TA DA!

WRITE SIDE OUT announces the winners in our "Editors Are Evil" Writing Contest

Writers love to moan and groan about editors, and for good reason. Editors reject us. They disrespect us. They vivisect our work, ripping it apart and sucking out its creative juice. Being abused by evil editors is part of every writer's life, so when Write Side Out offered you the opportunity to vent, you took up the task with enthusiasm!

Who would have guessed that ranting could be such wicked fun? We rolled on the floor and howled at the moon as we read more than one hundred wildly creative entries ranging from poems and prose to ransom notes. It was no easy task to choose just three but our judges, all battle-hardened  freelancers, eventually came to a conclusion. 

The following writers have each received a custom-printed T-shirt or tote bag with the prEditor design on one side and their winning entry on the other. ONLY winners of the "Evil Editor" contest can wear the design shown here, so if you see one around, congratulate them. They've beaten the Evil Editors!

The winners, in alphabetic order, are:

Charlotte Bennardo for her entry "Dear Editor, I have Your Cat."

Dear Editor,

I have your cat.

What, no contract?

To Chow Yung Fat,

I take your cat.

Oh, change your mind?

Your cat you'll find

Once contract signed,

and deal we bind.

Refuse to deal?

A tasty meal

Cat's fate you'll seal

I swear, for real.

Don't want too much,

just fame and such,

fat check to clutch,

then lunch, NO 'DUTCH!'

Ignore this note

and cat I'll smote

fur on my coat,

and then I'll gloat.

What can you do?

Except boo-hoo.

Choose- cat or you.

My book debut.

Judges Comments:

"This is so much fun to read, and I love the fact that the writer wins at the end!"

"I really enjoy the wit, the spare language and the sense that the writer triumphs. I want to read that debut book!"

"A clever, snappy little poem. Two thumbs up!"

Comments from the writer: Charlotte Bennardo

What's more thrilling than having peers recognize my exceptional talent? (Notwithstanding a fat advance and a contract.) I was more than inspired by the form rejections (we're talking triple digits)nasty notes (was it necessary?), stolen stamps off SASEs never used (enough for a year's worth of car payments), manuscripts returned unlooked at (not a wrinkle- do I look stupid?), no-talent celeb authors (DON'T get me started!), and years off my life when I could have been doing something FUN (annual female check-ups come to mind).

Some editors have gone boldly where most fear to tread by responding to queries and publishing my work. I vow to keep schmoozing and smiling and submitting. (And plotting.) To my fellow winners, congrats, I KNOW you deserve it. To others equally as talented but having bad karma, like my best friend Natalie, I console you with the thought that the next editor may inspire you to win next year.

I will, of course, be available to autograph any t-shirts or totes, provided I don't have to use my own stamps.
 

Kenneth Pobo for his entry "Out Of My Cornflakes."

OUT OF MY CORNFLAKES


pops an editor who claimed

“We always respond to writers

in three months.” I never

heard from him. Standing in

a rowboat on a milky river,



he says, “Ha sucker! You

know what I did with your poem?

I wrapped chicken bones in it,

fed it to the trash. Consider

yourself rejected!” He broke



into a laughter of a thousand

mosquitoes by my ear. I

dropped my spoon in the bowl,

fished him out, ate him,



but he got revenge. My belly

wept for days. I got awful

constipation. He tied my guts

into party balloons, invited

several other editors over--



they kept me up for nights

shouting, acting like buffoons,

the arched ceiling of my ribs

shaken so badly it fell. I’m in



the hospital. Doctors can’t

diagnose me. Medical books

have no lessons on dying

from nasty editors. They

prescribe aspirin. I weaken.

Their stethoscopes hear

no laughter.

Judges Comments:

"Perfectly describes the effect of putting your heart and soul before an editor and being ignored."

"Really lays out the feeling every writer has of going about everyday activities, like eating a bowl of cornflakes, when all the while your insides are being eaten away by some thoughtless editor."

"A strong poem that grounds  intangible feelings in the physical reality of chicken bones and corn flakes."

Comments from the writer: Ken Pobo

The tote bag arrived and I love it! I've been showing it off at work. I went to the site and enjoyed seeing my poem and work by the other 2 winners.

My poem took 35 years to write. I had to encounter enough yucky editors to make it happen. That said, I have also encountered many wonderful editors who have made useful suggestions and not held work for a billion years. To the nasty ones who don't respond at all or take forever to respond, I have three words: GET OUT NOW. If you can't do a magazine
professionally, then don't do it. Sell lemonade on the corner or wear a sandwich board advertising really wow shoes. But don't edit.

Of course editing a small press magazine is a labor of love. We know you aren't getting rich from it. But writers make the magazine possible. Without us, online journals are blank screens and print journals are blank pages. And
while we're at it, let's just end this "No multiple submissions" rule. If editors would respond in a timely manner, it wouldn't be so bad, but wayyyy  too many don't. That's reality. Why should our poems be jailed and starved?
 

