This one is pretty and blue with a little inked "sorry" on the bottom. Nice touch.
54 comments:
Anonymous
said...
It's sad thst this qualifies as a "good" rejection because they actually paid a fraction of a cent more for colored paper and an intern spent a fraction of a second writing "Sorry."
By the way, I received a rejection from Cairn shaped like a bookmark. It was even printed on card stock like most cheap bookmarks. I don't have a scanner, and I'd already crumpled it up and thrown it away before I thought of sending it to you. In the words of the Massachussetts Review: "Sorry."
What's with the rejections where they write "thank you" or "thanks" on them?
It kind of gets me mad. I know they are writing this to kind of let you know that they actually read and looked at your stuff, better than a blank form, ok, and better than the email form that all these people using submission manager do, ok, but what exactly does it mean? Well take it as face value. They are thanking you for sending in. But it does NOT mean to send more. Nope. So I almost hate the "thank yous" more than the blank forms, because if they took the time to write it and didn't write "send more" and didn't think of the submission enough to say anything about it at all, then I think that's a bad thing. I kind of feel the same way about the "sorry" notes. Same goes for the notes where the editor scrawls his/her initials on the form. Ok, it's not a blank form, it's not a lame impersonal autoreply done by clicking a button on the Submissions Manager software, but it says nothing about me or my submission or what they felt about either.
"to kind of let you know that they actually read and looked at your stuff" No, it doesn't mean that at all. It means they have a formula for rejections -- they're being polite about it. It's likely that your work was merely proceseed, not read.
What upsets me most about this rejection is that it is printed on blue with black ink, a combination that can be very hard to read if the blue is darker than robin's egg. And did you notice that the logo MR is HUGE above the name of the journal? MR stands for moronic reject; they want you to get the message loud and clear by putting it at the top. "Massachusetts Review" is just a cover for the real meaning of MR.
And sorry to go on with this, but I can't get over the hubris, the sheer hubris of writing "sorry" in cursive. They know damn well that cursive is only taught at elite MFA programs. Writers who write without advanced degrees will just think that a lazy intern was testing the ink of a ball point pen on their rejection slip. All the more insulting!
This double-blind mixed messaging of sorry and thank you is only meant to create a purposely confusing and dissonant communication. Mass Rvw hopes that if our neurons overload trying to unpack the hidden meaning, we will stop writing and submitting. Well congratiulations, it seems to be working.
Thank you for bringing this utter outrage to my attention. Something must be done about this mentally abusive form rejection.
"i hope they all start charging for submissions. all of them. they are all so fake. they mean nothing. no one reads them. they are for teacher resumes only. they are a farce. academia is morally and mentally bankrupt. sorry."
I leave for a few weeks, and the record is still skipping. That, or I've fallen into a time-warp where, only a few short weeks ago, I was reading the exact same complaints.
I am NOT John! I am...I am appalled! And you know what else enrages me about this rejection? Hmmm? You want to know CAPS MAN? That it is signed "The Editors." A rejection from not one person, but a group! They had a rejection orgy when they sent this out.
fact is, this is lame. who reads the massachusetts review? outside of college english departments i mean. who cares what they say. but did you ever notice that for all their 'literary' pretensions no one at these journals are ever able to write much more than 'sorry' or 'thanks'? they can't write actual letters. the text of their rejection slips are awful (and pretty much all the same). they can't write, can't communicate, and when it comes to your submissions they don't read much, either.
I love that little sorry. It is so cute and pathetic. Not almost, or nice work or keep trying. Just one pathetic little sorry as in sorry I have nothing good to say, sorry you suck. Like trying to let someone who is probably bound for some ledge somewhere down with genuine pity. Nicely played anonymous MR editor.
MY NAME IS CAPS MAN NOT Caps man AND YES, THAT 'THE EDITORS' IS PRETTY ANNOYING. ALTHOUGH I THINK THE REJECTION ORGY IS HAPPENING SOMEWHERE ELSE...THANK YOU AND KEEP UP THE HARD WORK. P.S. IF AN EDITOR WRITES, 'PLEASE SUBMIT AGAIN,' ARE THEY BEING POLITE, OR IRRITATING AND IRONICAL?
CAPS MAN, today I received a form rejection with handwritten, personalized comments asking me to submit work again... anyway I look at this note, I am still rejected.
Time Machine -- The same-old-same-old complaints are concerning a problem that doesn't get better. "They" won't change. Why submit to them? You're wasting your time (machine), and they aren't worth the cost of a stamp.
In the Pairie Schooner post, a while back, someone gave a link to a story that appeared in the Boston Review. I looked up the author's bio (she -- sigh -- has her own self-promting website). Here's how to succeed, kiddies:
Laura van den Berg earned her MFA at Emerson College. Formerly an assistant editor at Ploughshares, Laura is currently a fiction editor at West Branch and the assistant editor of Memorious, an online journal of new verse and fiction. She has taught writing at Emerson College, Grub Street, and in PEN/New England's Freedom to Write Program.
What I hope happens in this recession is that ALL finacial support to literary/academic journals ends. Either they survive on their sales, or they go belly up. Btw, the Boston Review has discriminatory practices -- they publish Insiders only. Shouldn't someone from the Dominican Republic be against discrimination?
okay, anon 4:48, i think it's time for you to pop your handle cherry and choose a name. "anonymous" posts a boston review rant every couple of posts and i know it's same anon (you). i don't care if your beef with junot diaz is legit or not, just choose a name from now on. hows about "Epson Stylus Printer" or "vagina hat" ? whatever, just pick a name so that we can respond to you and reference you more clearly
"Laura is currently a fiction editor at West Branch"
No wonder they don't want my stuff. I'm not a middleaged schoolteacher writing inane stories about young schoolboys diddling their middleaged teachers.
"Btw, the Boston Review has discriminatory practices -- they publish Insiders only."
That's not all. There's a LOT of discrimination in publishing. It's taboo to talk about, but I predict that those taboos are going to end soon. And then we'll see Change.
"Shouldn't someone from the Dominican Republic be against discrimination?"
Not really. They don't discriminate in the DR?
Anyway, great post, I'm like right there 100%. Just seeing it and a few more angry righteous posts on this thread made me really, really happy. Why? Because I'm not alone. Because a lot of other smart people are seeing through the stupidity. Because you're right, they're not worth the 42 cents. No Way.
To "ow my pen!s" and "toenail clippings" (obviously the same person)-- come on, climb out of the gutter. Here, let me give you a hand. Btw, I stopped reading Junot Diaz' Brief Wonderous in the Junior chapter. Junior is supposed to be in college and live in a dorm, but there is absolutely no sense of college life: no classes, no studying, no writing of papers, no talk about professors, no ambience of dorm life. Junior could be running the streets with the homeboys. This one example (the last, for me) of writing that is false to the core. And I did give the book a fair chance, because I thought the opening section, about Oscar's search for love (or at least some sex), was very good. Diaz slowly destroyed all good will. (I read over my original post and found yet another error - I spelled "self-promoting" wrong.)
