WHY IS THIS IN THE FILE?

Nobody took responsibility quickly enough.

The Inland Remark published its final issue in May 2022. Last Tuesday it rejected 614 short stories, 92 poems, and a personal essay about a man who learned to forgive his father through sourdough. The emails went out at 2:04 a.m., four years after the magazine’s last editor turned in her office key.

Each letter began, “Thank you for your patience.” For some recipients this was the first acknowledgment of their patience since the Obama administration. The next sentence explained that, after careful consideration, the work was not quite right for the magazine’s current needs. The magazine has no current needs. Its last issue is stored in eleven cardboard boxes behind a treadmill.

The problem was discovered by an author who submitted three poems in 2018 and received a rejection addressed to her maiden name. By then she had married, divorced, acquired a better maiden name, and stopped writing poems about her mother. She was able to identify the rejected work only because the email included the filename three_poems_final2_really.docx.

“I wasn’t upset about the rejection,” said the author, who now manages a water-treatment laboratory. “I was upset that somebody could still find the poems.” She had spent years trying not to.

The magazine began in 2011 with a stapler, a campus photocopy allowance, and the conviction that literature was being overlooked by institutions considerably better funded than itself. By its sixth issue it had acquired a submission platform, a $3 reading fee, an editorial board of twenty-three people, and a circulation of eighty-seven. The staff considered the growth encouraging, especially the number of editors. Some of them lived in cities where the magazine had never been seen.

When the last issue appeared, the managing editor sent a farewell message to the board. The board was unable to meet because six members had moved, four were teaching summer classes, and the person who knew the video-conferencing password had gone to law school. The founder, Miriam Seddon, put “CLOSE SUBMISSIONS” on a yellow sticky note and attached it to her monitor. She has since replaced the monitor twice.

The submission platform remained open. A $3 payment generated a receipt, a tracking number, and a little gray box reading Received. At an undisclosed interval the box changed to In Progress, a phrase that described neither the manuscript nor the organization but did accurately capture the human condition.

The response-time notice promised a decision in twelve to sixteen weeks. Writers who inquired after seventeen weeks received a polite request not to inquire until twenty-four weeks. After twenty-four weeks they were reminded that the editors were volunteers and that literary community depends on generosity. Eventually, at a time established by a setting nobody remembered choosing, the software dispatched a rejection. The author’s cover letter was never opened.

Seddon has tried to shut the system down. First she had to recover the account password. The password-reset email went to a university address discontinued when the magazine lost its faculty adviser. The university would restore the address if the adviser could supply evidence of current affiliation. He had retired to Vermont in 2020 and now makes wooden spoons. His remaining interest in literary administration extends to occasionally using old issues to light the stove.

Meanwhile, the journal’s unattended submission fees paid for its own hosting, which in turn kept the submission form alive. An organization that had never broken even while publishing was turning a modest profit by not publishing at all. The balance was sufficient to cover the annual service charge, plus a single contributor payment of $25. There were no contributors.

The platform’s quarterly report described the situation as healthy. Submission volume was up, editorial decisions were consistent, and the acceptance rate had reached a perfect zero. The report congratulated the team on its discipline and recommended increasing visibility. An automated email asked whether The Inland Remark would like to sponsor a webinar on sustainable literary publishing.

One applicant, a fiction writer in her seventies, replied to her rejection to say that she had already placed the story elsewhere, revised it into a novel, and sold the film rights to her niece for a dollar. She asked that the $3 fee be donated to a public library. The automated response thanked her for her interest and reminded her not to submit the same work twice during a reading period.

Seddon insists she has no intention of restarting the magazine. She misses arguing over stories, she says, and the strange happiness of holding a finished issue, but she does not miss paying for postage herself or receiving furious emails from people whose work she had declined. The furious emails now arrive without requiring any decision on her part. “That’s the part I don’t understand,” she said. “We stopped doing everything, but we’re still disappointing people.”

Last Friday she reached a customer-service representative who located the account and offered to help close it. The representative was apologetic. Closing the account would delete the editorial history, including the manuscripts that nobody had read. Seddon said that was acceptable. The representative warned her that the writers might want their manuscripts back. Seddon pointed out that the writers had the originals. The representative paused to consult a supervisor.

At last Seddon was given access to a menu labeled Submission Management. Under Close Reading Period, a notice asked her to select a reason: Vacation, Capacity Reached, Technical Difficulties, or Other. She chose Other. A second window offered to tell all pending writers when submissions would reopen.

She typed Never into the date field. The system informed her that this was not a valid date and returned her to the beginning.

“Normal” was considered and rejected.

KNOWN ASSOCIATES: readers, loiterers, people who should know better.

PUSH THE WEIRD BUTTON

A clerk has been notified. They are furious.