February 8th, 2010 / 12:45 pm
Blind Items
BLIND ITEM: EVERY GOOD SHORT STORY WRITTEN IN THE UNITED STATES
smug asshole
We don’t run a lot of blind items, but it’s an available tag for posts, so… here’s a blind item. A few weeks ago, back in January, I was at a reading and got into a conversation with a young fiction editor at one of the most prestigious magazines that still publishes short fiction. If somebody asked you to name the most prestigious places currently publishing stories, you would almost certainly name this magazine. I asked how they get the stories they publish, even though I already knew the answer. He said mostly through agents and from unsolicited submissions, even though only one part of that answer is true. He also said the following to me:
We get about 2,500 submissions a month. If you write a short story these days, there aren’t many places to send it. Between us and the New Yorker, it’s safe to say we see pretty much every good short story written in the United States.
Really, Young Editor at Prestigious Magazine? Really?
Tags: Blind Items, short stories
I don’t think you look like a smug asshole in that picture, Nick.
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February 8th, 2010 / 12:58 pmNick Antosca—
Thanks, Justin.
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lemme guess… nathaniel rich?
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February 8th, 2010 / 12:57 pmNick Antosca—
No.
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February 8th, 2010 / 12:58 pmNick Antosca—
Also, for the record I’m not gonna be around a computer much in the 24 hours, so if somebody says a name and I don’t respond, it doesn’t mean it’s a correct guess.
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This kind of insight / inside information really makes the whole grand conspiracy idea ring true, don’t it? No wonder there are so many start up magazines and online journals.
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Ugh.
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As a former employee of one of the smaller, but very well respected, lit mags, I can vouch that most published material does come via agents, but a lot does come via other writers’ recommendations. The lesson – connections matter.
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February 8th, 2010 / 3:28 pmMG—
I’m wondering how much comes from the slush. Which magazines procure materials solely from the slush?
Agents should keep their fucking noses out of it until it comes to the book deal and the $$ honey.
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February 8th, 2010 / 4:24 pmLincoln—
It is a hard question because what counts as slush? If a writer gets taken out of the slush for a magazine but then sends future submissions straight to an editor, is that not slush anymore? Is it slush if you know the writer somewhat (and big writers and big editors meet each other all the time)? etc.
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February 9th, 2010 / 12:45 pmAnon—
These agents are promoting their writers they believe in – they know the editors and can make sure the pieces are read by them. THAT is why people have agents. It’s a service.
There are mags that publish slush submissions, but chances are they print 1000 copies of the issue.
And to Lincoln, yes, that person would still be a slush writer.
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The fact that the editor said and presumably believes this–”Between us and the New Yorker, it’s safe to say we see pretty much every good short story written in the United States”–would be enough to keep me from ever sending there (although I’m probably already not). That’s so fucking ignorant (and smug, but Nick already implied that.)
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Some dude from the VQR? Fucking VQR.
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It would be hard to not smack that guy with a glove or a fist.
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this post really got me thinking. it got me thinking~
how rubbish on a scale of mmm 1 to mmmm 450 is it that i used to kind of have a crush on that smug asshole?…
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My guess is the fiction editor at Esquire. But who cares? Rich was my other guess.
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February 8th, 2010 / 3:55 pmNick Antosca—
You’re right, who cares. This isn’t a true blind item in the spirit of blind items–although it did really happen–because the point of posting it here is not really getting everyone guessing about who it was or what magazine it was, but about airing the attitude that this guy so blithely and explicitly expressed.
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Me, I aint tryin to write good stories. I love them bad ones.
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That’s a fucking insulting. I take umbrage. Umbrage! I’ve never seen TNY or VQR or Esquire or any of them high-falootin’ mags in any of my contributors bios and I’d say we publish nothing BUT damn good stories. Fuck that kid.
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I’d say he is wrong because the top few magazines take forever to respond and are unlikely to take unsolicited submissions anyway, so there are some good young story writers who don’t have an agent yet but who don’t bother sending to those top few magazines.