Ugh. I just got one today. It's not blue like in your scan. This one's bright orange.
I'm another "Outsider" here. I have a good amount published, but hate the college world and have no interest in an MFA. (I know how to write). I hate dealing with college press people though. You send them a personalized letter and a good publishable story and they can't even give you the courtesy of a scribbled reply. There is no courtesy inside of academia. It's all about brownnosing. What they choose to print is not based on blind merit. They also claim (for the most part) that they are open to "all schools"; what they mean is they are open to submissions from the staff of all other colleges and universities with MFA programs. They don't mean that they're open to all schools of poetry and fiction, popular and unpopular, known and unknown. Nope. It's all a "so where you teach at?" thing. I dream that someone who can, like Stephen King, starts up a commercial magazine for the rest of us (denying submissions from MFA people). I think this system, this strangehold (it is, really), has hurt literature more than anything in the past 40 years. More than TV and the movies even.
It's tacky and I'm really, really sick of it. (Speaking as someone with a story collection already out, long out of print, and lots of other writing published.) It's impossible to publish stories in this country if you're not tied into the MFA circuit. I think something big needs to be done, I'm not sure what, but I love the public display of discontent that's shown on here. Keep at it! It seems like the editors at these journals are just rubbing it in our faces these days. I'm sure they're not happy with sites like L.R.O.D. But tough beans. They're not unstoppable. I think their day will come, too. Let's make it soon.
"Laura is currently a fiction editor at West Branch"
No wonder they don't want my stuff. I'm not a middleaged schoolteacher writing inane stories about young schoolboys diddling their middleaged teachers.
Too bad van den Berg is actually in her mid-to-late 20s.
Keep making excuses for your own failures, anonycowards. It's easier than writing something anyone might want to publish.
PS: Junior is supposed to be in college and live in a dorm, but there is absolutely no sense of college life: no classes, no studying, no writing of papers, no talk about professors, no ambience of dorm life. Junior could be running the streets with the homeboys.
Nice racism, btw. You could be selling your house the second a black family moves on to your block. Also, way to demonstrate why nobody publishes your stories--Yunior isn't writing about his college life, so why would he sprinkle in asides about professors and tests?
You cannot write because you literally cannot read. This is why you fail.
"Too bad van den Berg is actually in her mid-to-late 20s."
Oh come ON! You make me laugh so hard. Late 20s is not young anymore, is approaching middle age, is just the age of all these schoolteachers who write stories about schoolteachers who mess around with students. E-M-P-T-Y.
"Keep making excuses for your own failures, anonycowards."
I made some of these posts, including the one you're addressing here. And I'm not a failure nor a coward. It takes guts to write and to do so without joining the lemmings in the MFAland and taking the easy route that offers. Actually I've done quite well in writing, just not ever accepted by West Branch. But what non-MFA people ever are? Seriously, read the contributors notes on these trash rags and look them up. Look up the names. They are all schoolteachers. So totally completely L-A-M-E!
"It's easier than writing something anyone might want to publish."
I'll never write empty trashy stories with all their stereotypes and stupidities. Never. And I'll never read or buy or support these dumb "journals" either. Nobody reads them. I think it's time to start writing the deans, people at the colleges who care about negative publicity. I'm sure someone at Bucknell cares. Let's find out who and contact them.
"Nice racism, btw."
You're the racist, actually. (BTW, the comment here you quote is not one that I wrote.) But what makes you say the "homeboys" in that person's comment are black, not white (or red or brown or yellow)? You racist, you suggest that black people run in gangs and call themselves "homeoboys". You're such a racist.
The Emporer Wears No Clothes. The politically correct, Insider-only university system is a sham. Literary journals are a farce, a job tool for teachers.
"You cannot write because you literally cannot read."
Ha ha ha! You're so desperate ... and so funny when you are!
I thought academia was all for supporting literature from all peoples and walks of life. I know, naive. But I never knew about animosity between academia and poets / fiction writers outside academia.. it seems logical that academia would want writers to take academic programs.. that's their bread and butter. Did you think to try publication in small magazines with no university affiliation? Can't think of any right now, but they exist..
Late 20s is not young anymore, is approaching middle age
So, people are starting their careers, uh, earlier (because of all that grad school) and dying sooner? What a marvelous little world you live in.
And I'm not a failure nor a coward.
Of course you are. Reveal your name so that your "writing" may be judged, coward.
You racist, you suggest that black people run in gangs and call themselves "homeoboys". You're such a racist.
Ah yes, the archidiocy of the halfwite set: acknowledging that racism exists is racism. Quick, misquote Martin Luther King next time too!
As far as why the "homeboys" in that comment would be, uh, brown, it would be because the homeboys in the formulation supposedly belong to Yunior from the novel under, heh, "discussion" by you losers.
Like I said, you cannot write because you literally cannot read. You are incapable of keeping the beginning of a paragraph in your head long enough to even get to the end of it. Your responses are proof positive of that, as is your canned argument about race and your use of "politically correct" as anything other than a nonsense phrase. I can see why you choose anonymity, as you are an utterly generic bundle of whining and pathetic excuse-making. It hardly matters what your name is, fool, your type is a dime a million.
NM -- you wrote to an Anonymous: Reveal your name so that your "writing" may be judged, coward. I clicked on your intitials and got the blog for an MFA program. I could not find (I tried) any person with the initials NM. So -- what's YOUR name? Who are you, NM? A coward too? The biggest hypocrite in the universe? I wrote the word "homeboy," and from that one word you detected my virulent racism. Of course, Diaz uses the word about 7,000 times in his Brief Wondrous Life. Plus a lot of sexual stuff about Dominicans. (Is there a Dominican Anti-Defamation League?) You write that there is no sense of Junior attending college because he was not writing about his college life. That's dumb. You place your character in some setting -- a factory, a courtroom, a gated subdivision -- and if that's the world he exists in, it must be described. The thing with the Junior character is that he's too cool to be in a dorm room. He's out scoring with a different babe every night. He's too cool to study, write a paper, gripe about a professor. This is dishonest writing. And you are angry (very!) and dishonest, NM. Unless, of course, you give us your full name and a place where we can find your writing; then you won't be dishonest (the anger is another matter).
Hahaha, I realized that the anonymous cowards and failuers here were defectives, but I didn't think that it would be soooo difficult for people to, you know, CLICK on the NM, look at the blog to which it leads and click all of twice more to find posts by me, which would then reveal my name and lead rather directly to my publications. (Even the other anoncoward managed to click as far as the MFA blog on which I post; an MFA program I entered AFTER publishing a couple books and thirty+ short stories, btw.) So come on then, exercise your brain a bit!
