WHY FEMINIST MANUSCRIPTS AREN’T GETTING PUBLISHED TODAY
by PEG TITTLE
Published by McSweeney’s , August 15, 2017
Title of Submission: The Awakening, Kate Chopin
Acquisitions Editor’s Report: Not enough action. Pass.
Title of Submission: The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Acquisitions Editor’s Report: Protagonist lacks agency. Not a good ending. Pass.
Title of Submission: Going Too Far, Robin Morgan
Acquisitions Editor’s Report: These pieces contain a lot of anger, which is very off-putting. Pass.
Title of Submission: The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin
Acquisition Editor’s Report: The premise is implausible. Pass.
Title of Submission: Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Acquisition Editor’s Report: The author needs to decide which way she wants to go with this. As it stands, it hangs somewhere between a story and a treatise. Pass.
Title of Submission: A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
Acquisition Editor’s Report: Way too whiney. Pass.
Title of Submission: Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done to Them, Dale Spender
Acquisition Editor’s Report: Who cares? Pass.
Title of Submission: The Woman’s Bible, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Acquisition Editor’s Report: The Bible contains passages that endorse, even command, the subordination of women, and I’m working now on a book that proves that very thesis. Pass.
Title of Submission: The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
Acquisition Editor’s Report: Seriously? No dude’s gonna wanna read this. Pass.
Title of Submission: The SCUM Manifesto
Acquisition Editor’s Report: This crosses the line. Pass.
Title of Submission: The Women’s Room, Marilyn French
Acquisition Editor’s Report: This is well-written and well-crafted; it’s imaginative and original; it’s intelligent and insightful; it’s appealing and entertaining. In short, it’s perfect in form and content. Pass.
