I am at this moment self-employed as the President/CEO of the newsletter you are reading (subscribe now for only $5/month or $50/year), but in the recent past I was employed as an editor, a job I identified closely with and still sometimes miss. As a writer and small-business owner, I am duty-bound to believe that the stupidest and most annoying people alive are editors; but as a former editor I know the real truth, which is that writers are the stupidest and most annoying people alive, and editors are generally salaried employees who have health insurance. While writing is an arduous and often painful process, like giving birth to a baby, editing is a fun and exciting challenge, like doing plastic surgery on someone else’s baby. Or even just drawing a couple imprecise dotted lines on someone else’s baby’s face and handing it to them with a scalpel and saying “can you get it back to me by Friday?”
LOL, I see the tone of "furious editor pretending that the unworkable draft has merit and personally captured their interest" is a shared cross-cultural language
I teach American Dirt in conjunction with the Groff, Gurba, and Sehgal reviews. It's fascinating to see how college students, nearly all of them studying outside the humanities, have a firmer grasp of the text and its surrounding controversy than the former editor of the New York Times Book Review.
Funny that she almost-but-never-quite lands on what we’ve really learned about the phenomenon of “cancellation”: when it happens, it is primarily institutional and/or clique-based (you might not be welcome at public functions for a PR-approved amount of time; you might have to have an uncomfy meeting with earnestly aggrieved employees; audiences do not, however, evaporate), and it’s also a result of New York arts/media people obsessing way out of proportion over what’s happening on Twitter.
“Cancel culture is real” and “no one is ever really canceled” are both true statements, though one’s telephoto and the other’s wide angle. She’s probably too ideologically invested in the former, and too ensconced in the business, to zoom out, but even the most stridently-SJW Gen Y and Zs I know are able to toggle between the two.
As you said, it’d be great to read such a central figure genuinely wrestling with that distinction — hope these edits land on *someone’s* desk :)
Oscar nominations came out this week; Crash (2004) and Green Book (2018) won Best Picture despite similar "liberal pieties" hype and corresponding lines of criticism.
Frank Bruni might not appreciate the straying onto his turf, though.
Tactfully editing a piece of crap is an almost impossible job. Kudos for showing how it is done! But then again, I wasn't an "editor" dealing with "writers;" I was a "senior lawyer" with juniors. If time was short, I always had the option of re-doing it myself.
Besides my comment below about how fantastic this is (and I've been in the biz for a LONG time) a possible typo-related nit to pick: I don't mean to be that person but I don't know how to message you privately with this. I'm doing it because I can see that you care about getting things right.Did you mean to write "Cummins" in this sentence: "Maybe I’m misunderstanding some of the anger about it, but I don’t think WOODSON was writing a “conservative” book, or even a, for lack of a better phrase, politically ambiguous one." You're referring to "American Dirt here, right?" My apologies if I'm misreading.
I love that you haven't thoroughly edited this piece, thus giving us the opportunity to be editors ourselves! This newsletter truly is the whole package.
This piece is terrific, but I do have one editing question, since it's been a while since I had to edit editorial copy: Did AP Style update its guidelines re "presently," as in your opening sentence? Last I remember, it was OK to use "presently" to mean "soon" but not "currently." Did that change?
Such savvy suggestions for adding timely relevance and, especially, "behind-the-scenes editorial decision-making."
I'd have been "absolutely fascinated to hear more about [her] feelings about the book, those reviews, and your memories of how people in publishing were reacting."
I read the op-ed when posted a day before it appeared in print, and definitely would've appreciated your approach more than the version "simply recounting the events passively/neutrally." A missed opportunity , certainly.
Oh, I adore this as an analysis tool in general. Would love to see editors notes on every article / op-ed / etc I read, if they’re anything like this! It’s fascinating on a few different levels. very cool! I’m broke but still subscribed haha
After reading Paul’s piece, I spent a week feeling grumpy and angry until I found yours. You are my hero. So very Jane Austen-like. Thank you for taking the time to perfectly deconstruct the idiocy and give Paul a lesson she’ll never forget. You know she’s read this!
