Comments on: The Horror of Waiting

By: Article on surviving the slush wait, the etiquette of being « elias siqueiros

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:30:33 +0000

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By: DED

DED — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 03:59:33 +0000

Thanks, Lorna. That needed to be said.

By: Jessica Brown

Jessica Brown — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:23:09 +0000

Yeah, I’d have to say I completely agree. I understand that slush reading is a laborious, time-devourering exercise, but a form letter takes seconds to send and there really isn’t a need to read each manuscript from the first word to the final line to decide if you want to buy it. That’s what a shortlist is for.

My beef isn’t even with these people, to be honest. They’re annoying, and probably more than just a bit disorganized, and the delay is certainly irritating enough. However, i reserve my most deep-seated animosity for the “If you don’t hear from us, EVER, we don’t want it” editors. I spend the necessary amount of time to research the market to the best of my abilities (I can’t buy a sample copy of every single publication, though I try), I track down editor names so that my submission doesn’t feel like an anonymous shot through space, and I craft my short greeting/bio so that it takes up as little time as possible for the editor while still transmitting the needed information. For them to turn around and never reply is not only arrogant but completely unprofessional.

A great big one-fingered salute to those poor excuses for editors.