April 25, 2008

Crossing the Rubricon

By CAROLYN FOSTER SEGAL

In the real world, there are three grades for writing: A ("We love your work! We want to publish your story/poem/article!"), A- ("We like this very much. It just needs a bit of editing. …), and F ("The tremendous volume of work that we received precludes a personal response.").

As every hopeful contributor knows, there are variations within even this evaluative system. The "bit of editing" may be a matter of replacing a semicolon with a comma, or it may turn into a major