And I didn't say anything about "virulent" racism--that is just another example of your need to be a victim. It hardly matters whether the word appears in the book either, it is how it is used. Such tonedeafness is typical of the bitter and unpublished though.
and there is NOTHING dishonest about a relatively unengaged college student not writing about college. Lots of college students are too cool to actually deal with papers and the dorm room. No wonder you, like your other COWARD buddies, can't get published. You have no idea that people who do not think the way you do 100% of the time exist, and cannot handle even a moment of living in another person's head.
Of course this is the same group that can look at the photo and bio of a 25 year-old-woman and insist that she is "middle-aged" because their bitter stereotypes so fully rule their concepts of the world that they cannot imagine someone not middle-aged writing about a middle-aged character. How dare I expect that someone might do three seconds of research rather than whiiiiining.
Hi. Having read through this (quite nasty) debate, I have to suggest that NM might be an elaborate hoax. The writing isn't good, certainly nothing to suggest that NM could really be such a well-published short story writer as claimed. How could it be? Reading the unkind messages above, who would want to read what stories NM has in him/her? Who would want to know what NM has to say about the human condition? The tone is just awful (mean and nasty), implying fear, but it's so awful (ugly, really) which just gives it away, I think. Because what MFA program employee would come here to vent nastiness like that, and present him/her self as being so rude and nasty over the public ventings of a bunch of supposed nobodies?
You know what, ficwrite? I thought NM was a hoax too, for the same reasons you cite, but apparently not. Apparently he is Nick Mamatas (he invited us to find his identity, so he obviously doesn't want to be anonymous). You can look him up in Wikipedia! Lots of links to his writing, if you care to explore Nick's world. He can't reason coherently (he flails), which is one reason I doubted his authenticity. Like here he says:
"And I didn't say anything about 'virulent' racism--that is just another example of your need to be a victim."
I used the word "virulent" facetiously, in response to this conclusion he drew from my single use of the word "homeboy" (without knowing a thing about me, including my race):
"You could be selling your house the second a black family moves on to your block."
I think he writes a lot of horror. And stuff about aliens. Anyway, I'm done dialoguing with the guy. He kind of gives me the creeps.
I cannot wrap my mind around why anyone would comment non-anonymously around here. This is a black hole, even the blog's author remains anonymous. That should be a clue that association with LROD will not enhance your reputation, even if you come here to flex your debate muscles. Also, this debate is weak.
I'm surprised to learn that NM is older than me, I would have pegged him for a 22yo or younger person. That he is a male is pretty obvious.
MFA employee? You guys really are hilarious. Is it sooo hard to gather information and then post? Do you have to just rely on your own internal stereotypes? I'm not an MFA employee, or a hoax.
I'm someone who does what you wish you could do.And I'm not a coward or an excuse-maker. And yes, I write commercial fiction, and my fiction has also appeared in literary venues such as subTERRAIN; I also have a story in the next Per Contra.
Get over yourselves, losers. Even if it were so that there was some sort of MFA conspiracy or advantage to having such a degree, that doesn't mean that YOUR stuff would be published. It's called the handicapped parking space fallacy. Look it up.
You're not unpublished because of the MFA conspiracy.
You're not unpublished because only racial minorities from London are being published. (See the whining about "diversity" in an earlier thread.)
You're not unpublished because only one POV is valorized by "the editors."
You're not unpublished because of online submission forms.
You are unpublished because you cannot tell the difference between what is in your head (middle-aged instructor!) and the facts right in front of you (a 25-year-old woman).
You are unpublished because you have no ear for tone or understanding of connotation (see the dismissal of Oscar Wao with the "homeboy" comment).
You are unpublished because, in the stories of your own lives, you cannot help buy cast yourself as woebgone and misunderstood victims.
You are all exactly where you belong: in a zoo (not quite a black hole) where people can come by and point and laugh as you eat the lice off one another's hairy backs.
Mr. Mamatas... the LROD mice are many things, losers, winners, published, un- and under published, lovers, haters, mfa-ed and non-mfa. But one thing that unites us is our masochism. Please do come around and abuse us more often.
I'm not sure if there were any judges involved, but as a front row ticket-holder... I think Round 1 went to NM, Round 2 to the anon(s), and Round 3 to NM.
"Is it sooo hard to gather information and then post?"
I don't know. Is it? The quote was right about the box you posted. You chose to misquote because it makes your feeble argument look better.
Sorry Nick, doesn't work.
You are, btw, being paid by UCR for the work you're providing for their MFA program right? Or was that free? You are working toward an MFA with the goal of becoming a schoolteacher, right?
"Do you have to just rely on your own internal stereotypes?"
Since you asked: no. But also, and this is just me not the rest of the LRODders, but I do believe this: all stereotypes are true.
"I'm not an MFA employee"
Who said you were? Who, Nick? No one. Nope. But saying it that way makes you look better. Since we're on the subject, you are (or have been) employeed by a university as part of its MFA program, have you not? That's what was implied above. By someone who apparently didn't even know your name or identity, but had you figured out. And now that we see your name, we know that it's true. Right?
"I'm someone who does what you wish you could do."
Write stories about vampires and aliens and wear a leather jacket and keep a Live Journal?
No, can't say I ever wished for that.
"And I'm not a coward or an excuse-maker."
I never called you either, but if you want to know what I think, I do think you are an unkind person.
"And yes, I write commercial fiction,"
I know what you write.
"Get over yourselves, losers."
We never asked you to come here. You followed the discussion about AGNI very closely. You followed some of the other discussions here pretty closely, too. Your rage built up until you could not contain it any more. LROD has become an avalanche, it really has, and you are deathly upset by that fact. You hate us. You hate everything about LROD. I can understand why, of course.
"Even if it were so that there was some sort of MFA conspiracy"
It's just good business, Nick. I believe you know that too. That's why you went and did the MFA thing. Bully for you, really. You can be the "genre guy" in the campus world and I think it actually will be profitable for you. I don't mean anything against you. Let's get that straight. I don't want to get in your way, and I wish you lots more continued success. But we didn't ask you here and you came and your comments were raging, malevolent and unkind. I don't think you are a kind person.
"You're not unpublished because of the MFA conspiracy."
The university MFA program journals pay $0, are unread by the public, and yet seem to have this nasty insiderness going on. Read the contributor notes. Oh and what they do print is garbage. And you know what, thanks to W,R and the many working writers who frequent LROD, we've been exposing all this. We've been casting light where before there had only been darkness. We're showing the system for what it is. It's only natural that people who are part of that system are going to be upset and go wild at our online postings. After all, LROD is speaking truth to power. Sooner or later someone is bound to notice.
"(See the whining about "diversity" in an earlier thread.)"
Yes, I know that sort of talk kills you. 100% adherence to "diversity" is a prerequisite to MFAland, to that kind of thinking. You fit in perfectly there, Nick. Be the rebel and write about diverse alien vampires.
"You're not unpublished"
Well, you got one thing right. I'm not in an MFA program, either, I'll never be a schoolteacher, and I don't write about vampires and aliens.
