Foreword

Foreword For the sake of freshness and for the careers of its authors, The Missouri Review likes to find, edit and pubUsh fine writing without holding it very long. We don't keep a vault of material accepted years ago in order to fiU future issues. The peril of this approach is that we are always a little on the edge, under the gun to get out the issue, sometimes stretching our editors-in-training to the limit. But the wonder of it'is that with luck to go along with the hard work, a classic issue sometimes takes shape. Among the memorable pieces in this issue are the Knopf feature, the absorbing interview with writer Antonya Nelson and the two essays—Amy Kolen's "Living WiU" and Spencer Nadler's personal meditation on early Alzheimer's. The issue's fiction is topped off by BiU McCauley's tragic stunner, "Mr. Henry's Trousers," and Dana Johnson's Uvely first story pubUcation, "Melvin in the Sixth Grade," and its poetry by selections from Ellen Hinsey's long-awaited second collection, which is now in manuscript. Editorial interns are accepted to the staff of this magazine after careful screening. They interview with one or more of the editors; then, as a test, they are hurled headlong into the manuscript-reading process. For several hours they read and comment on story, essay or poetry submissions . The judgments they make in this chaUenging exercise are important in determining whether they're in or out. For us, the internscreening process pretty much repUcates the manuscript-screening one in that there are the occasional must-accepts and a lot of interested applicants who—despite their clear abiUties—raise questions in our minds. Our current staff of young editors-in-training is one of the most impressive that we've had in years. Early in the training of this current group, we spent one Tuesday afternoon talking aboutmanuscript editing. They learned that the worst mistake an editor can make, from the line-edit to the realm of acquisitions , is to assume that he or she knows aU the answers. By avoiding coUaboration, by not consulting authorities, whether it is The Chicago Manual ofStyle or another editor, they run the risk of making mistakes. When it comes to the realm of acquisitions, the mistakes can have major impact. What if you personally reject a latter-day "Barn Burning"? In this issue, we feature some fascinating examples of editorial decisions —some of them dramatic mistakes—from the Knopf archives. The Knopf editors usuaUy understood the caUber of the work they were reading, but at the same time they have always had to include in the formula of their decisions the questionable projections regarding the marketabiUty of a book or author. Thus, they firmly rejected a flawed novel, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, then reconsidered it partly due to the author's rising celebrity foUowing her suicide. Their readers' criticisms of the book were soUd, but they misjudged Plath's importance as a writer. Or they rejected novelist John Barth because he seemed too long-winded and quirky to seU. In other cases, for example Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, they made decisions based on distaste for subject matter or a sense that it was simply too risky. One of the more interesting aspects of this feature is that it shows accompUshed editors, as far back as the 1950s, basing decisions on authors' previous pubUcation records. Although they tremendously admired Jorge Luis Borges' stories, they rejected them because the author had been an obscure smaU-magazine-publishing author for so many years. To Ulurninate the Knopfreaders' reports, we talked with KnopfSenior EditorAshbel Green. In that interview, Green speaks of the enthusiasm that he still feels when he encounters a talented new voice and of the experience, which he beUeves editors in general have, of waking up with the hope they might find something they love. In our 1996 interview with the late Wilham Maxwell, the former New Yorker fiction editor recaUed: "On the days I had to work at the New Yorker, I always shaved with pleasure, tfunking, 'Tm about to take the train and go be an editor...