The Job of an Editor

On Friday, I was able to really put my editor and publisher skills to the test. I am the Co-Editor of Breakwater, the literary magazine here at school. We have been accepting submissions of artwork, poetry and prose since September and on Wednesday February 19th we finished the collection process and moved on to the very difficult selection process.

Getting published is not an easy task. 

Selecting which pieces to publish is a job even more difficult than writing. 

The fate of someone's personal thoughts and hard-work is clutched in your fist and is subject the marks of your pen. Wouldn't it be so much easier to just form yes piles and no piles, grab some coffee and call it a day? It would, but then again...that would be too real world for a college magazine. 

At 11:30 on a rainy, foggy Friday morning, the Breakwater Committee convened. We sat at a long table, with sort of comfy chairs, with water and our pens ready to go. We started with the prose. I am so impressed with the creative minds that this school is unknowingly fostering. Next, we looked at the art submissions: photographs, sketches, and paintings. There are so many beautiful shots of flowers, and there is this one of a lighthouse as it reflects on the water that we may consider as a cover. It is gorgeous. I was in love. Photography is something I love and sometimes I wish I had one of those fancy cameras because I would definitely take more photos with it. I have one of those Kodak touch screen things. I won it a few years ago. It is a good camera, but it could never capture some of natures' most beautiful moments the way that other cameras do.

We took a break and ordered lunch. It was very much like a buffet with all the different places we ordered from: Chinese, Indian and your traditional pizza. 

We resumed our afternoon with the big kahuna of Breakwater submissions: poetry. Annemarie, my Co-Editor, made packets of all the submissions for us to use to go through. There were 40 pages of poetry submissions. I wish we could have published it all, but unfortunately cuts had to be made. All the submissions were completely anonymous to the committee. 

We did one read through of everything, and in our second read through we looked for grammatical errors in only the pieces we intended to publish. It was an extremely long and tiring process, but now I feel like I have an inside look at the publishing business. 

I am so excited to be published in Breakwater this year! I mean, I won't be the Co-Editor forever and being published is such an honor...especially as an editor.