I can quote just fine, anonywimp. "Because what MFA program employee would come here to vent nastiness like that..."
So, where am I an employee of a MFA program again?
You chose to misquote because it makes your feeble argument look better.
I didn't misquote anything. I paraphrased it, fool. And there is no difference in meaning between my paraphrase and what Anonycoward #482945 said.
You are, btw, being paid by UCR for the work you're providing for their MFA program right?
What "work"? I was a visiting writer. That means I showed up, read a story, answered a couple of questions, had dinner on the program's tab, and went home. The whole thing was about seventy minutes. That doesn't make one an employee, not anymore than you going to the hospital to sell blood--as you likely do to pay for your typewritter ribbon--makes you a hospital employee.
Write stories about vampires and aliens and wear a leather jacket and keep a Live Journal?
"Vampires and aliens" -- more hilarity. What do you write stories about? Whining losers who can't get past the form rejection letter stage of submission?
Your rage built up until you could not contain it any more. LROD has become an avalanche, it really has, and you are deathly upset by that fact.
You're about as good a psychologist as you are a writer. What I am doing is much closer to holding a magnifying glass over an anthill than anything else. Trust me, blowhard simpletons that won't even sign their names and who cannot even imagine that a literary journal might have TWO sets of form letters aren't going to wake up the world. The world has no need of another bunch of gasbags who blame their failures on everyone else.
But we didn't ask you here and you came and your comments were raging, malevolent and unkind.
How funny that you think you deserve any better treatment than you get. You and your ilk bitch and moan, pour calumny on people you don't even know, and publicly flaunt your stupidity -- stupidity so profound that you cannot even tell the difference between a 25-year-old woman and a middle-aged woman. You don't rate kindness. You rate someone rolling by to point and laugh at you. Well, in the words of Nelson Muntz: "ha-HA!"
Or is everything you say kind by definition because you're a "real" writer of some sort? After all, you surely write about your neighbors, your childhood, your pinhead worldview, how awful those brown people who keep showing up on the TV these days are with their hip-hop and their bling-bling, how annoying cell phones can be, right?? Did your mom's cancer make you sad? Do you remember going out to the woods as a kid? Oh, if only someone would listen to what you have to say! Your voice, your precious voice!
Since we're on the subject, you are (or have been) employeed by a university as part of its MFA program, have you not? That's what was implied above. By someone who apparently didn't even know your name or identity, but had you figured out. And now that we see your name, we know that it's true. Right?
Nope, not right. I don't work for a MFA program. I am an editor at a comic book company and do freelance writing on the side.
Tell me, smart guy: where is my academic appointment? You think I work for UCR? Well, UCR is a state university -- their hiring is legally all public record, just like any other state function. You know, do research, THEN post. Don't confuse "Visiting Writer" on a poster or an hour-long reading with EMPLOYMENT.
Produce my hiring agreement if you think I am employed by an MFA program.
After all, LROD is speaking truth to power. Sooner or later someone is bound to notice.
Truth to the power of...tiny journals that don't pay and that nobody reads? Uh-huh. Yes, I get it. You and your pals here are the pieces of shit around with the universe revolves. Waaah, we're victims because our stories stink and we get form letter rejections! That's why everything is about us! That's why the very minor successes of some other people are awful and wrong! Waaaah! PAY ATTENTION TO US WAAAAAH!
Tell me, anonymous loser, do you employ someone to wipe your tears away each night, or just your ass?
Real pros just keep submitting. It takes a few years to start selling a few stories, that is if you take writing, rather than this sort of asinine handicapping, seriously. Try it some time. Sucker.
100% adherence to "diversity" is a prerequisite to MFAland, to that kind of thinking
Ah, scare quotes. How dare those Negroes take the slots in those little magazines you don't actually care about that are supposed to be yours by birthright, eh? Any excuse, any reason, any complaint, anything but the truth:
Your stories are shit. If they weren't, you'd put up a link that we can follow to them, as I did.
"You're not unpublished"
Well, you got one thing right
What was that about misquoting?
"I don't write"
See, I can do it too! You don't write. You whine and bitch and see awful black people and MFA grads behind every tree. It's not you, it's that mysterious Them keeping you from being published in journals that you despise so much you...keep collecting form rejections from.
i think nick mamatas has serious anger issues. he needs to work something out about his attitude toward other writers, middle aged women and black people. wow, just chill man.
i think nick mamatas has serious anger issues. he needs to work something out about his attitude toward other writers, middle aged women and black people.
I think "Nate" needs to learn how to read. I didn't complain about either middle-aged women (or men) or blacks; the other anonydopes on this site did. They whine about "politically correct" "diversity", cluck their tongues over "homeboys", and fume about "middleaged schoolteacher[s] writing inane stories about young schoolboys diddling their middleaged teachers."
Indeed, the anons here are SO concerned about middle-aged sorts that they insist that someone in her mid-20s IS middle-aged.
Other writers? Well...I see no evidence that there are other writers here. Claims, sure. No evidence. The anons seem to hate all writers though, especially those that dare publish instead of fail, fail, fail.
NM's posts are past-virulent. W/r, have you dropped your restrictions on civility/name-calling? How much abuse can pour unabated out of one person? How about: "You and your pals here are the pieces of shit around with (sic) the universe revolves." He's so out of control with anger that he can't use the right word.
You're right, anony. Sorry about that. I've been swamped in deadlines, so I've only been giving the posts a cursory glance to make sure they are on topic.
NM: Knock off the name calling and insults. Use your civilized words, please.
Everyone else: please behave. I hate having to be your mother/father.
NM clearly has unresolved anger issues, and needs help. He may be dangerous, though I think his writing of fiction serves as an outlet. But some are goading him on, and you should examine your motives. Your actions are akin to trying to enrage a caged animal by poking a stick at him. This is sadistic. As for my patient, I'm seeing little progress. His frequenting of this blog is a form of obsessive-compulsive behavior. OCDs are highly resitant to treatment.
There are a clearly no rules against insults and name-calling here, as even a cursory look at the threads will demonstrate.
You're allowed to insult black writers by saying that they are published only thanks to a "diversity" ideology.
"Rich kid MFA" is another classic insult.
It's easy enough to find plenty of cursing. Few typos though, that is true. I guess when whiiiining behind the veil of anonymity is one's only chance at publishing, you try to make every keystroke count. My own missives are dashed off with just enough thought put into them to send you into the sort of tizzy a puppy in a preschool might spark.
No surprise that when reason runs out--or rather, when there had never been any reason to begin with--the only options are psychological transference and crying for the official censor. "Waaah, Nick says our shitty ideas our shit and corrects our facts! SOMEBODY STOP HIM!!!"
Like I said before, you're all just getting what you deserve.
Yeesh! I'm with Dr. Fraud. This guy is either the consummate troll, or off his meds. Nuts. Step back from the screen. This thread is only alive in your imagination. Look out the window, check out your houseplants, that stuff is real. This is not real life. Get a grip man. GET A GRIP.
