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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Pride of The Potomac -- Not!

The anonymous LROD reader submitting this form letter for our consideration was duly insulted by the lack of pride this literary magazine takes in the professional business of rejecting people. The rejected party offers up this amusing rant by way of a critique:

"The slip that came back in my SASE (the expensive kind with self-sealing back that editors are supposed to prefer) was so sloppily folded that it looked more like they tucked a paper airplane in there. I thought I was pulling out some kind of origami project at first. It was all bent up at odd angles like the guy was rushing to get out of the office before he missed his bus. Seriously, you could just feel the seething resentment and indifference of whatever lackey whose job it was to seal the SASE and let me know that they've tossed my stuff.Yes, my submission doesn't suit their current needs. But I may wish to order our new issue, which demonstrates their new look and vision. Wha--?

In case it needs pointing out, this slip looks like it was put together with Print Shop, that ancient sign-making software for the PC that was in use like 20 years ago, back in the day of dot-matrix printers. This is insane! After being treated to this fold-out project, I may wish to order? New look and vision? I don't even want to know -- man, I've got stories to sell, readers to reach!

2 comments:

Judy Croome | @judy_croome said...

LOL, this is even funnier than the rejection I received which was my own query letter with a rubber stamp on saying '...to save time because we get so many queries we've used your own letter blah blah'. That's the first rejection that's ever made me laugh out loud!

Anonymous said...

This is great. I think by keeping up a positive attitude, you greatly improve your chances of eventual success. And you've made me laugh!