Dan Green (The Reading Experience) has a further take on Jacob Russell’s "What Purpose do the Literary Periodicals Serve?" that pretty much says what we little guys have been thinking and grumbling about for a while.
In "Becoming Respectable" Dan notes that while literary journals abound–just about every college has one (even I started one) the readers are normally just the writers who want to submit. The writers published are looking for the literary credentials they get from being published. The writers who get published are the ones with the credentials already of having gone through a MFA somewhere at one of these universities.
Ah, it’s a vicious cycle.
While all of these literary publications sprang from honest intentions to further interest in, and reward the development of literary efforts, they almost consistently have turned into political b.s. that serves not the unloved, undegree-ed writer to get his work read, nor the public, who doesn’t have access to the journals other than via subscription or their library shelves, but rather someone’s resume who already likely has a MFA or Iowa Writers Workshop jaunt or some such validation already.
I’ve given up on this whole submission process myself, though I may try an experiment some day just to prove my point. It involves a bit of intrigue and dishonesty, but hey, that’s prime fodder for fictional success.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I do hope that when you do you let us all know how it turns out. ;o)