Then it's not a rule, it's a cudgel. Only outsiders can have their commentary expurgated; anonylamers of long-standing come here precisely because they CAN be as free with insults as they like. The rule only exists for people who offer them a taste of their own medicine (and who happen to be much better at it).
Nice place you got here, W,R. How does it feel to you that CAPSMAN is the best regular commenter on your blog and that John is #2? (I'm aiming for the bronze medal myself!)
Ohmygod, that is fu*king lame. They actually wrote "sorry"? Like that's going to make you feel better? That they're "sorry"? And here's the deal--they're not "sorry." They're glad! They're glad to get the story off their f*cking desk. If they HAD to write something (which they didn't have to do; they could have just skipped writing something), why can't they say, like, "Eat candy!" "Have a martini!" "Buy some shoes!" Some suggestion that actually might be useful.
That's not really Nick Mamatas, btw. I know Nick Mamatas and he wouldn't hurt a fly! This here is clearly the work of Nick Pacione, character assassin.
Yeah, you're so judgemental too. That's the other problem with editors today. They like to point fingers about who is judgemental but they're the most judgemental of them all.
No one is reading this thread anymore but I had to laugh out loud at this: "You are unpublished because you cannot tell the difference between what is in your head (middle-aged instructor!) and the facts right in front of you (a 25-year-old woman)."
When you're in college, someone in their mid twenties is not "young" at all and yes, by the time you're pushing thirty, you're definitely middle aged. Maybe this critic here is even older than that author, and in denial of the obvious!
I've been known to pull a rejection letter from hell if I get pissed off enough -- call my magazine The Ethereal Gazette, The Ethereal Gayzette I will give that kind of punishing rejection letter or if the person says I need Decades of Therapy I would go on video as a rejection letter and show her manuscript meeting my friend Mr. P. Shredder. The name of the author who did this, Mary Sangiovanni the Cruella DeVille of Rockaway, New Joisey. What pisses me off with her and Kealan Patrick Burke is we are all the same age. I pulled out a story no one ever seen before with her infamous quote and his story You In because he pulled something like calling me a retard. I said I could very easy pirate this story but I am not -- every single one of my readers called this a Robert Cormeir move. An act of psychological warfare in a brutal display to a potato licker and the resident unfit mother. I said to him, I am going to lay Sangiovanni's career to rest and make his life a living hell reminding him that a kid from Chicago nailed his ass hard. I insult Sangiovanni hard because she stifled my first anthology and it's sequels -- the decades of therapy comment was the last straw.
54 comments:
It's sad thst this qualifies as a "good" rejection because they actually paid a fraction of a cent more for colored paper and an intern spent a fraction of a second writing "Sorry."
By the way, I received a rejection from Cairn shaped like a bookmark. It was even printed on card stock like most cheap bookmarks. I don't have a scanner, and I'd already crumpled it up and thrown it away before I thought of sending it to you. In the words of the Massachussetts Review: "Sorry."
What's with the rejections where they write "thank you" or "thanks" on them?
It kind of gets me mad. I know they are writing this to kind of let you know that they actually read and looked at your stuff, better than a blank form, ok, and better than the email form that all these people using submission manager do, ok, but what exactly does it mean? Well take it as face value. They are thanking you for sending in. But it does NOT mean to send more. Nope. So I almost hate the "thank yous" more than the blank forms, because if they took the time to write it and didn't write "send more" and didn't think of the submission enough to say anything about it at all, then I think that's a bad thing. I kind of feel the same way about the "sorry" notes. Same goes for the notes where the editor scrawls his/her initials on the form. Ok, it's not a blank form, it's not a lame impersonal autoreply done by clicking a button on the Submissions Manager software, but it says nothing about me or my submission or what they felt about either.
"to kind of let you know that they actually read and looked at your stuff"
No, it doesn't mean that at all. It means they have a formula for rejections -- they're being polite about it. It's likely that your work was merely proceseed, not read.
What upsets me most about this rejection is that it is printed on blue with black ink, a combination that can be very hard to read if the blue is darker than robin's egg. And did you notice that the logo MR is HUGE above the name of the journal? MR stands for moronic reject; they want you to get the message loud and clear by putting it at the top. "Massachusetts Review" is just a cover for the real meaning of MR.
And sorry to go on with this, but I can't get over the hubris, the sheer hubris of writing "sorry" in cursive. They know damn well that cursive is only taught at elite MFA programs. Writers who write without advanced degrees will just think that a lazy intern was testing the ink of a ball point pen on their rejection slip. All the more insulting!
This double-blind mixed messaging of sorry and thank you is only meant to create a purposely confusing and dissonant communication. Mass Rvw hopes that if our neurons overload trying to unpack the hidden meaning, we will stop writing and submitting. Well congratiulations, it seems to be working.
Thank you for bringing this utter outrage to my attention. Something must be done about this mentally abusive form rejection.
"I AM SO APPALLED I CAN'T FUNCTION"
THANK YOU FOR THE EFFORT BUT NO THANK YOU.
1. NO MIXED MESSAGES; THIS IS A STANDARD REJECTION, SOFTENED WITH THE WORD SORRY.
2. IF YOU THINK THE INTERN USED CURSIVE TO GET YOU MAD YOU ARE AS PARANOID AS JOHN. IN FACT, YOU MIGHT EVEN BE JOHN IN DISGUISE.
3. THANK YOU AND KEEP UP THE HARD WORK.
"i hope they all start charging for submissions. all of them. they are all so fake. they mean nothing. no one reads them. they are for teacher resumes only. they are a farce. academia is morally and mentally bankrupt. sorry."
I leave for a few weeks, and the record is still skipping. That, or I've fallen into a time-warp where, only a few short weeks ago, I was reading the exact same complaints.
To everyone: Thanks!
Caps man,
Ever heard of satire?
I am NOT John! I am...I am appalled! And you know what else enrages me about this rejection? Hmmm? You want to know CAPS MAN? That it is signed "The Editors." A rejection from not one person, but a group! They had a rejection orgy when they sent this out.
Harrumph!
fact is, this is lame. who reads the massachusetts review? outside of college english departments i mean. who cares what they say. but did you ever notice that for all their 'literary' pretensions no one at these journals are ever able to write much more than 'sorry' or 'thanks'? they can't write actual letters. the text of their rejection slips are awful (and pretty much all the same). they can't write, can't communicate, and when it comes to your submissions they don't read much, either.
I love that little sorry. It is so cute and pathetic. Not almost, or nice work or keep trying. Just one pathetic little sorry as in sorry I have nothing good to say, sorry you suck. Like trying to let someone who is probably bound for some ledge somewhere down with genuine pity. Nicely played anonymous MR editor.
MY NAME IS CAPS MAN NOT Caps man AND YES, THAT 'THE EDITORS' IS PRETTY ANNOYING. ALTHOUGH I THINK THE REJECTION ORGY IS HAPPENING SOMEWHERE ELSE...THANK YOU AND KEEP UP THE HARD WORK.
