An excerpt from my memoir was accepted by a journal. I had queried the editor and asked if it would be okay to send an excerpt from my memoir, since they normally do not publish memoir, but have published nonfiction in the past. The editor said sure, send it to my fiction editor. I send it to the fiction editor and he writes me back, accepting it. I write him back, and remind him it’s memoir, that I’d like it to be noted as such. In my cover letter, I classified it as “memoir.” So fiction editor writes me back and says but we don’t publish memoir, reminds me that I sent it to the fiction editor. I write him back and say that I had queried head honcho editor and asked if it would be okay. Head honcho had said “Yes” and told me to submit it to fiction editor. Fiction editor asks if it’s okay to publish it as “autobiographical fiction.” I write fiction editor back and say, “No. It’s memoir.” Fiction editor says well either publish it as such or pull it because we don’t publish nonfiction.
Is it just me or is this sort of screwed up? With all of the controversy surrounding this genre, I wonder why editors have no problem taking memoir and turning it into fiction? The same attitude certainly wouldn’t be tolerated for the opposite situation. I published my first excerpt as fiction a few years ago, only because I didn’t know what I was doing, had never published any prose, and was just so happy to get it accepted as anything. But now I’m much more informed about this genre. I ended up pulling the excerpt, but the editor wrote me back and said they’d had a change of heart and would reconsider it as nonfiction. A different editor friend of mine told me that it would be fine if I published it as fiction. In acknowledgements, I’d simply put a note that it had been previously published in a “different format.” But once again, who’s to say it won’t come back to haunt the memoir writer later on?
The market for memoir publishing is fairly slim, at least compared to the markets for poetry and fiction. Yet memoir writers need an even stronger platform when they get to an agent or publisher. One way to build a platform is by publishing. I don’t know where I’m really going with this. I find the entire thing frustrating and annoying.
Any thoughts?
Is it just me or is this sort of screwed up? With all of the controversy surrounding this genre, I wonder why editors have no problem taking memoir and turning it into fiction? The same attitude certainly wouldn’t be tolerated for the opposite situation. I published my first excerpt as fiction a few years ago, only because I didn’t know what I was doing, had never published any prose, and was just so happy to get it accepted as anything. But now I’m much more informed about this genre. I ended up pulling the excerpt, but the editor wrote me back and said they’d had a change of heart and would reconsider it as nonfiction. A different editor friend of mine told me that it would be fine if I published it as fiction. In acknowledgements, I’d simply put a note that it had been previously published in a “different format.” But once again, who’s to say it won’t come back to haunt the memoir writer later on?
The market for memoir publishing is fairly slim, at least compared to the markets for poetry and fiction. Yet memoir writers need an even stronger platform when they get to an agent or publisher. One way to build a platform is by publishing. I don’t know where I’m really going with this. I find the entire thing frustrating and annoying.
Any thoughts?
