Since we're talking about sending out stuff, I have a question.

I have a piece I wrote last summer and finished up recently. Just got some editorial comments back from two friends, and I'll be revising it this weekend. It's fictional, mostly, but it's odd and I don't know what to do with it.

It's the story of a multi-pitch rock climb in central New York. Second person, present tense, not much narrative line other than the experience itself.

I wrote it basically just to get across the physical/mental/emotional response of what it is like to be 200 feet in the air in a hanging belay while the ladybugs crawl across the cliff face and the turkey vultures spiral above you, wondering how long it'll take your partner to make the next gear placement.

Thing is, it's fictional in that I haven't climbed in this place for 7 years and that I made up the route, the pitches, the partner, the day. It's not fictional in that all the moves, the emotions, what I think and feel about climbing -- all that is real. In some ways it's intensely personal even though the reader never even learns the narrator's name.

So the question is, what do I do with this thing? It's about 7000 words, still needs some work, but... t shrugs helplessly

who reads poets without an MBA

I'm just popping in briefly to say that this typo (it is a typo-- you weren't being tongue-in-cheek, right?) is rather charming, in a scary way. If business degrees were the next thing necessary to publish poetry....

Uh, anyway, though, I'd say that from what I've always heard people say, MFA degrees don't really do anything to advance your career, per se. They're more about getting better as a writer through that practice, and networking. And one from the University of Smalltown is much different from one from, la, Columbia. ITO reputation-boosting. I really wouldn't weight them very much.

Ooops. Yup, it's a thinko.

I was actually shorthanding MFA for networking. If an editor only publishes poets s/he knows through the poetry network (including people who overlap in workshops and MFA programs and such), then there's not much point in submitting to that editor. Same as if an editor doesn't like limericks, don't bother sending them there. (Can you publish a limerick? Do you want to?)

SWAYla, I don't know if you got an answer elsewhere, but your piece sounds like it qualifies as fiction to me. But it's of a problematic length, unfortunately--over 5000 words is a tough sale in many markets. If there's any way you can trim it down, it would only help.

As far as specific markets, perhaps there are climbing magazines that publish fiction? That might be a good place to start.

But it's of a problematic length, unfortunately--over 5000 words is a tough sale in many markets

I'm sure I could trim it down, that's not really a problem. I just don't know who'd be interested in it.

And I dunno -- climbing magazines tend to publish Exciting!Reports! of mountaineering adventures and such things. Not fairly simple and undramatic stories about a day at the local crag. It'd be like MotorSports magazine running an article about driving to the mall, you know?

I'm thinking there should be some general-interest women's magazine that might get a kick out of it... ::sigh::

Consuela, seconding what David said. And what in hell is the magazine Jon Krakauer was writing for, when they sent him to Everest on the disaster climb in '96?

That's Outside magazine, Deb. They publish people like Jon Krakauer and Sebastian Junger and E. Annie Proulx and Tim Cahill. And they don't publish fiction. Like, ever.

Signed, Outside subscriber since 1994.

Heh. A lot of "Into Thin Air" was fiction, if you believe the Texan guy who survived the climb. (I adored the book, BTW)

But what I was thinking is, I wonder if they could recommend publications that would be interested, especially to a 9-year subscriber?

I have nothing, Suela. Again. Bitch doesn't publish fiction. Ever. I don't think there are general-interest women's magazines any more; just fashion, motherhood, and crafts. (Three separate genres that blur.)

Ever. I don't think there are general-interest women's magazines any more; just fashion, motherhood, and crafts.

Well, there are a few sports-related magazines, like "Shape" and SI: Women (are they still around?), but again, not covering fiction.