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graveyard of DOOM index < | > One thing I won't miss about working at Going Down Swinging is having to deal with that special kind of person who seems to make it their life's goal to give literary journal editors the shits. The kind of people who never read your submission guidelines, no matter how many times you send them a copy, and who respond to your emails and letters saying "we only accept submissions between these dates, so since you've sent something outside those dates, can you just hang onto it and re-send after the opening date?" by sending another batch of submissions. Oh yeah, I love those people. And then there are the people who have somehow got it into their heads that the best way to get published is to insult the editors and the journal in their cover letter. We got one of these recently, a standard "here's some poems" letter, with the addition of a handwritten PS that basically said "I've never submitted to Going Down Swinging because your cover designs are juvenile and offensive and I found it hard to believe that anyone would want to be published in a book with such horrible covers. You seem to have toned your immaturity down - though really only slightly - of late, so now that you're acting a bit more grown-up, I've decided to send you some poems." Well, gee shucks thanks for that! Its nice to know that we've got people out there keeping tabs on us and who are willing to give us the benefit of the doubt despite the fact that we're obviously so bad at what we do. What fascinates me is why the fuck anyone would think that a letter like that was a good idea. It's like starting a job application with, "I'm repulsed by everything your organisation stands for, but..." Maybe the idea is that we'll be so gobsmacked by their honesty and integrity that we'll be incapable of not publishing their work. Set the moral bar higher than we ourselves can reach and we'll just shit our little pants trying to live up to those standards. That must be it. With this person's help, GDS can finally pull itself out of the mire of offensive immaturity and become the kind of upright literary journal that someone could be proud of. I tell you, I'm having trouble resisting the urge to post a flaming bag of dog shit to this contributor. Or is that just me being juvenile and offensive? |
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