P.S. IF AN EDITOR WRITES, 'PLEASE SUBMIT AGAIN,' ARE THEY BEING POLITE, OR IRRITATING AND IRONICAL?
this post isn't boring at all. It's hilarious.
hilariously sad.
ah well.
CAPS MAN, today I received a form rejection with handwritten, personalized comments asking me to submit work again... anyway I look at this note, I am still rejected.
Time Machine -- The same-old-same-old complaints are concerning a problem that doesn't get better.
"They" won't change. Why submit to them? You're wasting your time (machine), and they aren't worth the cost of a stamp.
In the Pairie Schooner post, a while back, someone gave a link to a story that appeared in the Boston Review. I looked up the author's bio (she -- sigh -- has her own self-promting website).
Here's how to succeed, kiddies:
Laura van den Berg earned her MFA at Emerson College. Formerly an assistant editor at Ploughshares, Laura is currently a fiction editor at West Branch and the assistant editor of Memorious, an online journal of new verse and fiction. She has taught writing at Emerson College, Grub Street, and in PEN/New England's Freedom to Write Program.
What I hope happens in this recession is that ALL finacial support to literary/academic journals ends. Either they survive on their sales, or they go belly up.
Btw, the Boston Review has discriminatory practices -- they publish Insiders only. Shouldn't someone from the Dominican Republic be against discrimination?
okay, anon 4:48, i think it's time for you to pop your handle cherry and choose a name. "anonymous" posts a boston review rant every couple of posts and i know it's same anon (you). i don't care if your beef with junot diaz is legit or not, just choose a name from now on. hows about "Epson Stylus Printer" or "vagina hat" ? whatever, just pick a name so that we can respond to you and reference you more clearly
Sorry -- "Prairie" and "financial" were spelled wrong above. I was in a hurry.
"Laura is currently a fiction editor at West Branch"
No wonder they don't want my stuff. I'm not a middleaged schoolteacher writing inane stories about young schoolboys diddling their middleaged teachers.
Lame lame lame.
"Btw, the Boston Review has discriminatory practices -- they publish Insiders only."
That's not all. There's a LOT of discrimination in publishing. It's taboo to talk about, but I predict that those taboos are going to end soon. And then we'll see Change.
"Shouldn't someone from the Dominican Republic be against discrimination?"
Not really. They don't discriminate in the DR?
Anyway, great post, I'm like right there 100%. Just seeing it and a few more angry righteous posts on this thread made me really, really happy. Why? Because I'm not alone. Because a lot of other smart people are seeing through the stupidity. Because you're right, they're not worth the 42 cents. No Way.
10:30
"I'm not a middleaged schoolteacher writing inane stories about young schoolboys diddling their middleaged teachers."
Ah, but you wish you were. You wish you were.
To "ow my pen!s" and "toenail clippings" (obviously the same person)-- come on, climb out of the gutter. Here, let me give you a hand.
Btw, I stopped reading Junot Diaz' Brief Wonderous in the Junior chapter. Junior is supposed to be in college and live in a dorm, but there is absolutely no sense of college life: no classes, no studying, no writing of papers, no talk about professors, no ambience of dorm life. Junior could be running the streets with the homeboys. This one example (the last, for me) of writing that is false to the core.
And I did give the book a fair chance, because I thought the opening section, about Oscar's search for love (or at least some sex), was very good. Diaz slowly destroyed all good will.
(I read over my original post and found yet another error - I spelled "self-promoting" wrong.)
"Ah, but you wish you were. You wish you were."
No I'm not. Of course not. And of course I'd never wish to be one. Don't flatter yourself. The schoolteacher's life is enviable to no one.
Ugh. I just got one today. It's not blue like in your scan. This one's bright orange.
I'm another "Outsider" here. I have a good amount published, but hate the college world and have no interest in an MFA. (I know how to write). I hate dealing with college press people though. You send them a personalized letter and a good publishable story and they can't even give you the courtesy of a scribbled reply. There is no courtesy inside of academia. It's all about brownnosing. What they choose to print is not based on blind merit. They also claim (for the most part) that they are open to "all schools"; what they mean is they are open to submissions from the staff of all other colleges and universities with MFA programs. They don't mean that they're open to all schools of poetry and fiction, popular and unpopular, known and unknown. Nope. It's all a "so where you teach at?" thing. I dream that someone who can, like Stephen King, starts up a commercial magazine for the rest of us (denying submissions from MFA people). I think this system, this strangehold (it is, really), has hurt literature more than anything in the past 40 years. More than TV and the movies even.
It's tacky and I'm really, really sick of it. (Speaking as someone with a story collection already out, long out of print, and lots of other writing published.) It's impossible to publish stories in this country if you're not tied into the MFA circuit. I think something big needs to be done, I'm not sure what, but I love the public display of discontent that's shown on here. Keep at it! It seems like the editors at these journals are just rubbing it in our faces these days. I'm sure they're not happy with sites like L.R.O.D. But tough beans. They're not unstoppable. I think their day will come, too. Let's make it soon.
B.
"Laura is currently a fiction editor at West Branch"
No wonder they don't want my stuff. I'm not a middleaged schoolteacher writing inane stories about young schoolboys diddling their middleaged teachers.
Too bad van den Berg is actually in her mid-to-late 20s.
Keep making excuses for your own failures, anonycowards. It's easier than writing something anyone might want to publish.
PS: Junior is supposed to be in college and live in a dorm, but there is absolutely no sense of college life: no classes, no studying, no writing of papers, no talk about professors, no ambience of dorm life. Junior could be running the streets with the homeboys.
Nice racism, btw. You could be selling your house the second a black family moves on to your block. Also, way to demonstrate why nobody publishes your stories--Yunior isn't writing about his college life, so why would he sprinkle in asides about professors and tests?
You cannot write because you literally cannot read. This is why you fail.
"Too bad van den Berg is actually in her mid-to-late 20s."
Oh come ON! You make me laugh so hard. Late 20s is not young anymore, is approaching middle age, is just the age of all these schoolteachers who write stories about schoolteachers who mess around with students. E-M-P-T-Y.
"Keep making excuses for your own failures, anonycowards."
I made some of these posts, including the one you're addressing here. And I'm not a failure nor a coward. It takes guts to write and to do so without joining the lemmings in the MFAland and taking the easy route that offers. Actually I've done quite well in writing, just not ever accepted by West Branch. But what non-MFA people ever are? Seriously, read the contributors notes on these trash rags and look them up. Look up the names. They are all schoolteachers. So totally completely L-A-M-E!
"It's easier than writing something anyone might want to publish."
I'll never write empty trashy stories with all their stereotypes and stupidities. Never. And I'll never read or buy or support these dumb "journals" either. Nobody reads them. I think it's time to start writing the deans, people at the colleges who care about negative publicity. I'm sure someone at Bucknell cares. Let's find out who and contact them.
