Whale Time: Re: Avram

Re: Avram
Life Awake: Part 3 of 5

all stories by Avram Klein

The Name Thing

[Editor's Note: I had initially changed the name of Merva to Rachel from the jdate piece above to protect the innocent. It made Avram unhappy.]

When I was in college I submitted a 30 page novella to a literary magazine called The Rebel and was given third place without the judge reading my whole story. The beginning of the story had all these references to things we learned in lit class, but the rest of the story was mostly bloody sex scenes.

So they wanted me to change the story or at least a lot of the unneeded imagery and I was like, no. And they threatened to pull the story and I knew they couldn't because they had already gotten a guy to cut plates for the print illustrations and would have to pay for the plates and wouldn't have enough time to allow the illustrator they had awarded the story to make new plates for a different third-place winner, which they didn't have anyway because there was this kid who was like a hot shot writer who wanted to win first, second, and third prize and I guess they weren't supposed to give him all the winnings, most likely because the illustrators would complain.

So I just got into like a swearing match with the editors and told them to pull it if they didn't like it and then left and didn't show my face back there again until it was time to pick up my free magazines. So then I would hear all these rumors for the rest of the semester like, oh Jonny Dale was like totally pissed because he wanted first, second, and third place because he's the only real writer on campus. And my professors would give lectures in class talking about how new writers are a waste of time because they hold onto their writing too closely and don't understand that that's not what it's about and they should do what the editor tells them.

So I knew you would be excited when I wouldn't change the name.

Go to Part 4