How to Measure Your Ambition and Tenacity Quotient (Michelle Intro) (05/25/2019)

This letter is a recap of the week at

Atticus Review

, along with some extras.

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The fiction team at Atticus Review has grown exponentially this past week. We are excited to welcome ten new fiction readers to our staff! You can learn more about Fallon Chiasson, Marissa Hoffmann, Z Kennedy-Lopez, Kara Jean Manke, Jayne Martin, Bleriana Myftiu, Stephanie Osmanski, Kari Treese, Booz Ullrey, and Anthony R. Westenkirchner on our masthead. Although they've only just joined Eleanor Gallagher, Reneé Bibby, and myself in reading submissions, reviewing their comments on submissions has already given me a lot to think about in terms of what should be a desirable outcome for a submission. With potentially as many as 13 people weighing in on any given story, the odds that we will all love it are incredibly low. Even the odds that we will all like a particular story are low.  As you might imagine, our aim at Atticus Review isn't to publish what we merely like. You've probably heard the phrase "If everyone likes it, no one will love it." There's a level of skill that most discerning readers can recognize and appreciate—kind of another way of saying “like.” But our goal is to publish what we love. And what we’ll love is less quantifiable than what we like. What we’ll love can’t be determined by a rubric.  With a significantly larger fiction staff, I suspect it's going to be a rare story indeed that all of us love, probably too rare to hold out for. I suspect that in many cases the stories we end up selecting will be stories that only some of us love. Maybe other readers will merely appreciate those stories. Maybe some will even outright dislike them. This remains to be seen. But what I can tell you for certain already is that with this many people weighing in, we will most definitely be rejecting stories that someone on staff loves.  As writers, we would all do well to remember that rejections don't necessarily mean that the people on the other end didn't admire our work. It could be that they liked it very much, but didn't love it. It could be that one person on staff did love it, but they got outvoted. After all, good journals are selective. Atticus Review publishes approximately 50 stories a year, and we often receive over twice that many in a given week. From time to time, I see questions posted on social media along the lines of "After how many rejections should you give up on a particular story?" or "After how many rejections should you give up on a particular journal?" The answer is that it comes down to the writer's ambition and tenacity. I've had stories accepted after 30+ rejections. I know writers who have had stories accepted for publication after 50+ rejections. Sometimes such stories go on to win prizes or honors.  The same goes for having stories accepted into particular journals. If you read the journal and love the work it publishes, then by all means keep trying after 100 rejections. At Atticus Review, and I believe this is the case for most journals, we don't reject writers; we reject submissions. And often we reject submissions that are very good, that we quite like, but that we either don’t love or that not enough of us love. Some of those stories go on to be published at other journals where enough of the editors there do love them. And that's how it should be, no? Don't we all want our work to be published by people who truly love it?Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.Michelle RossFiction Editor

ATTICUS NEWS

Are you working on some good CNF?We want to see it! Send it to our 2nd Annual CNF contest...Deadline is July 21st. First prize is $400!Final judge is Ira Sukrungruang.

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

One surefire way to remain classy is to roll around with Feral Townby Adam Gustavson...LUANNE

CHAPBOOK REVIEWHUMANITY'S CONNECTION WITH THE CLIMATEA review of "Surviving in Drought" by Brad Aaron Modlin fromThe Cupboard Pamphlet PressReview by Hannah Jackson"Modlin speaks to the messiness of life and the trials that we all face in an effort to provoke deep thought about where we should search for hope..."READ ON

FICTIONWHEN THE ICE RUNS OUT AT THE ANNUAL BLOCK PARTYWE STAND BY OUR HUSBANDSby Kristen Ploetz"Anyone gets cut from the group and we all fall down because our husbands sure as shit aren’t gonna pick up the slack..."READ ON

POETRYCESAREANby Babette Cieskowski"She sees herselfthumping in silver bowls. She’s told her wombis a liability, marred by past growths, past carvings. She waits behind the curtain for her prize, her creation"READ ON

NONFICTIONA BOTTLE OF DIRTby Seta Kabranian-Melkonian"In the old days, the structures were lined like sardine cans on the foothills. My father built the house, adding rooms like new tetragons on a quilt."READ ON

FILM REVIEWLADY LIBERTY: A 360º PERFORMANCEIN NEW YORK CITYA videopoem by Hans Glick, Ashlé Dawson, Brad Geyer“Lady Liberty: A 360º Performance in New York City” was created as part of #ImmigrantVoices, a two-part campaign amplifying underrepresented voices in American pop culture. Poet Brad Geyer and acclaimed choreographer Ashlé Dawson join forces to tell immigrant stories through spoken word and dance.READ ON

FILM REVIEWA CLASS ACT IN TELLING VICTIMS’ STORIESA review of Erin Lee Carr’s AT THE HEART OF GOLD:INSIDE THE USA GYMNASTICS SCANDALby Alison Lanier"This is the kind of blistering narrative reckoning that we need more of. To turn abstract headlines and scandal into a fierce accounting."READ ON

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