The Death of an Editor
The Chronicle of Higher Education just posted an article investigating last month’s suicide of VQR’s managing editor, Kevin Morrissey. Allegedly, the suicide was motivated by workplace bullying. The culprit: Ted Genoway.
I’m not sure how accurate this article is–quite a few accusations and assumptions–but the whole scene is just sad.
The most interesting thing about this article to me is the fact that VQR has a half million dollar budget. Here’s the quote:
“Mr. Genoways gradually began putting the publication on the map, hiring well-known authors and photographers and taking on timely nonfiction projects in addition to the usual poetry and fiction. He paid journalists to write about high-stakes international conflicts like the war in Afghanistan and the violence of the Mexican drug cartel. The change quickly garnered both Mr. Genoways and VQR notice from those at the literary world’s highest levels, winning the publication four National Magazine Awards and 14 more nominations, all of which it accomplished on a half-million-dollar budget.”
A half million is not peanuts for a quarterly.
Seriously. $170,000 or so of that, by the way is Genoways salary. It’s always interesting to me how university magazines lament their tight budgets that independent magazines would lose their minds for. I’d love to have a budget with more than four figures myself.
You get four figures?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Thysia Magazine, Willow Springs. Willow Springs said: further updates about the unfortunate death of @VQR managing editor, kevin morrissey http://ow.ly/2pitM [...]
Yah, like, how could anyone with access to a budget that big shoot himself? That’s EXACTLY what I was thinking.
The whole situation and this article is just super sad. The described working conditions and coworker relationships reads like a reality show.
Asa, agreed.