"Nice racism, btw."
You're the racist, actually. (BTW, the comment here you quote is not one that I wrote.) But what makes you say the "homeboys" in that person's comment are black, not white (or red or brown or yellow)? You racist, you suggest that black people run in gangs and call themselves "homeoboys". You're such a racist.
The Emporer Wears No Clothes. The politically correct, Insider-only university system is a sham. Literary journals are a farce, a job tool for teachers.
"You cannot write because you literally cannot read."
Ha ha ha! You're so desperate ... and so funny when you are!
Interesting blog.
I thought academia was all for supporting literature from all peoples and walks of life. I know, naive. But I never knew about animosity between academia and poets / fiction writers outside academia.. it seems logical that academia would want writers to take academic programs.. that's their bread and butter. Did you think to try publication in small magazines with no university affiliation? Can't think of any right now, but they exist..
Late 20s is not young anymore, is approaching middle age
So, people are starting their careers, uh, earlier (because of all that grad school) and dying sooner? What a marvelous little world you live in.
And I'm not a failure nor a coward.
Of course you are. Reveal your name so that your "writing" may be judged, coward.
You racist, you suggest that black people run in gangs and call themselves "homeoboys". You're such a racist.
Ah yes, the archidiocy of the halfwite set: acknowledging that racism exists is racism. Quick, misquote Martin Luther King next time too!
As far as why the "homeboys" in that comment would be, uh, brown, it would be because the homeboys in the formulation supposedly belong to Yunior from the novel under, heh, "discussion" by you losers.
Like I said, you cannot write because you literally cannot read. You are incapable of keeping the beginning of a paragraph in your head long enough to even get to the end of it. Your responses are proof positive of that, as is your canned argument about race and your use of "politically correct" as anything other than a nonsense phrase. I can see why you choose anonymity, as you are an utterly generic bundle of whining and pathetic excuse-making. It hardly matters what your name is, fool, your type is a dime a million.
"What a marvelous little world you live in."
No, my world is big. And it doesn't include your lame MFA program. Now please go away.
NM -- you wrote to an Anonymous:
Reveal your name so that your "writing" may be judged, coward.
I clicked on your intitials and got the blog for an MFA program. I could not find (I tried) any person with the initials NM.
So -- what's YOUR name? Who are you, NM? A coward too? The biggest hypocrite in the universe?
I wrote the word "homeboy," and from that one word you detected my virulent racism. Of course, Diaz uses the word about 7,000 times in his Brief Wondrous Life. Plus a lot of sexual stuff about Dominicans. (Is there a Dominican Anti-Defamation League?)
You write that there is no sense of Junior attending college because he was not writing about his college life. That's dumb. You place your character in some setting -- a factory, a courtroom, a gated subdivision -- and if that's the world he exists in, it must be described.
The thing with the Junior character is that he's too cool to be in a dorm room. He's out scoring with a different babe every night. He's too cool to study, write a paper, gripe about a professor.
This is dishonest writing.
And you are angry (very!) and dishonest, NM. Unless, of course, you give us your full name and a place where we can find your writing; then you won't be dishonest (the anger is another matter).
Hahaha, I realized that the anonymous cowards and failuers here were defectives, but I didn't think that it would be soooo difficult for people to, you know, CLICK on the NM, look at the blog to which it leads and click all of twice more to find posts by me, which would then reveal my name and lead rather directly to my publications. (Even the other anoncoward managed to click as far as the MFA blog on which I post; an MFA program I entered AFTER publishing a couple books and thirty+ short stories, btw.) So come on then, exercise your brain a bit!
And I didn't say anything about "virulent" racism--that is just another example of your need to be a victim. It hardly matters whether the word appears in the book either, it is how it is used. Such tonedeafness is typical of the bitter and unpublished though.
and there is NOTHING dishonest about a relatively unengaged college student not writing about college. Lots of college students are too cool to actually deal with papers and the dorm room. No wonder you, like your other COWARD buddies, can't get published. You have no idea that people who do not think the way you do 100% of the time exist, and cannot handle even a moment of living in another person's head.
Of course this is the same group that can look at the photo and bio of a 25 year-old-woman and insist that she is "middle-aged" because their bitter stereotypes so fully rule their concepts of the world that they cannot imagine someone not middle-aged writing about a middle-aged character. How dare I expect that someone might do three seconds of research rather than whiiiiining.
Pathetic.
Hi. Having read through this (quite nasty) debate, I have to suggest that NM might be an elaborate hoax. The writing isn't good, certainly nothing to suggest that NM could really be such a well-published short story writer as claimed. How could it be? Reading the unkind messages above, who would want to read what stories NM has in him/her? Who would want to know what NM has to say about the human condition? The tone is just awful (mean and nasty), implying fear, but it's so awful (ugly, really) which just gives it away, I think. Because what MFA program employee would come here to vent nastiness like that, and present him/her self as being so rude and nasty over the public ventings of a bunch of supposed nobodies?
You know what, ficwrite? I thought NM was a hoax too, for the same reasons you cite, but apparently not. Apparently he is Nick Mamatas (he invited us to find his identity, so he obviously doesn't want to be anonymous).
You can look him up in Wikipedia! Lots of links to his writing, if you care to explore Nick's world.
He can't reason coherently (he flails), which is one reason I doubted his authenticity. Like here he says:
"And I didn't say anything about 'virulent' racism--that is just another example of your need to be a victim."
I used the word "virulent" facetiously, in response to this conclusion he drew from my single use of the word "homeboy" (without knowing a thing about me, including my race):
"You could be selling your house the second a black family moves on to your block."
I think he writes a lot of horror. And stuff about aliens.
Anyway, I'm done dialoguing with the guy. He kind of gives me the creeps.
I cannot wrap my mind around why anyone would comment non-anonymously around here. This is a black hole, even the blog's author remains anonymous. That should be a clue that association with LROD will not enhance your reputation, even if you come here to flex your debate muscles. Also, this debate is weak.
I'm surprised to learn that NM is older than me, I would have pegged him for a 22yo or younger person. That he is a male is pretty obvious.
"dialogging?" Can we please abandon that word? It's so lifeless.
MFA employee? You guys really are hilarious. Is it sooo hard to gather information and then post? Do you have to just rely on your own internal stereotypes? I'm not an MFA employee, or a hoax.
I'm someone who does what you wish you could do.And I'm not a coward or an excuse-maker. And yes, I write commercial fiction, and my fiction has also appeared in literary venues such as subTERRAIN; I also have a story in the next Per Contra.
Get over yourselves, losers. Even if it were so that there was some sort of MFA conspiracy or advantage to having such a degree, that doesn't mean that YOUR stuff would be published. It's called the handicapped parking space fallacy. Look it up.
You're not unpublished because of the MFA conspiracy.
