Diary of a Mad Editor

Finally, after a whole summer of slacking-off, I was able to complete and publish the latest issue of The 13th Warrior Review. In this issue (if your inclined to take a look) is:

Poetry by Genine Hanns, P.Q. Perron, Langston Kerman, Peter Layton, Martin Rock, Lyn Lifshin, Howard Good, Tony Leuzzi, Janet Butler, Michael S. Morris, Holly Day, George Moore, Jessica Reidy, Charles Musser, Farren Stanley, Anne Britting Oleson and William L. Bingham

Fiction by Jeff Blechle, Katie Runde, Tom Deiker, Roland Goity, Gail Francis, John Bruce, Mathias Nelson, George Held, Nels Hanson and Hunter Stern

Reviews of Pygmy, Close Encounters, No Place Like Home and The Winter Diary

and a nonfiction piece by your truly which you may or may not enjoy.

Writer and former Random House executive, Daniel Menaker has posted an interesting article over at Barnes and Noble Review that some of you must read. Unlike many articles written by book publishing insiders, this article isn’t an exercise in hand-ringing and finger-pointing. Rather, it’s a thoughtful, insightful and, ultimately, somber analysis of how traditional publishing works (or fails to work) from an editor’s point of view.

I find his candor to be refreshing. But, I wonder what it means for the rest of us in the long-run as the response to the decline of traditional publishing has been more reactionary than revolutionary. Most of the alternative models to traditional publishing probably won’t succeed because none of them take into account the nature of the digital world and it’s limits — nor to do these so-called innovators comprehend the cultural forces outside of publishing which are contributing to this decline. I have to believe that the future direction of publishing industrywill have more to do with those cultural shifts than innovations in POS systems. Menaker, himself, correctly notes the decline of “genuine literary discernment.” Sure, books are being published and some of them are even selling, but we no longer live in a book culture — at least not like we did generations ago. Ultimately if we don’t have intelligent readers, the role of the editor becomes pointless. Technology just makes the editor’s demise easier, but will not be the cause.

Well, it’s been a year and I’m still unemployed. I’m not sure what hurts more, the fact that there aren’t that many jobs or that I seemed to be unemployable. It’s true, I can’t seem to get past employee screening practices to even get my foot in the door most places. Just last week, one company even told me that I failed their pre-employment exam (a fancy term for a psychological profile test). How the fuck do you fail a psychological profile test? Anyway, add to that the fact that I’ve been unemployed or underemployed for a long, long time and throw in the added bonus that I’m thousands of dollars in debt with piss-poor credit and I’m not exactly the ideal candidate. It seems the more you actually need a job, the less an employer wants to hire you. Seriously, places either aren’t hiring or they simply are not hiring me. I give up.