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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Flannery Tomfoolery

It's probably a bad omen that my manuscript was among those lost in transit to the judge of the Flannery O'Connor Fiction Short Fiction competition and had to be replaced. I felt bad for the person who sent this email and had to deal with the administrative nightmare that probably ensued. An oath: if I do win the Flannery O'Connor prize (which I won't), I am going to call up Rosemary Ahern and read her my novel over the phone page by page until she agrees to publish me.

3 comments:

The Quoibler said...

Wow. I worked in sales/marketing for many years and this is one of the biggest nightmares I can imagine. I bet some heads rolled as a result of this gaffe!

Quoiberina

P.S. I wrote about rejection today on my blog: www.recessforwriters.blogspot.com. Stop by! :)

Anonymous said...

Dude, your Rosemary Ahern thing is getting kind of creepy. You're like an abused dog who will latch on to anyone who shows them a drop of kindness. Unfortunately, I can tell you you're reading WAY too much into Ahern's rejection, because in this business, even the nicest rejection is still likely to be a partial form rejection. My collection of short stories was turned down by her, and she compared my writing to Joyce Carol Oates. Two of my friends were also rejected by her, and I showed your letter to them. Their rejections were near-identical to both yours and mine. One friend got compared to O. Henry, and the other was compared to...surprise!...Flannery O'Connor. So please, please, quit it with the creepy and unsettling Rosemary fixation, or she might slap a restraining order on your sad ass.

Writer, Rejected said...

ODude: I am not seriously stalking her; it's just a humorous/slighlty creepy metaphor for getting published.

But way more importantly, can you send me all three of the rejection letters for anonymous posting? Please? I'll pay you $50.00.

Anyway, thanks for the information. It is priceless. I have to say, it made me laugh at myself, which I truly appreciate!