new editor, publication rescinded: the case of paris review
The Paris Review is a top literary outlet and thus getting an acceptance from that journal can represent a major turning point in the career of an aspiring writer.
Well, The Paris Review recently got a new editor, Lorin Stein (formerly a senior editor at FSG), and last month he decided to rescind the publication of numerous poems that had been accepted by the previous editor. Imagine that…getting an acceptance and then getting an email (in some cases, a couple years later) saying that your publication is ‘de-accepted.’
Here are the full details of this story.
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Here’s a Facebook group calling for a temporary boycott of the Paris Review.
Apparently there was some kind of resolution.
Perhaps the whole thing was a stunt to get attention —- very cruel though.
teppofelin
August 29, 2010 at 8:50 pm
In academia, we have the problem of dumping a previous editors work. Happened to me once. Unless the editor went nuts with acceptances, it a sleight to the author. That piece could be published elsewhere and it just sat at a journal without any pay off. Grrr…
fabiorojas
August 30, 2010 at 1:33 am
Seems unconscionable.
teppofelin
August 30, 2010 at 2:14 am
This type of thing tends to happen when the previous editor was pushed out or fired. Why allow a ghost to haunt the press or publication?
This case is a little different in that previous two editors of the Paris Review are both more distinguished than the current one (i.e. respect the legacy of your predecessors until you have established one for yourself) and the content in question is poetry, which needn’t take up a large amount of space on the page (i.e. doesn’t necessarily cost much to produce) and where judgments about quality are highly subjective.
Eric S
August 30, 2010 at 1:34 pm
the whole thing reminds me of the metaphor in Hollywood that a new studio head always kills everything in development for the same reason a new alpha lion eats all the cubs.
gabrielrossman
August 30, 2010 at 6:21 pm
[...] on a combination of factors than on the whims of journal editors. While you are certainly not The Paris Review, I hope that you noticed my work somewhere in the press and felt a pang of regret that your journal [...]
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