondering, though, is this: regardless of whether the author is in the room, shouldn't we try to behave as if s/he were? Shouldn't we be... well, for lack of a better word, nice? Not say anything we wouldn't want to own up to in front of the author?
On the other hand: through equivocating doubtless we'd let through some submissions that aren't up to the 'zine's standards. Is it worth it? And isn't criticism the most valuable kind of input an author can get?
But can't we criticize constructively? I mean, we don't sit here going, "boy this sucks", we have reasons... but I feel like this is a bit more serious than the way we're considering it.
But it's only a high school lit magazine, for goodness sake, this is not the New York Times we're editing here. And noone's heart is going to be broken by a rejection letter.
...really?
And if so then they're guilty of the same crime I am, that of taking this far too seriously.
This whole thing is making me leery of going for it: submitting and then calling this self-defense.
Ah, I don't know. Maybe I just have too much free time on my hands.
