Publisher wank
I originally posted this in my own Live Journal as victoriacatlady, asking if a member of fandom_wank could post it there. I got a response that fandom_wank is suspended and has been moved to www.journalfen.net, so I'm trying to post it there. I don't know if it will accept it without my having a Journalfen account, but we'll see. [Edit: no, it didn't, so I created one.]

http://www.nightshadebooks.com/discus/messages/53/3159.html

In summary, there is, or was, an SF magazine named "Brutarian." The editor either resigned or was fired and posted a public notice that the magazine was defunct. The publisher of the magazine responded that it was still going and anyone who had been accepted previously was still going to be published in it. That was back in September. So far, so good.

At the end of November, one writer posted that in fact she had been told that her story would not be published after all, in spite of the publisher's public word that it would be. She added that she'd heard from other writers who also were not being published after previously having been accepted.

At the end of December, the publisher responded with a couple of patronizing postings saying, in essence, that a story was not accepted unless *he* said it was accepted or unless the editor had presented the writer with "a legally executed document in which I made him [the editor] my agent."

How foolish of a writer to think that the editor of a magazine has the authority to accept a story she has written.