New Yorker 20 Under 40: Lead Time Kills Several

Haven't had the chance to read all 20 writers honored in this week's New Yorker yet? (Me either.) The good news is that FSG is coming out with a collection of stories from all the writers. The bad news is... it won't be out till December.

Sigh.

From what I understand, every author under consideration had to submit an unpublished work to the New Yorker at some point. I assume it's from this pool that FSG is publishing. How nice would be to have a lap card fall out of my New Yorker this week that says, "In 2 weeks: Pick up THE ONLY WRITERS THE NEW YORKER EVER LOVED, in bookstores everywhere"? Two weeks so it doesn't interfere with newsstand sales, because 5 of those 20 pieces are in this week's issue.
But that would never work, because they could never get the rights turned around that quickly, or the production.
Okay, so the editors draw up this list in December of 2009. Then they and FSG have six months to hash it out, plus three-fourths of a summer double issue completed much earlier so the good people at 4TS can go on a nice vacation.
It would leak. There's no way a secret that big could stay secret for six months.
This is the industry responsible for the mass deployment of HARRY POTTER. Surely there's an ironclad confidentiality agreement or several (dozen) floating around that would suffice.
Oh, it's not the publishing folk we're worried about, it's those... writers...
At the risk of being blackballed from one of the major magazines in this country that still publishes fiction -- they will keep it down.
What about editing time for the stories themselves?
Assuming that these are, in fact, the 20 best writers anywhere for now (debatable) and they have almost all published at least one book (Tea Obreht the exception), surely they have a recently rejected or finished story in the drawer. Probably many! We're not dealing with Jonathan Safran Foer's first ever workshopped piece, "I Broke Up With My Thinly Disguised High School Girlfriend," or Rivka Galchen's Finn/Mr. Schuster slashlets. These are pros, and since the original lead time was about six months, clearly they aren't counting on needing more.

Okay, now someone tell me why this can't work. (Might as well have called this post, "See, It's Super Easy To Publish A Book In My Mind.")