zenhabits Calvin and Hobbes at Martijn's - Bill Watterson Here's the text of a speech Bill Watterson gave at Kenyon College, Gambier Ohio, to the 1990 graduating class. SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REAL WORLD BY ONE WHO GLIMPSED IT AND FLED Bill Watterson Kenyon College Commencement May 20, 1990 I have a recurring dream about Kenyon. In it, I'm walking to the post office on the way to my first class at the start of the school year. Experience is food for the brain. In the middle of my sophomore year at Kenyon, I decided to paint a copy of Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" from the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of my dorm room. The picture took me months to do, and in fact, I didn't finish the work until very near the end of the school year. Despite the futility of the whole episode, my fondest memories of college are times like these, where things were done out of some inexplicable inner imperative, rather than because the work was demanded. It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves. Boy, was I smug. Bill Watterson
The Art of Manliness | Men’s Interests and Lifestyle Submitting to Lit Mags By Lynne Barrett The Editor’s Job A magazine editor is a person who enjoys bringing new writing to the world in a publication that will be seen, read, appreciated, and talked about. This is the first fact anyone submitting to a magazine should understand. The editor wants nothing more than to read something so fresh and powerful and polished there is no question it must be in the journal. Instead the editor, having read 17 things this morning, keeps going, thinking: A run-on sentence in the first line! The editor reads till unable to process any more, goes to get some more coffee, and starts again, resolving not to give in to the temptation to say no as fast as possible in order to shrink the pile on the table, or the long list of files on the computer. The editor is tired and busy. Much of the editor’s work is invisible. Yes, the editor is a gate-keeper, controlling entrée to something you want, but that is really of more importance to you than to the editor. Your Job Yes, you do. Submission