LITERATURE: Ploughshares – Vol. 30, Nos. 2 & 3

Dragged my way through to the end, and found something of real interest in this edition.  Out of twelve authors whose work is presented, only one has never been published.  Most of the rest are published in their own novels or short story collections or have a list of inclusions in some of the other literary journals, and most of them are winners of grants in fiction writing, teach at the college level, or at the very least are agented.

Yet how odd that only two of the stories moved me with both story and writing style.  This is not to disparage the choices presented nor the authors, but rather gives me something to think about if I insist on trying to break into this market.  If the lit journals and publishers are flooded with material, one would think that it would affect the quality of what is being accepted; that indeed, today’s reading would offer nothing but the creme-de-la-creme of writing.  Now this may be it, and although I think I have some feel for exquisite versus amateurish, and I must add that I fall just outside the line of amateur in my own style and understanding in my writing and have a long, long way to go, I might be totally out in left field with my conception of what’s good and what’s just, well, not so good.  Maybe not only in writing, where I know I’m still learning, but in reading as well, which I thought I had an edge on, I’m not there at all.  Something to think about, along with re-looking into the University of Phoenix online degrees…

On to Roxana Robinson’s short story collection as noted in a prior post.  Professor Robinson had been one of the instructors at the Wesleyan Writers Conference and I was very impressed with her methods and manner of teaching as well as the style of writing she seemed to be taken with.