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Post by rorschalk on Oct 21, 2021 23:22:26 GMT
Rorschalk's note: I found this old archetype nosing into our business via electronic mail this morning.
Hello TQR capital managers,
I'm reaching out quickly as a concerned writer and active member of the literary community. I'm a professor of creative writing and one of my students alerted me to an alarming rejection they received. The problematic material is pasted below:
I'm not gay. Nor am I homophobic (is anyone anymore?). Still, once it became clear that honest Micah and gorgeous Merlin are going to spend the rest of the story batting eyelashes and brushing locks of hair out of each other's eyes, and possibly more, I started to read faster. Yes, I have my own personal sexual preferences and biases. Like if it'd been two gals, I'd probably have skimmed for the sex scene. But given it's two dudes, I aimed to skip past, which, and mercifully as it happens, is the end.
Seeing as this material also seems to be posted on your site available for all to say (sic), I must say I was surprised to see the content of this "feedback." Although your flippant question about homophobia is concerning enough, your statement that had this piece been about two women it would align better with your sexual preferences is incredibly problematic. Lesbian sex is hot but gay male sex is best to be avoided? That sure sounds homophobic (and misogynistic) to me. Of course we're all entitled to our own personal reading preferences, but an editor who lists a gay relationship as one (of a few) reasons to reject a piece, is homophobic.
Also, the role of editors of literary journals is to foster good writing. In what way does your feedback in this regard actually help the writer? Your feedback about tense and revision was useful at the start of your rejection, but what purpose does talking about your own sexual preferences serve? I say this as someone who has been a managing editor and prose editor for literary journals for the better part of a decade.
I will be reaching out to duotrope and Newpages to alert them to the sort of "feedback" writers to your journal can expect. I do hope you rethink your approach to rejection and reflect on your own personal prejudices.
Best, Gladys KravitzAttachments:
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Post by rorschalk on Oct 21, 2021 23:31:52 GMT
“Dear” Mrs. Kravitz,
Thank you for supplying the world with a concrete example of the literary machine TQR was created to rage against. Here is the disclaimer in our guidelines that nullifies your pathetic complaint:
Caveat Canem (woof woof)
TQR's editorial process is transparent, and [seeFree Market] you and your work and e-mail correspondence could be talked about by the managerial anomalies judging your work on the Floor and in the Terminal. Your e-mailed submission letter will also be listed in the BUSINESS OFFICE to note receipt of your venture, minus personally identifiable information such as physical and electronic addresses. (Important: By 'public vetting,' we do not mean the capital ventures up for consideration will be accessible to the public, only that the comments of those TQR staffers tasked with reading them will be.)
At no time will a work that has been referenced by name on the site, be unnecessarily denigrated or maligned. "Unnecessarily" is indeed a weasel word and gives us the latitude to necessarily denigrate and malign. What I can tell you is that it will be a publishing experience like no other. We can be assholes, but also benevolent gatekeepers with helpful advice and suggestions for the future disposition of your capital ventures. TQR sees its venture capitalists as the electricity that keeps its editorial impulses sentient, and, therefore, would be cutting its own cord bundle by unnecessarily alienating any of its contributors, no matter how whack. Before you submit your capital ventures, please avail yourself of the processes always available for viewing on the Floor, the Terminal and the Big Board. Caveat Emptor.
*
And furthermore, you can tell your student, who is obviously too big of a pussy to fight his own battles, to put his big boy pants on and lodge his own complaint the next time he gets his feelings hurt by some cartoon character in a no-name trashy ezine saying he’d rather read about two chicks getting it on than two dudes sodomizing one another. This is a true statement for any dude to make and if you and your cloying cult of literary harpies can’t stomach reality then fuck off to your mythical island of lgbtqfyxz-unicorn-alpha-bravo and eat a bag of rainbow-colored dicks.
I absolutely love your sign off of “Best...” right after you acknowledged you had just slipped two shivs in our back. Typical cowardly snitch behavior [wrap yourself in virtue after you've just done something contemptible]. Please just go home to your studio apartment, feed your cats, drink your nightly bottle of Sutter Home and reflect upon the fact that you are the literary equivalent of the good citizen who turned in their neighbor for thought crime against the party in Germany circa 1939. And then, go fuck yourself, Gladys.
Sincerely, TQR
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Post by bulldust on Oct 25, 2021 15:05:22 GMT
Moo!
There are far more appalling things we've said just in passing on any given Tuesday. It's interesting that this statement, obviously intended to be non-confrontational and humorous, was the one to get us nailed to a cross.
There is much irony in this.
Assumptions are being made that we're a bunch of bigots weaponizing our biases like clubs, eager to dispense blunt force trauma on any VC that offends our sensibilities.
The fact is that we're a bunch of VCs ourselves that have been kicked around as much, maybe more than most of the folks that stumble upon our unzine. When we dispense our reviews, it is part constructive commentary, sometimes a helping of humor, and frequently a heaping pile of the crap that fetters inside our damaged souls.
This professor has no clue of our capital managers' diversity or experience. The fact is, we have all received worse rejections from mainstream markets claiming to embrace diversity, blah, blah, blah, fuckity, blah. Really what's worse, making an honest joke about one's own sexual preference, or some swinging dick out there cloaking racism, homophobia, and misogyny in code words and euphemisms.
We've all been there.
Obviously, we don't want to hurt anyone's feeling. But I get the feeling that this person is looking for a cause. Wrong target, sir!
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Post by rockefeller on Oct 26, 2021 15:29:38 GMT
Dear Gladys,
Your excerpting and critique of my critique (and my colleagues' support here) made me very happy. Perhaps you're familiar with the adage, "Good writing should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." I like to imagine my "feedback" as good writing, and appreciate you and your student (whom I cannot help but imagine as peeking teary-eyed out from behind your skirt) for confirming this for me. Certainly you've heard the old saying, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Based on my memory of your student's story, I hope you can (perhaps you should take a shot at TQR yourself).
I remember Robertson Davies once chastising a woman (who'd remarked on his beard) at a public appearance in Stratford, "Personal remarks are always in the worst of taste." So perhaps mine, though directed at myself, qualify as such. Thing is, I try with almost every review to emphasize that reader bias and baggage and prejudice and predilection and preference and limitation all play a much larger role in whether or not your writing is appreciated and accepted (and not just here) than any objective measure (if there even is such a thing) of the quality of the writing itself. Many submission guidelines express a preference for certain themes and content, and a distaste for explicit sex, gore, etc. Because all we here at TQR ask for is (to summarize) quality writing, in my "reviews" I like to make very clear that it is possibly not so much a want of technical or narrative ability that has led me to porthole a hopeful's submission, as my own personal biases and baggage and prejudices and predilections and preferences and limitations as a human being and as a reader.
Also, albeit somewhat selfishly, I don't want submissions volumes that would force me to send the useless, polite form reject slips most zines employ. I love that TQR is different in that we actually read and remark, often stupidly, sometimes multiply, on (almost) every single submission, however weak or disagreeable. (We are actually a reasonably diverse, accomplished and experienced group of writers and editors.) And so your kind offer to reach out to duotrope and Newpages (and might I also suggest, The Grinder) might help keep our volumes manageable.
Sincerely,
Rocks
PS Re my "flippant," ignorant, and somewhat rhetorical question, if you peruse the comments, you'll see that my colleagues had already called me out on it.
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