If you haven't yet read the extraordinary, very long editor's note that's been appended to the Ruth Shalit Barrett story, it's here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/squash-lacrosse-niche-sports-ivy-league-admissions/616474/

I have a few things I want to say about this. First, I believe - broadly - in second chances. It should theoretically be possible to fuck up badly in your 20s and try again years later. (Though, uh, perhaps not when your fabulism was also in service of racism, like Shalit's.)

But I want to talk about FIRST chances, and who gets them.

There are so many amazing writers out there yelling "put me in, coach!" So many waiting for a chance. A small-mag editor, years ago, told me that the only thing I needed was "to get put in the game," and that fueled me.

But editors need to see the potential, need to look for it. Because the truth is, my best stories have been the ones I wrote for $2/word. I didn't have the luxury to treat a 50-cent/word story like a $2/word story, I had to do the best I could with the time/money equation I had.

That fact is amplified for so many people with fewer advantages that I've had. Resources and time make our work better, and so it follows that people who have more resources and time from the outset will get ahead faster, more easily.

We will get to read so many amazing stories from people with so many more diverse perspectives, with access to different networks and ideas, the more we can expand who gets that first chance. There are a LOT of people who are capable of writing a 10,000 word cover story.

(This is a knock on the whole system, not The Atlantic specifically, by the way.)

I'm still here and in the fray (barely, lately, ha) because some editors saw the potential in a story I wrote in a day or a week, back when I was cranking out every story I could sell, and decided to see what I could do with a couple of months to read, think, report, and write.

I wish for that chance for so many other folks.