Chekhov

Isn’t it all the same whether a nightingale sings in a big tree or in a bush? The requirement that talented people work only in thick journals is petty, smacks of the bureaucrat, and is harmful, like all preconceived notions. This prejudice is stupid and ridiculous. It still had some meaning when publications were headed by people with clearly defined physiognomies like the Belinskys, Herzens, and so on, who not only paid fees, but also attracted people, taught them and educated them, but now, when instead of literary physiognomies publications are headed by gray circles and dog-fur collars of some sort, partiality toward the thickness of a journal doesn’t withstand criticism and the difference between the thickest journal and a cheap newspaper is only quantitative; that is, from the point of view of the artist it deserves no respect or attention at all. Collaboration in a thick journal can’t be denied one advantage: a long piece is not fragmented and is published whole. When I write a long piece, I will send it to a thick journal, but short ones I will publish wherever the wind and my freedom take them.

– Anton Chekhov (1888)