I sent my last blog entry to said editor of The Shine Journal. As you could read, it wasn't an apology, it wasn't a redaction. It was a re-evaluation. I don't know what I was expecting for a response, if I was expecting one at all, but I would have liked it to be a bit more magnanimous than it was. Her tone was extremely defensive and proud. Maybe it's all the Lamebook I've been reading, but it feels like adolescent behavior--can't leave an issue alone, attacks all forms of disparagement, always has to have the last word, uses too many exclamation points
The first thing she said was that she doesn't send any contract information because it's already there on the website to read. So the onus is on me to find all this stuff? You can't remind the reader? You can't even include a link to where this info is? Aren't you the one who's supposed to be paying me? Is it the employee's job to find out how he's going to get paid? Or is it the employer's job to indicate how he will be paid? I know which job sounds better.
I don't get what I said that was so insulting. The Shine Journal was plenty big for me... until a bigger magazine came along. Surely these people don't believe they're the biggest fish in the pond. They might act like you are, but if you have a simultaneous submissions policy, you have to expect this sort of thing to happen. And I might note that the big fish all have contracts. Does she know that not having contracts is not the norm? That not having contracts is kind of dangerous? That the whole point of contracts is to protect both the author and editor legally? And she said "I won't help you out-read for yourself". What does that even mean?
Before I regretted my words and the result they brought. Now I really don't care if I'm blacklisted. This is not the sort of people I want to work with. And further justifies the decision I made. I have no regrets about putting The Shine Journal on my ignore list. I'm done with this immature back and forth. And that's my final word on the subject.Labels: blogs, complaints, criticism, editors, free speech, language, submissions