With both literary journals facing financial difficulties in a tough economy, incoming Paris Review editor Lorin Stein announced this morning that his quarterly would be merging with Granta to form a new publication called The Grantaris Review.
“We figure that most people subscribe to both.” said Stein. “So why not give our readers one big fat quarterly instead of two skimpy ones? It’s less embarrassing for everyone.”
Asked about the transition, Stein reported that The Paris Review would be absorbing most of Granta‘s staff. Granta editor John Freeman will be given a new role as Stein’s personal assistant. Freeman’s new duties will involve giving Stein regular foot massages, as well as making many trips to Starbucks to ensure that Stein and his staff remain fortified with chai tea lattes.
The unexpected move emerged when Granta owner Sigrid Rausing surprised the literary world earlier this week by filing for bankruptcy protection, the apparent victim of one of Bernie Madoff’s bad investments. To ensure that the Swedish publisher maintains some dignity after her fall from grace, Stein has ordered several paintings of Ms. Rausing to be hung around the Paris Review offices. Subeditors will be expected to supplicate before the paintings and perform daily prayers.
Former Paris Review editor (and current editor of A Public Space) Brigid Hughes expressed distaste for these surprising religious practices, pointing out that A Public Space would still be a happy home for “the atheistic pagans of the literary world.”
The Paris Review categorically denies all rumors of a merger with Granta. There is no “Grantaris Review.” The idea is preposterous. Instead, with the full endorsement of Boston University and the William Phillips Estate, we will merge in September 2010 with the Partisan Review to create The Paristan Review: a quarterly devoted to interviews with economists, hard-hitting criticism, transgressive poetry, romans a clef, and politics from a far Left, anti-Stalinist perspective.
Transgressive poetry … Mmmm….
Whether or not this merger ever occurred — I’m too busy writing for literary journals that actually accept the logrolling handicapped and virginal (so far as they’re concerned) writers. To whit, this from a Paris Review internist, which I think stands up to the scrutiny of anyone who could possibly require further evidence of the obvious. I send this not to cause anyone to look for bullets or in some other way run amok in mind or body but merely to save them postage. Link to the full post (in which the editors attempt to decry the following, without any effect): http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1m4co4/we_are_the_editors_of_the_paris_review_the/
Please, “enjoy” the following:
“But here’s the thing. The Paris Review almost never takes anything from the slush to publish in the magazine. When I worked there, they told me that it had happened once over a year ago, with a story about an autistic piano player, but that it was almost unprecedented. And that seems about right. Invariably the stories that got two passes would go around the office, acquiring comments, sometimes very positive ones… and then they’d disappear and we’d never hear anything about them again. I think those people get personalized rejections from one of the interns or an editor, which is cool, and I’m a lot less put off by it now that I’ve seen the truly nasty side of publishing through my job. But there is something about the system that’s a little bothersome, because even though all this time and energy is being expended on the submissions, everyone in the place knows better than to take them very seriously. Whereas crappy stories from known writers get huge amounts of editorial feedback and help, and are basically treated as “publishable” from the start.
“I was also pretty offended by the fact that (a writer and literary professor’s) son, a not-particularly-bright high schooler, was allowed to read and reject stories by people who clearly were doing things (experimenting with form, etc.) he didn’t understand. I remember at one point he wrote an R on a story I’d liked, and I called him out about it. ‘It’s weird,’ was his defense, and then, ‘You don’t have to have reasons for not liking something.’ That was not a happy day in my life.”
Excuse the typos and other lapses. I’m sending myself a rejection letter right now.