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February 8th, 2010 / 4:15 pmLincoln—
I mean I get the main complaint here is that there are lots of awesome stories that are in styles the top few magazines would never accept so people avoid, which is true. but even of the types of strories that harpers/mcsweeney’s/new yorker would publish, many don’t get sent to them.
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February 8th, 2010 / 5:27 pmAmber—
Wait–do people here have agents? Not to sound ignorant…
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February 8th, 2010 / 7:28 pmLincoln—
I don’t, but some people here do
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February 9th, 2010 / 1:19 amrobert—
I have an agent but he doesn’t shop around short stories. In his words: “It’s too much work for too little payoff.” You have to think that if he sells a story for $1,000, he earns only $150. And with the industry as it is, I can’t blame him. But that’s just him; other agents do shop around stories, but I’d say they’re rare.
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February 9th, 2010 / 3:12 amNick Antosca—
Agents send short fiction to big magazines not for money but to build credibility/exposure for writers with something else coming out. So they’ll send to the New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, Paris Review, maybe McSweeney’s or Zoetrope, maybe Atlantic, maybe one or two others, and that’s it.
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February 14th, 2010 / 7:09 pmRichard—
Very true. My professor is a Pulitzer nominated writer, and we were talking about this, and he mentioned those exact places, dropping McS and Zoe since he’s not that young or hip, and if his work doesn’t get through to those places he files it away and either never touches it again, or does a major revision. But there’s more to writing than those places. Most of us will never get in. But I don’t think publishing short fiction will ever get you rich. It may get you some good exposure. It’s all about the novels, these days I think. But I’m a huge fan of short fiction, and there are still a lot of other paces out there to publish.
Most of the stories published in the NYer in the last year I would have passed on were I an editor of a small, medium, or large journal or magazine. Maybe this is why I’m not an editor. Also, the editor who made this comment about “seeing all the best stories” is out of touch, obviously. Some of the best stories are, also obviously, published online (I mean, pick a website…) and in small small journals (Alligator Juniper, for instance) or in chapbook type/small press stuff (Mary Miller and about a million others). So…yeah. Get an agent, I guess. That’s the lesson of this publishing saga, right? Ain’t no getting your story in the big mags unless your 12%er sends it in him/herself.
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February 8th, 2010 / 4:25 pmLincoln—
I think his claim was that all the best stories get sent to his/her magazine and the New Yorker before getting sent to small journals or websites.
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Granta or The Paris Review or McSweeney’s. I’ll say McSweeney’s.
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February 8th, 2010 / 4:25 pmLincoln—
My guess would be McSweeney’s based solely on who one would most certainly name if asked the most prestigious literary journal.
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February 8th, 2010 / 4:29 pmKen Baumann—
‘one of the most prestigious magazines that still publishes short fiction.’
Harper’s.
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February 8th, 2010 / 4:36 pmLincoln—
yeah you are right. If its magazine that still publishes fiction and not lit mag it has to be Harper’s.
The only other options would be Esquire, Atlantic and Playboy, right? and none of those do it much anymore.
Harper’s.
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February 8th, 2010 / 4:31 pmGian—
You’re probably right on this.
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I’m wondering if the picture of James Van Der Beek is a hint of some kind.
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was thinking atlantic, but they only do one issue of fiction per year right? and they don’t have any the rest of the year…does that qualify as ’still publishes’ short fiction?
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February 8th, 2010 / 4:55 pmGian—
Yeah, they only do fiction one issue a year and the last one they did kind of sucked.
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And whoever this guy is, he must live under a rock or something.
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February 8th, 2010 / 6:15 pmKevin—
It’s safe to say.
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i was just thinking recently i should try to write a good short story for once.
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It couldn’t be the Paris Review. It couldn’t be the Paris Review. It couldn’t be the Paris Review. It couldn’t. It couldn’t. It couldn’t.
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who cares? that’s one motherfucker with his head in his ass. do you man.
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The NYorker publishes more good stories than some think.
Their poetry usually sucks.
I prefer poetry and nonfiction from smaller lit mags, online and other.
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TNY publishes a lot of really great fiction. But I don’t love it all, that’s for sure.
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