Lori Ostlund hits us with experiences of working with both journal and publishing house editors:
Perhaps it’s the season for such things—taking stock that
is—but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the last year, particularly as it
relates to my writing. I have had, by my
reckoning, a lovely year—eight stories and a book—but I’m 44 and have been
writing over half my life, so my feeling was that it was about time. I came into this knowing very little about
the whole world of editing and publishing—I had no MFA, no writer friends, and
I did my time in the slush heaps. Over
the last year, however, as my luck has changed, all of the editors I’ve worked
with have been, without exception, great.
Georgia Review, for example,
edited with an eye to each word and comma.
Aaron Burch at Hobart was a
pleasure to work with, expediting the consideration process when asked and
offering a seemingly small suggestion that made the opening of my story more
cohesive. Two editor experiences stand
out: Nancy Zafris, the Flannery O’Connor series editor, and Carolyn Kuebler and
Stephen Donadio at New England Review. While I have appreciated their editing
comments, perhaps the most important contribution they’ve made is their
enthusiasm and guidance as I worked my way through the publishing process.
I’ll begin with New England Review since my relationship to them goes back to 2006, actually 2005, which is when Carolyn Kuebler first wrote to me about my stories. After a couple of notes, she accepted a story, which ran in 2006. For the next couple of years, nothing really happened, beyond a lot of “good” rejections. I did not try NER again during this time because I felt sheepish about not having placed work elsewhere, but when my book won the Flannery O’Connor Award, NER took two of the stories and Carolyn was always generous with advice regarding publicity and blurbs for my book. While I know that the slush piles are daunting for writers and editors, Carolyn and Stephen seem particularly careful in their efforts to notice new writers, and I credit that early publication with keeping me focused and not entirely discouraged during the dry years as I was writing the rest of the book and trying to get stories placed.
When Nancy Zafris chose my collection as one of the two recipients of the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction (the other was Black Elvis by Geoffrey Becker), only two stories of the eleven had been published. Nancy was amazing. Really. And I imagine that anyone who has worked with her already knows what I mean. She gave me daily instructions on how to proceed, which involved writing to the journals where the stories were currently under consideration and asking them to expedite, something I probably would have been too nervous to consider on my own. Next, she gave me a list of journals that she thought each story would be a good fit for, and she then queried editors she knew and had me query those she did not. She was always excited on my behalf when stories were taken, and after years of rejections, this was an extraordinary experience. She also gave feedback on the work itself. When Kenyon Review wrote to her saying that they liked the story but had trouble with the first three pages (flashback within a flashback), she first played around with the structure and then sent me her suggestions for where the story should begin. KR was right about the problem, and she was right about the solution. I had worked on that story for four or five years, but I simply couldn’t see either. Even now that Nancy’s job with my collection is technically finished (and was months ago), she stays constantly on top of things, wondering how sales are going, asking about reviews, and recommending the book to numerous people. (Plus, she’s funny.)
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