Oh, shut up

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Feb 14, 2003 2:17 pm

Michael Miner, the Chicago media columnist writes:Many great novels wander through time, but the characters usually stay put. Josh Winkler, the hero of Charles Dickinson's A Shortcut in Time, follows his daughter back to 1918, altering events while he's there just enough to change every life around him in the here and now. I suppose I could say this novel is about a father's relentless love for his daughter, and about how it is that some wives are more willing than others to keep faith with a lunatic.
Dickinson works nights at the Tribune. He sits on the metro copy desk. Copy editors are indispensable to a newspaper but totally unsung, and many are marked by a sense of grievance. Dickinson's the very rare copy editor to make a name for himself.

jmcg · **Posted:** Fri Feb 14, 2003 3:42 pm

And Miner's story continues,
beyond where blanp cut it off:"Years ago he published four novels and sold several short stories to the New Yorker. Critics praised the wry magic realism of his prose -- spare, rhythmic, never in a rush. Sitting on the rim, he didn't have to mutter to himself that he knew a hell of a lot more about writing than the rich and famous columnists whose copy he resuscitated. He'd proved it."That so bad? A plug for a copy editor/(fiction) writer?

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Feb 14, 2003 4:26 pm

No. I was mostly annoyed by:Copy editors are indispensable to a newspaper but totally unsung, and many are marked by a sense of grievance. Dickinson's the very rare copy editor to make a name for himself. ... becuase it's patronizing and wrong.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Sat Feb 15, 2003 7:46 pm

This would hit a limited audience, but the lede of Miner's column is about Gary Deeb, a former TV/Radio critic for both Chicago papers and a TV station, using eBay to sell the letters he received over the years from radio & tv personalities. An interesting tale of a journalistic bad boy morhing into a rather pathetic middle-aged man, even if you didn't grow up idolizing him, as I did as a teen.

Guest · **Posted:** Sat Feb 15, 2003 8:26 pm

I'll be a nice guy and not point out your typo ... nor suggest that you shouldn't be trusted as a result.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2003 5:53 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by jmcg:
And Miner's story continues,
beyond where blanp cut it off:"Sitting on the rim, he didn't have to mutter to himself that he knew a hell of a lot more about writing than the rich and famous columnists whose copy he resuscitated. He'd proved it."That so bad? A plug for a copy editor/(fiction) writer?<hr></blockquote>It's a plug for one copy editor, but it suggests that most copy editors sit around muttering to themselves.

Testy Copy Editors

Oh, shut up

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