We're learning how to write editorial reports on manuscripts in Editing 1A. Basically, this involves saying whether the book's any good, and whether it should be published, but doing it tactfully. Very important.

Exercise time, and we're given a couple of pages of prose, and a covering letter. Publishing house is interested in alternative literature, with an international eco-feminist slant.

"I'm gonna walk the rainbow bridge and fall into the water and turn into a dolphin so I can protect all the protest ships at sea so we can stay a clean, green land," states Maata.

I swear I don't make this shit up.

So I sat there and tried to figure out a tactful way of saying: "Frankly, I think this is preaching, clumsily-written bollocks, but it's got 'celebration of culture!' stamped all over it, and the annoying idiots who like that sort of thing can't get enough of it. Publish it."