# Anyone worked as an editor of a literary journal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 21, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950 "2010-10-21T22:46:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bith_Shuffle)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/1 "2010-10-21T22:46:42Z")
I’m curious whether anyone can describe the ups and downs of working as an editor at a literary journal. What are the pains? Are 90 percent of the submitted pieces horrible, or is it really hard to decide? ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/2 "2010-10-21T22:56:44Z")
I was a poetry editor on a literary journal long ago and it was a lot of fun for about a year. I’d say 95% of the submissions were terrible and we all fought like six year olds about which of the remaining 5% to include. Certainly, YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/3 "2010-10-21T23:05:52Z")
More than 90% are horrible, unless you have a pre-screener, which I did a couple of times. This was in poetry. Sometimes, it was hard to figure out if something was hitting right (or wrong) because of my own idiosyncratic reading or because it was actually good, but more often it was very easy to separate the good from the bad, and then it became a matter of separating the very very good from the not quite as good. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/4 "2010-10-21T23:08:35Z")
From my experiences with the slush pile, I’d say 97% is utterly unpublishable, 2% is readable but _boring_, and 1% had good potential. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bith_Shuffle)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/5 "2010-10-21T23:10:21Z")
Could any of you three give a rough picture of what a poem from the bad pile might be? Like, are we talking teenage angst, trite love poems, etc? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/6 "2010-10-21T23:16:28Z")
> [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](#): > > Could any of you three give a rough picture of what a poem from the bad pile might be? Like, are we talking teenage angst, trite love poems, etc? Something with tildes in the title. 😃 I’m formalism-friendly, so I would tend to get hammered with super-trite rhymes, appalling sonnets or villanelles, or ballad meter. Just shoot me. Capitalized nouns like Darkness, emphasis on emotions and abstractions and often pathos, idiosyncratic spacing and lineation that seemed to serve no real purpose, boring diary entries, etc. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/7 "2010-10-21T23:19:17Z")
Most of my experience is with short fiction. For me, there were three basic types of bad (often overlapping, not counting competent but boring): 1. Unreadable, incoherent crap 2. The window into a very disturbed mind (not interesting, just crazy) 3. A sort of nonsensical dullness that never went anywhere but took itself seriously (the author had nothing to say and no idea how to say it) ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/8 "2010-10-21T23:21:41Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > Most of my experience is with short fiction. For me, there were three basic types of bad (often overlapping, not counting competent but boring): > > 1. Unreadable, incoherent crap > 2. The window into a very disturbed mind (not interesting, just crazy) > 3. A sort of nonsensical dullness that never went anywhere but took itself seriously (the author had nothing to say and no idea how to say it) Ah, you’ve been reading my oeuvre! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/9 "2010-10-21T23:25:54Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Ah, you’ve been reading my oeuvre! 😃 As somebody who _has_ read your oeuvre, I just want to take the opportunity to say that if I were an editor of a literary journal, I’d publish your work in every issue. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-worked-as-an-editor-of-a-literary-journal/557950/10 "2010-10-21T23:29:18Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > As somebody who _has_ read your oeuvre, I just want to take the opportunity to say that if I were an editor of a literary journal, I’d publish your work in every issue. What a lovely thing to say, pepper. Thank you.