Wendy Sterba for her entry "Editorial License: Will meets his publisher 1609."

"Hey, Will, my man, you got something new for me?"

"Well, There's this little love poem I'm pretty happy with. I thought you might sell it to a local entertainer."

"Let's give it a listen."

"Excuse me?"

"Read it to me."

"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state and trouble..."

"Whoa! Stop! We've talked about this before!! Short sentences!! Remember?"

"You don't like it?"

"Let's just say it needs some work, but editor is my middle name. Give me that parchment. We'll fix it! (Taking a quill to make corrections). Now, about this first line, am I getting this? '…in disgrace with fortune in men's eyes' that means basically you're a loser, right? What a lousy start! I'm crossing that out and putting "I'm a loser" near the bottom."

"Uh, you're effacing the poetry of the metaphor."

"Well, that's not very "today", but, okay, we'll say you're hitting a losing streak, and that'll make you seem like less of a dork. Then there's this beweeping line. Odsbodkins, I've told you before, keep it simple! Direct emotion grabs the groundlings! What are you really saying? - That you cry, and that next line about troubling deaf heaven, it's the same, right? And so's the cursing your fate line! Isn't it!? So, we've got "I cry, and I cry…" Repetition of the prime emotions is key to rhythmic coherence!! But what a downer!! Let's accentuate the positive, shall we? We'll change cry to try. Sweet! And repeat that again, then there's enough syllables!"

"But you've destroyed the poetic flow."

"You wanna be a man of today or some historic has-been. It's all about fragmentation these days! Now, the plot: this chick's driving you crazy 'cause she won't play on/off with your codspiece and you're bummed…"

"But that's all wrong! See, here, I've written, 'Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state like to the lark at break of day sings hymns at heaven's gate…' See, when I think about her it makes me happy!"

"Then say that in the first place! All that larks and heaven's gate stuff doesn't really work, now does it?!! I mean, Pollyanna stuff just doesn't sell! The public wants brooding, and suffering. Think of your successes! Lear! Hamlet! Trust me, nobody'll remember this kind of sappy stuff. It's gotta have torment! (Scratching out another line) Yessir, that's the chorus! Now..."

"Chorus! This is a sonnet! There's no chorus in a sonnet!"

"No. Its pastiche! So, she won't give you the time of day. She's playing you, saying she'll come over next week or maybe not. Excellent!! This part in your original's decent: 'Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, with what I most enjoy contented least:" But the feelings, not those ridiculous words!! What do you really mean? You're frustrated, right?

"You can say that again!"

"Brilliant!! That's what makes you the man!! We'll write that twice." Okay, its done and its perfect!! Take a look!"

(Reading) "'I can't get no satisfaction. I can't get no satisfaction, but I try and I try and I try…' but this is nothing like my original poem."

"Of course it is! It's identical. I just fixed a few things here and there! Now, there's a little matter of payment."

"I'll give you my best bed."

"Won't Annie have something to say about that?"

"Believe me, the way I'm getting screwed, she'll appreciate the metaphor and may it never give you an iota of satisfaction!"
 

Judges Comments:

"HYSTERICAL!

"A clever concept, delivered with real wit. A joy to read."

"This is so true it's painful to read. The only thing that eased my pain was my laughter!"

Writer's Comments: Wendy Sterba

Here's my bio and writer's statement:

Wendy Sterba’s first novel, “ The Egg Book” published when she was seven, examined the materialist effects of overproduction on Capitalist class structures by depicting a Queen who must endure a life of laying egg after egg while her pet duck takes the throne. Ms. Sterba has followed in the Queen’s footsteps ever since, producing one well-rounded work after another each stored in the grand jewel room of her castle treasury. She awaits the day that her duck can return to its pond and she will recover her magic scepter and once again have absolute power over every thing in the universe.

Writer’s statement: Although some readers may not be aware of the controversy caused by Shakespeare’s will, in which he left his “second best bed” to his wife, I thought it appropriate to include mention of it here. Had I had more space, the story would have ended with the author’s request to use the usual PR campaign, to which the editor would have agreed to publish anonymously under the imputed pseudonym of Francis Bacon.
 

Bonnie Boots says "My sincere thanks to everyone that sent in an entry to the Evil Editor. The display of talent and creativity was awesome, in the purest sense of the word. Some of you took up our challenge to write wildly funny and outrageous entries. Others explored the real pain writers feel when their work is ignored or rejected.

Entries came in from around the globe, ranging from the United States and Canada to Singapore and India. Some of the funniest entries came from Australia. Sadly, no entries came from the American Gulf States, a testament to the disruptive effect of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Taken all together, the entries prove  that very talented writers around the world have to deal with being rejected and disrespected. There's real comfort for writers in knowing the experience is global rather than individual."

And now, here's another chance to be published. Send us a digital photo of yourself wearing any Write Side Out T-shirt and a testimonial telling us how wearing it has improved your life as a writer. We'll publish it on our testimonial page! See all our designs for writers by CLICKING HERE or use any of the links below.

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