8 Friday, October 30, 1987 / University Daily Kansan Campus/Area There is good news and bad news Magazine editor says new writers have more forums, but little chance By JORN E. KAALSTAD Staff writer Staff writer Although times are good for short fiction writing, writers face formidable odds to get their stories published in monthly magazines, an editor of The Atlantic monthly magazine said last night at the Kansas Union. C. Michael Curtis, senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly, an author and a Harvard University lecturer, spoke on the "Current State of Magazine News" to Good News and Bad News." So many people in the Kansas Room The good news, Curtis said, is that people have become better educated. People now have more time to be reflective and to write closely about their lives, he said. Curtis said the market, or the number of forums for writers of short fiction, had increased during the last few years. Sunday magazines and newspapers increasingly are giving space to fiction stories, he said. Magazines are more likely to publish beginning fiction writers than once were, and they're paying better, he said. better, he said. The bad news for fiction writers is found in publishing statistics, Curtis said. The odds are still against new writers he said. He said The Atlantic Monthly received from 12,000 to 24,000 stories every year, of which only 18 would be published. Usually, stories by well-known writers, such as Raymond Carver, end with a comical conclusion. "In The Atlantic we publish only about two stories a year that come out of the blue." Curtis said the magazine had about three people employed to read and scan from 50 to 100 fiction stories coming in every day. "Although our readers have many stories to read, they can skim a couple of paragraphs and in many cases decide the rest is not worth reading." Curtis advised beginning writers to keep within the optimal 2,000- to 6,000-word length. He said new writers should avoid historical topics, obscenities, ethnic slurs and violence. New short fiction writers should try to capture and write about a contemporary way of life, a certain milieu, he said. Survey finds rural students doing well By JENNIFER ROWLAND Scott Heim, Little River junior, was one of only 12 students in his graduating class who planned to pursue higher education when he graduated from Little River-Windon High School with 25 other students. Heim said he'd always planned to go to college, but like many freshmen, he found it wasn't easy to get adjusted to the college atmosphere. "It was a huge culture shock because in high school I was used to having classes with 10, 12, 15 people in them," Heim said. "It took me awhile to adjust to walking around campus and feeling like Heim has since distinguished himself in his classes, earning about a 3.8 grade point average. Staff writer Heim was one of many rural high school students who pursued higher education and performed well in college. According to a seven-state survey of rural high schools conducted by Jerry Horn, associate dean of the College of Education at Kansas State University, two-thirds of all rural high school students earn B's or better in high school. And most of these students maintained or bettered these grades in college. Horn said Wednesday that the results of his survey dispelled the myth that students from rural high schools were not well-prepared for college. He said students from rural Midwestern high schools felt well-prepared for college. Students from smaller schools have less of a chance to stray from taking basic college preparatory courses because of limited course offerings, he said. But he said the survey's purpose was only to But he said the survey's purpose was only to gather data about rural high school students. The survey indicated that 46 percent of the Kansas students surveyed planned to attend a four-year college and 14 percent set goals to attend a vocational school or community college. worth Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming were the states used in the survey. Rural high schools were defined by the survey as having fewer than 500 students in the school district. In Kansas, 80 percent of the 504 school districts had fewer than 500 students. 14 HL school districts had fewer than 500 students. Bruce Lindvall, director of admissions at KU, sided rural student enrollment at KU had increased PEOPLE WHO SHOULDN'T CLIP COUPONS: PEOPLE WHO PEOPLE WHO NEVER NEED ANYTHING REPAIRED SAVE WITH KANSAN COUPONS! MOONLIGHT BOWLING 50ยข A GAME THE KANSAS UNION JAYBOWL OCTOBER 30 **31** SPONSORED BY SUA AND THE KANSAS UNION Commonwealth Domain Manager + Business Client $30 Glenn Close DAILY 7:10, 9:25 FATAL Mat. Fl. *1:30* Mat. Sat. 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