Blind Prophecy

Today was one of my favorite parts of putting together the magazine… choosing which letters to the editor we’ll run.

The letters usually fall into a few categories:

1. The angry email – something about cyberspace makes people completely unable to write anything comprehensible when they are angry. One example: she needs to apologize to her own article there are a lot of women out there that do support our community and once they see this article oh well, see if they will still be supportive of the community any more "I DONT THINK SO ", AT ALL !! Not even Margaret Cho......This is a horrible thing

2. The handwritten essay – my least favorite because I have to edit for length (even though we clearly state letters must be less than 300 words), type it into the system myself, and roll my eyes as the writer goes on and on in faux-elegant prose. Usually they have an impassioned argument to make that none of my readers would argue against in the first place (i.e. Gay people are people, too).

3. The self promotion – do people honestly think I can’t see through lame attempts to promote your own website/group/show/business in a letter to the editor? Just because your first sentence addresses a real issue, I’m not inclined to run a free ad for your business. These usually take the form of: I think everyone should support gay marriage, all of us are entitled to the same benefits and rights under the government. At my company ____, located on ___ and ___, we are offering 10% discounts to any same-sex couple who comes in wearing formal wear... Jeez, buy a friggin’ ad, don’t insult my intelligence.

4. The completely incomprehensible – I get 1 or 2 letters a month where the grammar, writing skill and topic of the missive is so bad that I cannot even begin to tell you what they wanted to say. Who gave these people permission to graduate high school? Worse yet, who gave these people enough money that they could buy a stamp? Put them back on the short bus and hang up their pretty crayon drawing on your fridge, okay.

5. The bulk mailing – If I even suspect that a letter has been sent to other magazines, newspapers, or any other media outlet, it immediately goes in the trash bin. I don’t care how difficult it is to get attention for your cause, if you don’t have the time to personalize your letter for my readership, I don’t have time to read it.

After weeding through all of those, if I’ve got 3 letters left to publish in the magazine, I’m thrilled.

Filed under: livejournal by Jere Keys