Rejection 121

I got a really thoughtful rejection from Derek White at Sleepingfish this morning. Mr. White kindly ruminated on his feelings about rejection and also the story I submitted to him for the top-notch web incarnation of the magazine that has been going up for the past month or two. If you haven't checked it out, now is the time to read new work by J.A. Tyler, Ravi Mangla, Shane Jones, Kim Parko and James Reich (who blows my mind every time I encounter something he has touched), among others.

As much of the world may know, Mr. White is in Nairobi for a while, and so his access to internet appears to be spotty. Much of his response was to a hypothetical rejection blog he had not seen, so I think those comments won't be of much use here.  He did, however, give some much needed perspective on rejection from the side of a small editor, and told the story of someone recently taking the news really poorly.  I'm sure this happens all the time, and I will reiterate what I've said before, that I appreciate any response, even if it's those sometimes underwhelming little slips of Xeroxed paper, and I think it's remarkable that we have created this strange pattern in our society in which someone writes something and sends it to another, usually anonymous, reader and then they hear back a Yes or No answer.  When you think about it, this is a crazy thing we do, and the fact that it works even a little bit shows what a supportive community we are in.

I'm getting all sappy and sentimental though. Moving on.

Mr. White also gave me a sort of atmospheric reason for why he didn't like this particular piece and that is, quite honestly, the best kind of feedback for me, whose stories mostly end up being hazy little bubbles of event and language anyway.

Winner of Rejection of the Week: Derek White of Sleepingfish!

(Note: this is not a new feature.  I just really liked this rejection.)

Rejection Post Withdrawal

Like a boy dumping a girl after she makes him pull-out, my submission to the Iowa Review has been rejected even after I withdrew it from their consideration.

Note to impressionable minds: this is not an effective method of birth control.

Also: Would a boy actually do that?

And: Is this inappropriate?  I don't care.  I'm running out of ways to talk about post-withdrawal rejection.  You'd think I'd learn my lesson.

Orange Alert Reminder

I know I blogged this already, but now there's an attractive poster and it's also several days closer, and I'm even more excited.  So, here are the details of the Orange Alert Reading Monday.

Rejection 120

You know that fairy tale I bitched about in Rejection 115?  Well, it was still out at a couple other places, and now it has also been rejected by Pineapple War, so that makes 12 rejections.  It is still out at one other place.  We will see.  My hope has died for this piece though.  When that rejection comes in, I will save it in the drawer of work which will be published only posthumously.  I will leave a legacy which rival only Tupac's.

Rejection 119

Before the new submissions policy for Thieves Jargon was posted, I saw that they were looking for holiday stories. I sent in a story set at Christmastime. It's told by a teenage boy who's listening to his aunt tell his mom about how she wants to divorce the boy's uncle. It ends with the boy walking his aunt to her car and then seeing a man on the street with only one ear.

I was a little sad I didn't hear back from the teen hearth-throb, himself, Matt DiGangi, but Andy Riverbed sent back a twisted response which might have been even better. In the email, he promised not to hurt me, but I've got a knife taped to my calf now, just in case. The rejection, itself, was in an attached document in which he continued the story where I left off. For a few moments, I was like, "Huh?" and then I realized what he was doing. And then I was like, "Oh man, this story I wrote must be really bad," but then I thought, "No, it's just not right for Thieves Jargon and I sort of knew that when I sent it, but they wanted holiday things and I had one, so I sent it anyway."

So the decision I have come to is that I am honored that Andy Riverbed would take the time to write such a finely honed last paragraph for my story. I present it to you here:

“Kid,” he said and I looked. “You making fun of me, you little punk?” He grabbed my hands and pulled me, his dog barking. I was scared, so scared I stopped thinking of video-games. I wondered if Zia could save me and when she did, if she’d carry me home while I floated on her breasts. I had a boner and the old man knew it. “So I excite you, boy? Is it the hole where there should be an ear?” The dog had wrapped itself around my legs and I fell to the cement. “I’m liking the looks of you each second I spend with you,” he said. “You stupid little boy. You going to spend Christmas with me, down in the shed.”

