LETTERS

Feedback from readers

Susan Orlean (“Talking to Strangers” by Kate Tuttle, November/December 2018) is part of one of the strangest, briefest vignettes I’ve had in all my years as a New Yorker. I was sitting in a Manhattan café, circa

2000, dimly aware—or not aware at all— that the woman at the next table was engrossed in The Orchid Thief. Suddenly Orlean herself appeared and informed the woman who she was and that this was one of the rare times she’d arbitrarily come across someone reading one of her books. And then the author, as fast as she appeared, exited. And that is my Susan Orlean experience, which I hope wasn’t a hallucination.

RICHARD KLIN

Stone Ridge, New York

Thanks so much for “Diving Into the Digital Slush Pile: How Online Submissions Are Changing Lit

Mags (and Your Chances of Publication)” by Michael Bourne (November/December 2018). I was astonished to find out how many more submissions magazines are getting due to the ease of online submissions. I’ve often wondered why more magazines don’t focus on a geographical area, instead of accepting work from everywhere. If a magazine limited submissions to a certain region of the country, they’d not only receive fewer submissions, but they might also be able to foster more personal contacts between authors and readers by hosting readings, critique groups, book fairs, and so forth. Thanks for a great magazine!

JYOTSNA SREENIVASAN

Columbus, Ohio