Between this, and Molly White's annotation/evisceration of Sam Bankman-Fried's recent FTX blog [https://www.mollywhite.net/annotations/sbf-ftx-pre-mortem-overview], it feels like we're entering a real golden public-editors-taking-an-unrequested-red-pencil-to-bad-writing era.
LOL, I see the tone of "furious editor pretending that the unworkable draft has merit and personally captured their interest" is a shared cross-cultural language
I teach American Dirt in conjunction with the Groff, Gurba, and Sehgal reviews. It's fascinating to see how college students, nearly all of them studying outside the humanities, have a firmer grasp of the text and its surrounding controversy than the former editor of the New York Times Book Review.
now this is blogging, baby!
Funny that she almost-but-never-quite lands on what we’ve really learned about the phenomenon of “cancellation”: when it happens, it is primarily institutional and/or clique-based (you might not be welcome at public functions for a PR-approved amount of time; you might have to have an uncomfy meeting with earnestly aggrieved employees; audiences do not, however, evaporate), and it’s also a result of New York arts/media people obsessing way out of proportion over what’s happening on Twitter.
“Cancel culture is real” and “no one is ever really canceled” are both true statements, though one’s telephoto and the other’s wide angle. She’s probably too ideologically invested in the former, and too ensconced in the business, to zoom out, but even the most stridently-SJW Gen Y and Zs I know are able to toggle between the two.
As you said, it’d be great to read such a central figure genuinely wrestling with that distinction — hope these edits land on *someone’s* desk :)
Free idea for a timely peg:
Oscar nominations came out this week; Crash (2004) and Green Book (2018) won Best Picture despite similar "liberal pieties" hype and corresponding lines of criticism.
Frank Bruni might not appreciate the straying onto his turf, though.
Tactfully editing a piece of crap is an almost impossible job. Kudos for showing how it is done! But then again, I wasn't an "editor" dealing with "writers;" I was a "senior lawyer" with juniors. If time was short, I always had the option of re-doing it myself.
Who is your favorite editor as depicted in fiction?
Also, please know that no premise is too stupid for us, your inexplicably loyal readership.
Besides my comment below about how fantastic this is (and I've been in the biz for a LONG time) a possible typo-related nit to pick: I don't mean to be that person but I don't know how to message you privately with this. I'm doing it because I can see that you care about getting things right.Did you mean to write "Cummins" in this sentence: "Maybe I’m misunderstanding some of the anger about it, but I don’t think WOODSON was writing a “conservative” book, or even a, for lack of a better phrase, politically ambiguous one." You're referring to "American Dirt here, right?" My apologies if I'm misreading.
This should get at least two Pulitzers
I love that you haven't thoroughly edited this piece, thus giving us the opportunity to be editors ourselves! This newsletter truly is the whole package.
This piece is terrific, but I do have one editing question, since it's been a while since I had to edit editorial copy: Did AP Style update its guidelines re "presently," as in your opening sentence? Last I remember, it was OK to use "presently" to mean "soon" but not "currently." Did that change?
Such savvy suggestions for adding timely relevance and, especially, "behind-the-scenes editorial decision-making."
I'd have been "absolutely fascinated to hear more about [her] feelings about the book, those reviews, and your memories of how people in publishing were reacting."
I read the op-ed when posted a day before it appeared in print, and definitely would've appreciated your approach more than the version "simply recounting the events passively/neutrally." A missed opportunity , certainly.
Brutal! Wonderful and brutal!
Oh, I adore this as an analysis tool in general. Would love to see editors notes on every article / op-ed / etc I read, if they’re anything like this! It’s fascinating on a few different levels. very cool! I’m broke but still subscribed haha
After reading Paul’s piece, I spent a week feeling grumpy and angry until I found yours. You are my hero. So very Jane Austen-like. Thank you for taking the time to perfectly deconstruct the idiocy and give Paul a lesson she’ll never forget. You know she’s read this!
Between this, and Molly White's annotation/evisceration of Sam Bankman-Fried's recent FTX blog [https://www.mollywhite.net/annotations/sbf-ftx-pre-mortem-overview], it feels like we're entering a real golden public-editors-taking-an-unrequested-red-pencil-to-bad-writing era.