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You know when you get in the business of creative work and become the Editor in Chief of a publication, you're going to confront this issue sooner or later.  This morning, we posted a piece by one of our writers that used the F word in its final salutation.  Almost immediately, we had one response, then another, and a full blown discussion between readers on our Facebook page.  (How come you guys didn't use our handy comments feature?)

I was first confronted with the whole expletives v. no expletives decision in our second issue when writer Dan Carson submitted his piece about his own transformation working for Teach America.  I read it several times.  I played with the curse words he used, trying substitutes and euphemisms - he'd even submitted that he understood if I wasn't wholly keen on keeping them.  In the end, I decided to keep most of them.  I did change a couple.  The bottom line was that the ones I kept were contiguous with the story being told.  The one I changed out for a less abrasive word, I changed because I felt the original word evoked the wrong impression of what Dan was really trying to convey.  I made an editorial choice.

During that process with Dan's piece, I realized my own personal policy was that I would not compromise a writer's voice to avoid the use of expletives.  If however, the expletive seems slanderous, misused, or interrupts the energy of the story, I will edit it just like any other word or phrase. 

This hasn't just come up with expletives.  It's come up with the use of other words and ideas that are sensitive to a broad audience, such as the word God and the subject of religious belief.  My partner actually reviewed a book that, though outside of our general comfort zone, dealt specifically with religious matter, to promote the author's book signing event.  It was a Christian book.  (And in the spirit of full disclosure, I am Episcopalian.)  Later, the word God was used in a piece.  We took it out.  It didn't feel right in the flow of the larger piece, so in the interest of what we as editors felt the overall message of the piece was, we removed the very miniscule part of the piece that didn't work, and it just happened to contain a reference to God.

This is the job of an editor:  to make the piece work.  The piece we published today contained the most inflammatory F Word.  It's a really hard word for some people.  As I edited the piece, I knew, for instance, that my own mother and mother in law would read it -- two people who hate that word.  But I also knew that they have watched shows like The Sopranos, a show in which nearly every other word is a harsh expletive, and though they cringe and think those people are gross and disgusting, they understand that what's being expressed is part of the larger story - these are harsh, crude people who KILL people for a living. 

Happy New Year in and of itself is a nice expression.  We say it all the time.  To add the expletive into the phrase adds the sort of zeal and fervor that the author expressing in his latest teaser about the music festival he is hard at work trying to build.  He's a man of my own generation, and we, in my generation, for better or worse, use expletives freely, as though we were saying the word strawberries.  It's not everyone in our generation, but it's more common place.  I tried in my mind to say Happy Freakin' New Year... Happy Frakkin' New Year... Happy Funky New Year... but it just didn't work.  So, I made the decision, as an editor, as Editor in Chief of Pavo Magazine, to keep the original text. 

If we were really in the business of censorship, this would be an entirely different conversation.  Censorship involves removing words or phrases because they are not in keeping with OUR image or rep.  Censorship means deleting things because they do not say what WE want to say.  That simply isn't our job, at Pavo.  We are the voice of our community.  We want to be your voice, as authentically as possible, and get your message across.

P.S. - Our next issue's theme is Sanctuaries.  You can bet it will be chock full of the word God and lots of different religions.  And probably very few expletives.  Until then, Peace to all of you in this Holiday Season.  (The root of the word Holiday is Holy.  But don't tell anyone!)

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