January 8th, 2018 - Foreign-Returned

Dear TNY,

I possess an MFA.  I know.  I expected that shudder.  Let's move past it together.

After a couple of years in the program, there was a group of us boozing, as per usual, and we lit upon the conversation topic of worst rejections/comments from our mentors.  Someone said, “She cut the last four pages and worte, ‘UNNECESSARY.’”  I regaled the group with how my mentor once called out an error I was making in a story over and over (I cannot recall the error now) and stated that if I did it one more time he would murder me.  I proceeded to error again.  He lost his shit and gave me a +500-word-degradation of my writing, my ethics, and my soul.  When I read this, I chuckled, naturally, as I knew he was joking.  It was the first time he threatened to kill me, though.

Then a student told the group that the worst criticism he received was a single line next to a mark about ⅔ of the way down the first page of a story.  It said:

This is where I would stop reading if I wasn’t being paid to continue.

TNY, I’m not being paid to read your stories.  I don’t have to keep reading them.  “Foreign-Returned” shouldn't have been published.  Short list as to why:  Overwrought, nothing happens, poor characterization, agenda-fest.  So I’m not going to finish it.  I quit in less than 1000 words.  And that sucks because I’m at letter #2 for the year and I already want to shred your physical magazine like the Tasmanian Devil on cocaine.  Do you read these manuscripts or is the bar at TNY just a really crusty turd glued to a desk and if one of the interns can flick a paper football over it then the story goes in?  I don’t understand your logic.  This non-art does not compute.

I’m not wasting any more time with this discussion as there is a dog barking nearby and has been, non-stop, for an hour; I’d rather spend my time with that.

With sincere admiration for what you could be doing (#StranglerBob),

Nick