12:39 PM
From "Among the Unsavvy", a great piece in today's Morning News by John Warner:

Q: Have you ever rescued anything notable from the slush pile?

A: Someone who’s submitting themselves directly to the fiction editor probably isn’t all that savvy about publishing and probably not about writing either. Though I’m sure there are exceptions to that. Particularly in poetry. A lot of poetry comes from the slush pile, because poets don’t have agents.

Despite the kernel of sad truth in that statement (though I agree with Warner that the "probably not about writing either" bit goes a little too far), I find myself firmly in Warner's camp. I hope that the New Yorker takes him up on his challenge -- I'd watch "Great American Writer" three times before I'd watch "American Idol" once.