The Whole Story: Editors on Fiction
Literary journals pride themselves on publishing excellent fiction, but the definition of excellence varies from editor to editor. By inviting 25 editors to contribute stories they published and to explain why they published them, Slesinger aims to clarify a process that, as it turns out, defies clarification. Good fiction "tends to be easier to recognize than to describe" writes Georgia Review editor Stanley W. Lindberg. Fiction editor Allan Aycock doesn't even try to characterize what he wants: "Nothing," he writes, "could be more deadly uninteresting than handfuls of stories written to someone else's specifications." What is here is the sort of insider info generally found only at priceycreative writing events or by eavesdropping on editorial meetings. Indiana Review editor Cara Diaconoff advises writers to save their encouraging rejection notes "and continue submitting to those magazines until they either publish you or beg you to cease and desist." George Garrett of The Texas Review defines the real meaning of "Your story doesn't quite work for us." Translation: The magazine has already accepted a similar story "by a reliably well-known person and, as far as [the editor is] concerned, you are pretty much a nobody at this stage." Okay, so it's not all good news. But there's a bonus: when the editors becoming discouraging, you can read the fiction, which makes this short-story collection/reference book a real bargain.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.