Rejection 118

Pulling out my mail today, I noticed one my SASEs, this one scrawled in what looked like fifth grade handwriting.  For a moment I wondered if I had received a rejection sent from 1993, but, no, I just wrote like a ten year old for a minute I guess.

The anonymous slip inside my lousily lettered envelope from Oyez.

Over it.

Rejection 117

And, if the last rejection wasn't enough to satisfy Mr. Lovelace, in my mailbox this evening rested a rejection from Salamander.

Seeing the envelope, I recalled the thought process I had when researching Salamander, and perhaps it will shed light on the error of  my egotistical ways:

I honestly remember looking at past contributors and thinking, "Oh, Jhumpa Lahiri...Well, why not?"

Should I have known better that Ms. Lahiri and I would never end up in the same archive? Yes.

She's a very pretty lady though, and, for a second, I thought, "Well, I'm very pretty, too.  We should write letters to each other about how much we enjoy being published in Salamander together." While still in this daze, I dropped the submission in the mailbox, the clang of the metal door, waking me and making me go, "Oh, no, that's not going to come of much."

And here, mailed right back, is a tiny slip of paper confirming that Jhumpa and I are not meant to brush each other's hair long into the night or make smores explode in the microwave or put the dorky girl's (who Mom said we had to invite) hand in warm water until she peed her New Kids on the Block sleeping bag.

KIT, anyway, Jhumpa.

Rejection 116

I would like to thank Sean Lovelace for commenting on my last post and saying that I needed to stop doing readings and getting accepted because it was messing up my rejection blog.  He was right and his comment motivated me to go check in at a few online submission managers.  Surely there was a rejection I was ignorant of waiting for me out there.

Lo and behold, I needed not look far.  The first submission I checked on, at Make, had indeed been rejected, and they hadn't bothered to let me know.

So, thank you, Sean Lovelace, for making me go out there and pursue the rejection like nobody's business.  I got lazy for a minute.

(n) those that at a distance resemble flies READING

I just found out I'm going to be reading this coming Saturday, December 13th @7:00 PM. It's the reading event going along with the gallery show, (n) those that at a distance resemble flies. The show is up from December 13th to January 10th in the Sullivan Galleries at 33 S. State Street, on the 7th floor.

Here's a list of the artists with work up:

Madeleine Bailey, Nan Burton, Mary Louise Killen, Christopher Cuellar, Ryan Pendell, Katy Collier, Veronica Corzo-Duchardt, Justyn Harkin, Steffani Jemison, Eunsong K, David Lakein and Alison Rhoades.

And here's an incomplete list of people reading: Erin Messer, Shannon Schmidt, Ira Murfin, Jesse Ball, Mary Kiolbasa and myself. (And those are only the email addresses I recognize from the instruction email I received.  Think of all the high-profile people who's email addresses I have never used that could be on that list. )

I've attended this reading/gallery event for the past three years, and it's always one of my favorite nights of the year. You should check it out.

Rejection 115

I received a kind rejection today from one of the first people to publish my work , elimae. I love elimae and respect that they don't want the story I sent them, because no one else seems to want it either.

Here's the deal: it's a fairy tale retelling and an identifiable one.  I guess people don't want to touch those.  I think it's well written and that it's got good language stuff going on and I guess that was what I was trying to do: take a story everyone knew and put the focus on the language instead of the storyline.

This is the twelfth time it's been rejected. This is my record so far for most rejections.  Everyone who's rejected it is usually kind and asks if I've ever heard of The Fairy Tale Review which was one of the first places I sent it, and, no, they didn't want it either.  If anyone wants to take a look at it and try to tell me what's wrong with it, let me know.  I think it might be drawered soon though, as a failed experiment.

If you have tales of having a story rejected more times than twelve, I'd like to hear that, too.  Maybe it will make me feel better.  I keep trying to think about David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress being rejected, what, like 54 times, I think, before being accepted, but then I remember how ridiculous it is to try to think of myself in terms of a genius like David Markson.

Anyways.