Self-publishing

Fledgling writers ought to produce their own chapbooks & litmags & books, publishing their own work (and the work of their friends).

Established writers who are the editors of esteemed magazines ought to have the common decency not to publish their own work.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The New Yorker's David Remnick is the most notorious self-publisher.

He has graciously received—and deflected—my denunciation of his practice of sending himself on plum assignments, stealing the paycheck of writers he should be nurturing, and neglecting his editorial duties, which I would imagine might constitute a full-time job.

In the Spring issue of the Southern Review, Bret Lott, editor of the Southern Review, publishes a bit of his own fiction.

Actually, this issue was his swan song; he will return to teaching (at a different institution).

"Please note," he says, parenthetically, in his last Editor's Note, "I include a chapter from my forthcoming novel only at the urging of certain of my staff, who pointed out that every prior editor, from Robert Penn Warren to James Olney, included their own work in the pages of issues they themselves edited."

Apparently, the unseemly practice of self-publishing is deeply embedded in Southern's culture.

I wish Lott had managed to resist the pressures of his staff and sustain his own principles to the end.

Was he absolutely sure there was nothing better than his excerpt in that slough of despond called the slush pile?

P.S.: I have just this morning, upon arising, finished All the Sad Young Literary Men, which is getting some attention because we are all so desperate that someone young write a novel of some interest.

I noticed "Permission Credits" on the last page, a perfectly appropriate anticlimax, which states that the author, a founding editor of n+1, a fledgling, twice-yearly journal we wish were more wonderful, more serious, than it actually is, published a piece of this novel in n + 1.

P.P.S.: Keith Gessen, author of ATSYLM, reads tonight at The Booksmith.