College Credit

Dear Rejecter,

I have a yes-but question about writing credits. As I understand it, getting published in your college's newspaper never counts as a writing credit. The but is this: But what if your column gets syndicated? A few of the pieces I wrote were syndicated on the website uwire.com. (This is their about page.) Their kind of like the AP wire for college newspapers.

I write fantasy novels so it's not as if a bunch of Anthropology columns are terribly relevant anyway, but I was curious.

College newspapers totally count if you don't say they're college newspapers. The thing that makes it not meaningful is if you've talking about journalism and you've written a novel. It does prove you know how to write, but it doesn't prove you know how to write fiction. You wouldn't believe the people we get who have 20 years' experience working for the AP and can't put together a plot to save their lives.

If you've been published in a college literary journal with a pretentious name, just list the name, not the part about it being a college literary journal. Literary journals prove you can write fiction.