A reader sent this one in, and it's just such a rite of rejection passage that I decided to post it, though I've had New Yorker rejections on this blog before. The example above has become the standard form letter, though there is one older version that used to praise the "evident merit" of the submission. I guess upon revision the editors decided to remove such "effusiveness" in order to keep writers from feeling encouraged to send in more of their crappy stories.
Let's take a moment of silence together to admire the beauty of this classic: such sleek lines, such stature, such dashed hopes. Ahh! That tastes good.
1 comment:
That's funny, WR.
My first rejection slip from the New Yorker dates back almost twenty years now. In a perverted sort of way, it's like the first American dollar framed by the newly landed immigrant - proof positive that you are now officially enrolled in the great Pursuit of Happiness.
I kept the story I had sent too. Frankly? It was pretty awful.
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