Thursday, September 20, 2007

Time to Get Tall Shoes, or Else I'll Be In Over My Head

"I am starting to plan our agenda for Friday's Hungry Eye meeting, and after consulting with David, I am emailing to ask if you would be interested in being our Head Editor for this upcoming issue."
-Juan

This is shaping up to be one of my most exhausting semesters as a graduate student (even though I couldn't tell you exactly why). Thus, when I opened this e-mail this morning my initial thought of being complimented was immediately followed by a thought about how much I'd be biting off relative to how much I could chew. A brand new, bigger and better time committment. Whoo-boy!

Of course, I sent an e-mail right back saying that I'd love to. Besides, realistically, when else will I ever get to be Head Editor (look, it's even capitalized) of a university lit mag? Not to mention that some of the stuff I'd be doing as one is the same stuff I'm already doing for Katherine on my work on the various anthologies. I've already got a lot of practice coordinating with a publisher, and I know a better one than the one the H. Eye has used in the past. Realistically, given that experience, it's surely nothing more than I can handle. Surely.

5 comments:

Minion GIR said...

That is an honor. But lots of work. Which you know. If you're going to have to review all the submissions anyway, though, you might as well have the Head Editor thing to put on a resume.

Sending good editor juju your way. From your friendly neighborhood AL and NewsMag editor--who also needs to learn to say no.

Jenny Maloney said...

You know what else is cool about being Head Editor (Ed-in-Chief?) is that you can put that on cover letters when you send out your short stories.

It's just a truth of the universe that people like people who are like them. Therefore: writers like writers and editors like editors...shows you're not one of the half-wits.

Ali said...

It's funny, one of the first things Katherine said to me today was to ask if I'd gotten Juan's e-mail about being Head Editor.
"You should do it," she said.
"I already said I would," I said.
"Good."
I was entertained. Katherine's really on top of career development moves (which just paid off in a big way for her) so it was no surprise she thought it'd be good for me.

On the other side of things, I hadn't thought about putting it on cover letters. Thanks for pointing that out, Jenny.

The One and Only John said...

Every little bit of experience helps, it is helpful to see what the other side has to deal with.

Is it like being on the panel for the American Idol interviews? I've always wanted to do that, I'd try to be like Simon Cowell.

Jenny Maloney said...

That's one of my goals in life, John. To be like the editting world's Simon Cowell:
"You should have your fingers broken before you write another word."
"That was absolutely horrendous."
"At least your mother would like it."
You know, stuff like that on rejection letters =).

But, deep down, I think it's bad for my karma.