The Accidental Life: An Editor’s Notes on Writing and Writers | Literary Hub

As admirable as it was to be honest and decisive, enemies could be made stupidly and by accident, and terrible mistakes could test friendships. George Plimpton, as editor of the Paris Review, once turned down a story from his childhood friend Peter Matthiessen, calling it "risible" - something he regretted as long as they lived. A friend of mine from college became outraged after I rejected one of his poems at Rolling Stone. I told him the magazine didn't run poetry anymore, which it didn't. He never spoke to me again.