From the mailbag: "I'm writing in regards to your column this week"—the June 1 Nightstand, "A Tactful Question"—"notable for its unkind and poorly reasoned assessment of local literary journals. Could one say that the Paris Review has ever been popular, 'in the schoolyard sense'? Sincerely..."

I intended to write this week's column about the new literary journal A Public Space (edited coincidentally by ousted Paris Review editor Brigid Hughes). The first issue has (among other things) an essay by Marilynne Robinson that is incredibly great, fiction by the somewhat local Charles D'Ambrosio that is very good, debut fiction by the genuinely local Tim O'Sullivan that is awkward, and a simple, good poem by Katia Kapovich. But when I wrote to an assistant editor at A Public Space to find out where it's sold in Seattle, so I could mention what stores other than Borders and Barnes & Noble still have copies, so you, reader, could go get one, the assistant editor asked if I would hold off writing anything until the second issue comes out.

So instead, let me take up this "unkind and poorly reasoned assessment of local literary journals" that I supposedly wrote last week. First, the assessment was not unkind, and second, it wasn't an assessment. Which is why you might have found it poorly reasoned. I wrote, "Why aren't there any great literary journals in this town?" and then I contradicted the two most common answers to that question, and then I listed some of Seattle's literary journals, and then listed journals from other cities that are great and popular ("in the schoolyard sense," I wrote, stupidly; what I meant was, in the literary journal schoolyard, some kids have their shit together and are popular, like McSweeney's, n+1, A Public Space, and, yes, come to think of it, the Paris Review, at least the Paris Review before its recent turmoil), and then I repeated my initial question again. I repeated myself about five times using different words. I didn't write about going to a newsstand and staring at the current issue of a local, supposedly funny journal that I didn't end up buying, because it isn't good or funny, and the reason I didn't write about it was because I was trying to be kind. I didn't revisit the criticism that I wrote about another local journal last year, also not great, because my taking that journal seriously was met with so much righteousness, misunderstanding, and panic that I thought, well, why rip open that scar? I could have written, but didn't, that every time I read a certain other literary journal, which has more promise than anything else coming out of Seattle, I feel like I'm being experimented upon, which frankly I have little time for, what with everything else I'd like to read.

The editor of another local journal I mentioned last week (its title is a synonym of captivate, yet no one I know has ever been captivated by it) called me "to have a conversation, because your column is sad." I want to have a conversation, too. Here's what I want to talk about: Why aren't there any great literary journals in this town?

frizzelle@thestranger.com