"But I've known editors who've rewritten other peoples' things, even poetry, and then published it without getting the writer's OK, and that is definitely a big No-No."

Yeah... I made that social gaffe once when I was young and stupid. If I ever bump into that writer again and he DOESN'T deck me, I plan to apologize.

"What exactly are you trying to say here, Edward?"

That basically, there are four possible results to a situation where you publish anything, be it a 'zine, a story, a book, a movie, anything:

#1: You personally love it, and everyone else loves it.
No brainer. Everybody's happy.

#2: You personally love it, but everyone else hates it.
Annoying, but at least you still have your soul intact. Good.

#3: You personally don't like it, but everyone else loves it.
Great in a way, but you always have a nagging suspicion that someone will discover you're just fooling everybody and you'll be exposed as a fraud.

#4: You personally don't like it, and everyone else hates it.
Overall major suck. You're a fraud to your soul, plus people hate it and you resent those bastards, 'cause you did it for THEM, dammit.

So, make sure what you do and what you publish is true to your soul and that you will stand up for it amidst the slings and arrows of the dumb motherfuckers who claim to hate it, but just don't understand it. The people who want to read the kind of thing you want to publish will find it and love it.

This, of course, applies to most anything in life, but the subject here is 'zines. 8)

"Yep, I took a shot at it and the author in question was very open to rewriting."

Cool!