Poets & Writers Magazine welcomes feedback from its readers. Please post a comment on select articles at www.pw.org/magazine, e-mail editor@pw.org, or write to Editor, Poets & Writers Magazine, 90 Broad Street, Suite 2100, New York, NY 10004. Letters accepted for publication may be edited for clarity and length.
EMBODYING THE DREAM
I admire and
applaud Jenny Shank’s affirmation (“Why We Write: The Ham-and-Egger,”
January/February 2011). No matter what happens after she publishes her novel,
no one can take it away from her. I am one of Shank’s “hookers in ratty furs” à
la Fellini’s Cabiria, who for nearly six decades has not shaken the dream of
being a writer despite limited publishing success—I choose not to count
my self-published- book, Cathie Beck’s advice (“The Online Book Launch:
Self-Publishing Your Way to a Book Deal,” January/February 2011)
notwithstanding. Put me down for four of Shank’s books, and thanks for ushering
in the New Year with a cheerful and honest message.
TONY BENEVENTO
Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
WRITERS IN THEIR PRIME
I enjoyed the
January/February 2011 issue, chock-full of stories on young writers. Now how about
an issue featuring writers over forty, or, for that matter, fifty, sixty, and
up? I teach writing to students above fifty in the Bay Area and have worked
with many fine writers—as a matter of fact, I know two serious writers
older than ninety.
ELAINE STARKMAN
Walnut Creek, California
COLD SUBMISSIONS
In light of
Katherine Hill’s “New Tree-Free Submission Services” (January/February 2011) and Kevin Nance’s previous
discussion on pieces that are accepted, then later rejected (“The New Broom,”
November/December 2010), I find my recent experience of mistaken acceptance and
subsequent rejection by an editor using one of the submission--management
services mentioned in Hill’s article even more troubling. Electronic submission
allows for complete dehumanization of the process. Even an acceptance can now
be a form letter, and rejecting a piece is as simple as pushing a key; no one
need fumble to attach a rejection slip to a manuscript or worry about what to
say. The careless way technology allows people to do their jobs—labors of
love included—also allows them to be slipshod with how they express
regret for what is actually an insensitive mistake.
CRIS MAZZA
Elburn, Illinois
CONCENTRATION REDUX
In response to “Digital
Digest: Writers Rolling Back the Revolution” by Adrian Versteegh
(November/December 2010), why stop rolling back at software? Maybe if you typed
on a Royal, you could write like Hemingway. If you scrawled longhand, you could
digress like Proust. Use a quill, and you could become Shakespeare. Writers who
find that the Web distracts them from their stories should probably seek more
interesting themes. When I’m immersed in the act of composition, neither
browser sidebars nor the dogs barking outside my window nor CNN blasting from the next room has the slightest
effect on my focus. It’s when I do my best writing.
ED HEALY
San Francisco, California
BORDER CROSSING
Stephen Morison Jr.
brought humor, insight, and journalistic play to his story on an increasingly
grim political and cultural border (“The Broken Bridge: Report From Literary
North Korea,” November/December 2010). Adopting his own third-person self as
narrator, Morison reminds us that North Korean writers must suppress individual
complexity, and that only Western journalists willing to take a “neutral tone…with
only limited authorial interference” may enter the country. Both positions are,
however, ultimately unacceptable for Morison. His literary point of view cannot
be restrained—thank goodness.
HENRY HUGHES
Monmouth, Oregon
[CORRECTIONS]
In Literary
MagNet (January/February 2011), Arkansas was mistakenly included and Alaska was
mistakenly omitted from the list of states whose writers may submit to ZYZZYVA. In “Writers and Their Obsessions: A Field Guide to
the Curious Mind” by Jean Hartig (January/February 2011), the photograph of Tan
Lin should have been credited to Lawrence Schwartzwald.