Jae: Tin House (the Cutesy Owl)

The current literary article I have is Tn House, Volume 18, Number 2 called "Winter Reading". Interestingly, the magazine's front cover of the owl is also wearing winter clothes, so I guess the designer, Jakob Vala, was being that eccentric with the design of the cover. Skipping the contributors and stuff like that... what caught my interest is the editor's note that promptly speaks about the 2016 election. It wrote, "as I am writing these words before the election, I do not know if the United States has elected a madman who has the potential to scorch all life from our planet. What possible value can art and story and poetry have in the face of such pending insanity? Everything."

I'm never the one to generalize, but I do find the relationship between politics and literature quite fascinating. Here, in face of the possibility of Trump's election (at the time) prompted the note to inform about how they "hoped that the barbaric yawps contained within these pages reflect our times and are also timeless, that they capture what it is to be alive now, and, for those of you reading in the future-" that's me!- "that the words resonate with you as well."

The magazine contains 5 fictional short stories, 9 poets, 1 interview, and a "Lost and Found" section at the end of the book. With the online ranking that Professor Stockman posted, Tin House is classified as Tier 2 and closed as of December 2018.

Given the basic analysis of the magazine, the story given from the literary magazine did not really reflect the editor's note. The political nor message of reflection of our day in age really stood parallel to me as I read some of the short stories. But then again, I suppose I read it with a different perspective than the editor had in mind. Perhaps the editor's note was kept in to provide a sense of communication of the literary magazine to the readers. Or maybe it was in attempts to prime the readers to read a certain way. But with that hypothesis to be given, who shapes the story the way that they want to, the editor or the author? It got me thinking about the path of what the book is published and how different it will be from what the author wrote. Is it "edited" or "changed"? I guess that depends on the editor's philosophy and their relationship with their author. There was always a sense of romanticism for me in terms of writing the book, but now, I'm not quite sure yet on how to feel about seeing the logistical side of publication.