Rejection slip from the publisher - Guest blog from Erin O’Brien
The most obnoxious rejection I ever fielded was a simple form letter. Thanks but no thanks … not quite our cup of tea … Sorry for the form letter … and so on. I’ve gotten dozens just like it over the course of my writing life. Usually, such a rejection initially produces a short-lived feeling of falling down that soon dissolves into a sigh. From there, it’s a dip in the self-pity pool and then some (strictly mental) name-calling. But soon enough, I’ve noted and filed away the rejection and I’m back on the try-try-again square.
But this rejection differed from all the others. First off, it didn’t include the name of the publication or the title of my story. The other moronic characteristic about it was its size. It was printed on a one-inch by eight-inch strip of paper.
If the size was ridiculous and demeaning, the failure to identify the sender was just plain rude. Not only don’t we want your story, it said, but now you will have to spend more of your precious time winnowing through all your pending submissions in order to play our silly little guess-who game.
Due to my crack bookkeeping techniques (a haphazard collection of illegible notes hand-written on crumpled bits of paper next to my desk), I was able to identify the when-we-say-rejection-slip-we-really-mean-slip publication. Armed with this information and extreme restraint from using overly colorful language, I sat down and typed out the following:
“Getting rejected is bad enough. But getting rejected by an unidentified one-inch by eight-inch slip of paper just plain sucks.”
I printed this out and (you guessed it) trimmed it down to a one-inch by eight-inch strip piece of paper, which I then put in an envelope with no return address and mailed it off to the darling editorial staff of the magazine.
I took immense satisfaction in that reply. The other happy note is that I eventually did place my story “Skeleton Mom” in Air in the Paragraph Line, Issue 12. As far as that itty-bitty magazine, I never submitted to them again. I have no idea if they’re still in business.
Note from me: Kind of reminds me of the Sex in the City episode when Carrie’s boyfriend breaks up with her via post note. Both cases - not nice!
Erin’s sites:
The Sad Writing Chronicles of Erin O’Brien:<http://writingchronicles.blogspot.com/>
The Erin O’Brien Owner’s Manual for Human Beings:<http://erin-obrien.blogspot.com/>
Her informational homepage:<http://www.erinobrien.us/>
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Hi Kim and thanks for posting me.
It’s been a long time since that happened, but I’m sure glad I stuck with the pen. I’ve been a regular print columnist for the Cleveland Scene (formerly the Free Times) for a couple of years and now I’m at work on a really exciting piece of long creative nonfiction.
I love writing!