Dear readers, we regret to inform you that OF ZOOS Issue 14, NO THANKS BUT THANKS, will be celebrating the nos.
When we are told no—in literature, love, life—we think of rejection, we think in moralistic terms of good vs. bad: “good” is pedestalled, “bad” is binned. But what does it mean for something to be “bad”? How do we decide what’s “better” than something else? Is that even the right question?
This issue, as editors who often have to make the uncomfortable choice among which works to feature, we wanted to challenge and complicate the question of how we judge the value of work in the first place. If one factor is personal subjectivity, the other is a larger standard or reference point that the literary community has decided, accepted, as the norm for what constitutes “work deserving of publication”—MFA darlings, prize-winners, or simply “best work.”
We love best work. But in platforming the best work and weeding out the not-so-best, we started to wonder what was getting lost in the email inbox or relegated to the drawer. Works that were a big hot mess? Works that went all over the place? Works that didn’t behave? If so, what gems or jewels could we discover from these reject-rebels? And if no gems or jewels were there to be mined at all, what if we just . . . witnessed? In a world of ratings and rankings, could we dissolve hierarchy?
Our motivation behind this theme was to discover writing that might be missed or maligned because they don’t meet widely accepted, top-down standards. One of the unique challenges of compiling this particular issue—which triggered some inner grappling and self-reflection—was that in making selections and curations, we were still, invariably and unavoidably, imposing our own value judgements, defeating the purpose of the call. It meant we were still trying to fit ill-fitting works into our own definition of a box. How could we maintain the credibility of the issue’s goals? As we read, we tried to ask ourselves what we were drawn to in these misfits: Works that triggered an incoherent gut feeling? That we fundamentally or emotionally disagreed with? That resisted familiarity and institutional status quos? That tried to sort themselves out in messy and incomplete ways (but that still had a core)? That packed a particular human history beyond its “final form”?
What finally emerged during this process was the realization that through the very act of making selections, we were still determining what would be “included” vs. “excluded.” There was no way around it. So, we decided to do something different . . . by featuring, in various degrees, every piece of work that was submitted to us. In full transparency, we still maintained the semblance of a selection process: we published, in full, the works we were most selfishly drawn to; and we chose to highlight excerpts from the rest of the pool (with the authors’ permission), arranged in community alongside the others. We hope these glimpses will help (in a small, limited way) to address the paradox of curation and allow readers to judge each work for themselves. You may find yourself disagreeing with our choices!
One of the biggest surprises we came across were works that expressed the full vulnerability and insecurities of their authors. Many submitters wrote to say that they had never dared to even submit these works because they were afraid the messiness within would not be understood, appreciated, or accepted. Often, submission processes become tainted with fear and self-doubt regarding meeting certain standards when the best we can sometimes do, as humans, is to just be ugly. This was the most touching part of our reading process, and it convinced us why this issue was worth it . . .
