New Yorker rejects New Yorker story

How did I miss this cover?

How did I miss this cover?

As a New Yorker subscriber, I am constantly A) reading Talk of the Town pieces from six weeks ago and B) enraged by the stories. The New Yorker is the best place you can publish your short story. Yet The New Yorker story is also its own recognizable brand of lame—the exemplar of what Michael Chabon called the “the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story.” For writers of literary fiction, The New Yorker is Harvard: everybody knows it’s overrated, and everybody wants to get in. I was therefore extremely pleased to read this blog post in which several literary magazines, including The New Yorker, reject a story published in The New Yorker.

Because he is no fun, David Cameron does not tell us which story he sent or who rejected it. He reveals only that he submitted to the slush pile, the literary journal reader’s term for unsolicited submissions from unknown authors. In theory, the only way out of the slush pile and onto the page is by merit. In practice, you should either put the word “erection” in the first sentence, as an alarming number of slush pile submissions do, or prepare yourself for inevitable rejection.

Cameron did the latter, and he got it. His New Yorker story was rejected by every journal he sent it to, and then by The New Yorker itself. It was rejected with the same form letters his own stories got, in roughly the same length of time. Without the words “William Trevor” at the top, a story from the nation’s top magazine for literary fiction fared no better than one from the top drawer of your desk.

What can we conclude from this experiment?

  1. The New Yorker publishes stories with an eye to who wrote them, not which words they contain or, more desirably, the order in which those words are arranged. (maybe)
  2. Slush pile readers are tired and dismissive. (maybe)
  3. William Trevor sucks. (axiomatic)

Besides item (3), I don’t know if any of these conclusions is rock-solid. I do know that The New Yorker occupies its place at the top of the new-fiction hierarchy partly because very few magazines publish stories anymore, and almost none of them run detective, science fiction, western, adventure or other so-called genre fiction. We are left with the genre of “literary,” nebulously defined but no less straitened in its conventions than the space opera.

As a magazine with demonstrably arbitrary tastes, maybe The New Yorker is not what a nation of aspiring fictioneers should be writing for. Maybe trying to write a story like what you read in The New Yorker is like painting a picture based on what you see in The Art Book. Maybe it’s not good for contemporary literary fiction to be so consciously like itself, and we should all go back to our novellas about the cowboy who perceives time differently.

Or maybe we should read new fiction in outlets other than The New Yorker. I presume that your new copy of Tin House is sitting next to you as you read this, but if it isn’t, consider how much new fiction you consume compared to how much you produce. I know my ratio is way out of whack, and that makes me part of the problem. The New Yorker wields outsized power in an undersized market. Maybe regime change is less a priority than expanding the base.

Combat! blog is free. Why not share it?
Tweet about this on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on Reddit

20 Comments

  1. It’s possible that at least some of the journals, and I would suppose this to be especially true of The New Yorker itself, recognized the story as something that had been published before.

  2. “In practice, you should either put the word “erection” in the first sentence…”

    It is also acceptable to merely describe an erection on the first page.

    Other things that would get your shit tossed out of the Cutbank slush pile, circa 2005:

    – Beginning with a phone call.

    – Characters with unpronounceable names (“Xiauxo checked the email from his father one last time…”)

    – Character who thinks something “to himself”

    – Story that takes place in South America.

  3. I spend most of my hours in a college library. I read (at least some of) every issue of the New Yorker. When Tin House arrives, I do a little dance.

  4. Next, I’d like to see some horrendous story beginning with a detailed description of Xiauxo’s erection and moving to a heavy-handed parable about the destructive qualities of racism sent to the New Yorker with William Trevor’s name at the top. I’m assuming writers like Trevor and Alice Munro submit to The New Yorker only via agents, but if we could somehow infiltrate this process and send a comically bad story through the proper channels and portend that story was actually written by one of The New Yorker’s oft published stars, I’d like to see that response. Or maybe I wouldn’t. I’m not sure. I’m guessing that story has a much better chance at publication than the one David Cameron submitted.

  5. Well, I can check literary fiction mags off my list of Meritocratic Institutions. All that’s left is are lawfirms, finance, and public agencies.

  6. Dan, I take it you haven’t read this week’s Personal History yet? The author’s name rhymes with Schmena Schmunham? It’s about puppies?

  7. Is it possible that there’s just a flood, an ocean, of great fiction out there, rendering distinctions between slush and selective channels like the New Yorker pretty much meaningless? Is it really anyone’s fault?

  8. Almost all state’s minimums barely cover a visit to help
    an emergency place, let alone the expense of a hospital stay.
    Besides the tips on health, life, auto, and long
    term care policies, there are also links to other resources around the web.
    The most common of the types of risk insurance is automobile insurance.

  9. This could help you get starrted by choosing an insurance company that would offfer you this oor just renew the one
    that yoou already have with your present provider.
    The market normally won’t change fast enough to make much of a difference in the price anyways, and a decent home will not wait for you on
    the market for long. If your home has been flooded or there is significant water damage, turn off the main electrical supply first and then proceed to
    call a professional water damage restoration company to take
    care of water extraction and drying of your home
    and belongings.

  10. Motor trade insurance also extends to other areas of liability
    than comprehensive pricate policies. If your home hhas massive damages then you
    must repair almost half or your entire home. Its wiser to ask forr the replacement plan than the reimbursement one as the value of goods depreciates
    over time and buying new ones is always more expensive.

  11. 1) Be conservatove about the car you want to drive.

    Some homeowners are entitled to gated cmmunity discounts.
    A lot of elements play a rople in the actual quotation of your respective car insurance,
    some of which have stronger bearings thawn others.

  12. These do not onky give greater security for the teens but can also slash a large amkunt offf
    from the insurance costs involved. Some homeowners are
    entitled to gated community discounts. For others, they buy the insurance package
    covering the classjc car in California when being driven anywhere.

  13. It is, therefore, important tha you try too avoid having any negative impact tto your rrcord as much as you possibly can.

    It has found that 88% of 17-year-old drivers in
    the UK admit to driving through an amber signal as it was about to turn to red.

    Discounted Car insurance for teenagers Car insurance policies tend to be lenient for the students and teenagers.

  14. If you carefully choose your tenant, collrcting your
    monthly rent should bbe an easy, stress-free procedure.
    In financial terms, insuraance is the covdrage or a financial agreement between two parties called insurer and insured of which one undertakes to indemnify other’s loss.
    Here, the landlord would probably be held responsible because (1) He had preexisting knowledge of the faulty handrail; and (2) No sign was posted to indicate the danger.

Leave a Comment.