Getting Up To Date On A Couple Of Things

[poliphilo]

We'd been wondering what was going on next door- where building work seems to have been abandoned- so we were glad to catch Shiraz on a flying visit to his half-completed home. He gave us a tour of the site- nice new windows, chimney breast gone, the upstairs ceilings ripped out- while fulminating about how he's going to "fucking kill" his builder- who seems to have taken the money, done half the work, then downed tools and asked for more.

I got an email yesterday from K.A. Hunter- with whom, at the beginning of the last decade, I edited a short-lived magazine called the Carriage House Review (she was the gaffer; I was the assistant editor and got to winnow vast quantities of short fiction).  It was a transatlantic relationship- conducted entirely by post and email- and when the magazine folded- as it did after three issues- correspondence lapsed and I never learned what exactly had gone wrong. It was a good little magazine while it lasted and I was proud of it.  Maybe now I'll get the full story. 

Comments

[sovay]

K.A. Hunter- with whom, at the beginning of the last decade, I edited a short-lived magazine called the Carriage House Review (she was the gaffer; I was the assistant editor and got to winnow vast quantities of short fiction).

Stop doing this to my brain! You rejected a story of mine in 2002! It's a small, small @%#&^*% . . .

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh shit... I'm sorry....!

[sovay]

I'm sorry....!

It's all right: the story was later accepted by Alchemy, making me a friend of the editor to this day. But now I'm waiting to see who else I knew years ago and didn't know it. I mean, I remember the poem you had written about the magazine's e-mail woes.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So it all came right in the end.

I suppose it's not altogther surprising that people who write and are active on the Internet should cross paths more than once, but even so....

[brttvns.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you were assistant editor - interesting to me at least. A friend and I established a poetry and prose mag at the start of the year and have almost finishedcompiling the first issue. I'd appreciate any advice you felt would help.
As an editor were you always sure of your judgement?

Cheers

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Was I sure of my judgement? Yes- pretty much. I think you have to be to do the job. I was looking for good writing- and there's not a lot of that about- so most of the material immediately disqualified itself. Choosing between the quality pieces is where it got tricky. I'd like to think we only published good stories, but I'm sure we turned down some that were equally worthy. My editor and I didn't always agree. She had the final word- and some of the stories I liked a lot didn't make the final cut.

[brttvns.livejournal.com]

Thanks - yes, sounds arrogant to say 'I know shit when it's under my nose' and if a piece doesn't grab you from the off or fails to satisfy after a couple of reads then I hope that means it has proven itself unworthy of inclusion.
I'm hoping our judgement is sound, but we will soon find out when we send it out for review - *Yikes*

Cheers

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's not arrogance- it's a belief in your own ability to do the job.

All the best with the mag!