On "Publisher" by Corey Mesler (13,702 words) *****

Here's a story that in its youthful enthusiasm for literature and life and the female sex reminds me a little of John Fante. Reading it is a pleasure. But it's a story too of disappointment and of reading and the love of it. Our narrator is a man who wants a job in publishing. Locked out, however, he takes a job at a bookstore. And then, one day, he gets a break. He manages to get a job at . . . a vanity publisher.

But what vanity publishers are to writers they also prove in a way to be to editors. There are prices to be paid. What happens when you get your hands on a good book, one that deserves publication better than what you can offer? How far will you go for literature? And will in the end it matter?

I'm reminded of some of the unpublished work of friends and former classmates that I keep in files at home. Sometimes, I return to visit their stories. Sometimes, over the years, the writing has tarnished; what I thought so good twenty years ago, I now recognize wasn't. But other times, on rereading, I sit back rather amazed--and saddened--that the story never saw the light of day, and the writer gave up. Finding publication for good material (and then actually marketing that publication so that it finds an audience) is hard work, but it also involves a bit of luck. But maybe, in the end, even if only one reader appreciates a given piece, the author has still managed to convey something to do something special. Read the story here at the Workplace Anthology or here at Eclectica.