Speed Dating at Conversations & Connections
by Julia Tagliere
For those of you who have never done editor speed dating, it’s a writing conference activity wherein writers bring a snippet of writing for a ten-minute one-on-one feedback session with an editor from a local literary magazine. Last week, I was fortunate to represent Baltimore Review at Barrelhouse Magazine’s outstanding Conversations and Connections writing conference, which took place April 12 at American University in Washington, D.C.
I did editor speed dating once as an aspiring writer myself, years back. I still remember waiting in the long line of writers for my turn, feeling so in awe of the editors assembled inside. What an opportunity!
Although I was on the other side of the proverbial table last week, I still felt so much awe: this time around, it was for the writers I met. You see, at Baltimore Review, we’re all writers, too; we know how much courage it takes to put your work out there, to trust us with it, but believe me, it takes a whole ’nother level of gumption to sit and watch someone read your work live while you wait for immediate feedback.
So many things were written across each writer’s face as they handed me their work: hope that I’d find it “good enough”; worry that they’d shared the wrong piece—it wasn’t ready yet, they’d missed a typo, they should have changed that character’s name to Delilah, would I understand what they were trying to do? But underneath all of those, I could also feel from each writer their steely faith that what they had created was worth creating. It meant something to them.
I can’t express what a wave of gratitude I felt as I read their pieces: their wild inventiveness, their quirky characters, the unexpected new things I learned, the moments where I laughed out loud or blinked back tears, the gobsmackingly vivid language I knew would linger in my mind for days. Yes, I was the one in awe again, at the gift of receiving those writers’ sacred offerings and getting to talk about them together, even if it was just for a few minutes.
For the most part, we Baltimore Review editors read through submissions on our own or in group sessions during our regular team meetings; we just don’t get to interact much with the writers who submit them. What a joy it was, then, to share with those writers last week, in real-time, my reactions to a beautiful sentence, or a wickedly funny bit of dialogue, or a crazy title that hooked me before the writer even sat down. I simply could not contain myself.
“Oh, my gosh, that’s great!”
“Holy crap, I did not see that coming!”
“Are you serious? Is that a real thing?”
And again and again:
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
It was the best kind of participatory experience, one that’s really hard to achieve via Submittable.
Something truly mystical happens when we share art with each other in these communal spaces, when we set aside everything else in the crazed world outside to enter a different world. Having the honor of those artists sharing their creations with me was a true gift. What a privilege it is to read your work, always, whether it’s in person at speed dating or through Submittable. We at Baltimore Review all know how much trust you place in us as editors, and experiences like Conversations & Connections serve as lovely reminders of why we volunteer in the first place: to share our love of the craft.