Did You Hear? (Amber Intro) (11/02/2019)

Did You Hear About What This Writer Did? | The Weekly Atticus

November 02, 2019

This letter is a recap of the week at

Atticus Review

, along with some extras. There's little time left to submit to our

.

Recently, a writer friend shared with me that their work had been rejected. This is not uncommon in our world, of course, but I was stunned to learn that the rejection was suspected to be the result of a personal conflict. 

Not so recently, at a social event for members of a writing program, someone leaned over their plastic plate of cubed cheese to inform me that two other writers in the room — both charismatic, respected, personable people — in fact detested each other.  

When I first began creating promotional social media content for publishers and writers a couple years ago, one publisher flatly announced to me that they refused to enter into any sort of cahoots with another publisher. There was mention of previous threats of violence that passed between the two.  

This has had me thinking lately about how to navigate relationships in the literary world.

Writers are as diverse as any other group gathered around a profession or interest, and I realize that, once again, I’ve been fairly idealistic about them, and the writing life. Of course there are bound to be disagreements, disparate preferences, and personality clashes.  

We can see these arguments in the discussions surrounding writing itself: exchanges over whether or not poetry is dead, squabbles over the value of genre fiction and, if one accepts the value of genre fiction, near death-matches over which genre shall be granted ownership of any given piece of literature. 

Clearly, among writers, there can be an intricate and fragile set of hierarchies, jealousies and birth rights—whether or not someone thinks an MFA matters, whether or not someone is associated with an academic, independent, or major press (not to mention self-published) and whether or not someone burst forth from the womb with a pen in hand or considers writing more of a hobby that they picked up later in life, like knitting. 

Writers come from all walks of life, and come to writing from a million different vantage points.  There are legitimate conversations to be had (in appropriate contexts.) There is value in finding your tribe, your method, your path. But how can we participate in those conversations, hold true to our own values and opinions, find our own tribe,

and

give others space to do the same, without pettiness or acrimony?

It’s already difficult enough to navigate the world of publication without worrying that one faux pas after an extra glass of red wine at a conference dinner is going to get us blackballed from four or five literary journals.  

For contests,

anonymity in the submission process is one way to avoid the influence of personal bias. However, in some situations, anonymity is not possible. In these instances, I feel like it's important to do our best to find objectivity and, if we cannot, to step away. While rejections are the expectation rather than the exception, I wonder whether my friend’s work would have been rejected if not for the personal bias of one reader. 

As an editor at Atticus, I consciously strive to avoid showing bias toward any submitter whose name I recognize, regardless of whether my personal association with the submitter grants them favor or disfavor. If possible I may recuse myself, but that’s not always feasible in a literary community that can be a pretty "small world" practically speaking — after a while we're bound to know (or know of) more and more people. Maybe in those instances, it’s best to at least get a second opinion on something. In any event, my hope for myself, and anyone involved with writers and writing in any way, is that we will allow grace to abide in how we deal with each other.

Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.

 

Amber Shockley

Assistant Poetry Editor

PS: Don't forget to set your clocks back tomorrow. It gives you one extra hour to enter our

!

 

 

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AUTHOR NEWSThe latest news from our Atticus Review Family...Dan Crawley, David Crews, George Drew, Tom McAllister, Meg Pillow, Cathy Ulrich READ ABOUT THESE AWESOME FOLKS HERE

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

BOOK REVIEWA FORM TO FIT IDENTITYA Review of THE IN-BETWEENS by Davon Loeb from Everytime Press Review by Michael Pusic"An identity forged between categories could not fit into any single genre, and so Loeb doesn’t try to force it; as in life, his work exists between genres."GET THE BOOKREAD THE REVIEW

FICTIONTHE OBITUARIES OF JAMES DORNERby Taylor Kirby "James Dorner, a resident of Harrison, Michigan, died sometime earlier this week, but his body wasn’t discovered until Saturday."READ ON

POETRYLATER THAN I THOUGHTby Ruth Bavetta"The artichoke has gone to spines.The window sees only a whisperof last night's rain. The ladderleaning on the apple treehas long been taken down."READ ON

CREATIVE NONFICTIONTHE CARESSby Andrea Bianchi"And the room sinks murky and close and something spins us into the front room and hurls us onto the sofa and then thrusts him into my mouth, my body, spread out sweating, spasming..."READ ON

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