Back in June I wrote about the odd communication I received from the editors of a Prestigious Journal to which I’d submitted my most recent Tolkien article. I’ve now heard back officially, and it seems my hypothesis was pretty accurate: they sent the piece to two readers, one of whom liked it and one of whom did not. So they sent it to a third to break the tie.
That third reader liked it but didn’t seem comfortable with it being published in the Prestigious Journal since, well, it’s subject is Tolkien.
Alas, this was the sort of reaction I was expecting. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting any of the readers to vote in favor of it being published in the Prestigious Journal. So I tip my hat gratefully to the one positive reader, who opened his review thus:
It is high time that [Prestigious Journal] published work on Tolkien in view of the growing presence of Tolkien scholarship in English literary studies. I believe that Tolkien, modesty aside, would have been pleased with this submission as [Prestigious Journal’s] first entry into the field.
That’s pretty swell.
As it happens, I was able to glean from all three readers quite a few little adjustments that I ought to make to the piece. The question is whether I’ll resubmit it to Prestigious Journal after those are made. It’s probably silly to do so but, well, I sorta want to be the person to get Tolkien on their pages, you know?
No guts, no glory. Adjust, then go for it.
You gotta push this one.
I hear y’all. Am working on it this weekend.