You're not unpublished because only racial minorities from London are being published. (See the whining about "diversity" in an earlier thread.)
You're not unpublished because only one POV is valorized by "the editors."
You're not unpublished because of online submission forms.
You are unpublished because you cannot tell the difference between what is in your head (middle-aged instructor!) and the facts right in front of you (a 25-year-old woman).
You are unpublished because you have no ear for tone or understanding of connotation (see the dismissal of Oscar Wao with the "homeboy" comment).
You are unpublished because, in the stories of your own lives, you cannot help buy cast yourself as woebgone and misunderstood victims.
You are all exactly where you belong: in a zoo (not quite a black hole) where people can come by and point and laugh as you eat the lice off one another's hairy backs.
Keep dancing!
Mr. Mamatas...
the LROD mice are many things, losers, winners, published, un- and under published, lovers, haters, mfa-ed and non-mfa. But one thing that unites us is our masochism. Please do come around and abuse us more often.
*hurts so goood...*
good fight.
I'm not sure if there were any judges involved, but as a front row ticket-holder... I think Round 1 went to NM, Round 2 to the anon(s), and Round 3 to NM.
Winner: NM
"MFA employee? You guys really are hilarious."
Har har har. Only to a sad guy like you.
Get the quote straight. Or can't you quote?
"Is it sooo hard to gather information and then post?"
I don't know. Is it? The quote was right about the box you posted. You chose to misquote because it makes your feeble argument look better.
Sorry Nick, doesn't work.
You are, btw, being paid by UCR for the work you're providing for their MFA program right? Or was that free? You are working toward an MFA with the goal of becoming a schoolteacher, right?
"Do you have to just rely on your own internal stereotypes?"
Since you asked: no. But also, and this is just me not the rest of the LRODders, but I do believe this: all stereotypes are true.
"I'm not an MFA employee"
Who said you were? Who, Nick? No one. Nope. But saying it that way makes you look better. Since we're on the subject, you are (or have been) employeed by a university as part of its MFA program, have you not? That's what was implied above. By someone who apparently didn't even know your name or identity, but had you figured out. And now that we see your name, we know that it's true. Right?
"I'm someone who does what you wish you could do."
Write stories about vampires and aliens and wear a leather jacket and keep a Live Journal?
No, can't say I ever wished for that.
"And I'm not a coward or an excuse-maker."
I never called you either, but if you want to know what I think, I do think you are an unkind person.
"And yes, I write commercial fiction,"
I know what you write.
"Get over yourselves, losers."
We never asked you to come here. You followed the discussion about AGNI very closely. You followed some of the other discussions here pretty closely, too. Your rage built up until you could not contain it any more. LROD has become an avalanche, it really has, and you are deathly upset by that fact. You hate us. You hate everything about LROD. I can understand why, of course.
"Even if it were so that there was some sort of MFA conspiracy"
It's just good business, Nick. I believe you know that too. That's why you went and did the MFA thing. Bully for you, really. You can be the "genre guy" in the campus world and I think it actually will be profitable for you. I don't mean anything against you. Let's get that straight. I don't want to get in your way, and I wish you lots more continued success. But we didn't ask you here and you came and your comments were raging, malevolent and unkind. I don't think you are a kind person.
"You're not unpublished because of the MFA conspiracy."
The university MFA program journals pay $0, are unread by the public, and yet seem to have this nasty insiderness going on. Read the contributor notes. Oh and what they do print is garbage. And you know what, thanks to W,R and the many working writers who frequent LROD, we've been exposing all this. We've been casting light where before there had only been darkness. We're showing the system for what it is. It's only natural that people who are part of that system are going to be upset and go wild at our online postings. After all, LROD is speaking truth to power. Sooner or later someone is bound to notice.
"(See the whining about "diversity" in an earlier thread.)"
Yes, I know that sort of talk kills you. 100% adherence to "diversity" is a prerequisite to MFAland, to that kind of thinking. You fit in perfectly there, Nick. Be the rebel and write about diverse alien vampires.
"You're not unpublished"
Well, you got one thing right. I'm not in an MFA program, either, I'll never be a schoolteacher, and I don't write about vampires and aliens.
Bye, Nick.
Get the quote straight. Or can't you quote?
I can quote just fine, anonywimp. "Because what MFA program employee would come here to vent nastiness like that..."
So, where am I an employee of a MFA program again?
You chose to misquote because it makes your feeble argument look better.
I didn't misquote anything. I paraphrased it, fool. And there is no difference in meaning between my paraphrase and what Anonycoward #482945 said.
You are, btw, being paid by UCR for the work you're providing for their MFA program right?
What "work"? I was a visiting writer. That means I showed up, read a story, answered a couple of questions, had dinner on the program's tab, and went home. The whole thing was about seventy minutes. That doesn't make one an employee, not anymore than you going to the hospital to sell blood--as you likely do to pay for your typewritter ribbon--makes you a hospital employee.
Write stories about vampires and aliens and wear a leather jacket and keep a Live Journal?
"Vampires and aliens" -- more hilarity. What do you write stories about? Whining losers who can't get past the form rejection letter stage of submission?
Your rage built up until you could not contain it any more. LROD has become an avalanche, it really has, and you are deathly upset by that fact.
You're about as good a psychologist as you are a writer. What I am doing is much closer to holding a magnifying glass over an anthill than anything else. Trust me, blowhard simpletons that won't even sign their names and who cannot even imagine that a literary journal might have TWO sets of form letters aren't going to wake up the world. The world has no need of another bunch of gasbags who blame their failures on everyone else.
But we didn't ask you here and you came and your comments were raging, malevolent and unkind.
How funny that you think you deserve any better treatment than you get. You and your ilk bitch and moan, pour calumny on people you don't even know, and publicly flaunt your stupidity -- stupidity so profound that you cannot even tell the difference between a 25-year-old woman and a middle-aged woman. You don't rate kindness. You rate someone rolling by to point and laugh at you. Well, in the words of Nelson Muntz: "ha-HA!"
Or is everything you say kind by definition because you're a "real" writer of some sort? After all, you surely write about your neighbors, your childhood, your pinhead worldview, how awful those brown people who keep showing up on the TV these days are with their hip-hop and their bling-bling, how annoying cell phones can be, right?? Did your mom's cancer make you sad? Do you remember going out to the woods as a kid? Oh, if only someone would listen to what you have to say! Your voice, your precious voice!
Since we're on the subject, you are (or have been) employeed by a university as part of its MFA program, have you not? That's what was implied above. By someone who apparently didn't even know your name or identity, but had you figured out. And now that we see your name, we know that it's true. Right?
Nope, not right. I don't work for a MFA program. I am an editor at a comic book company and do freelance writing on the side.
Tell me, smart guy: where is my academic appointment? You think I work for UCR? Well, UCR is a state university -- their hiring is legally all public record, just like any other state function. You know, do research, THEN post. Don't confuse "Visiting Writer" on a poster or an hour-long reading with EMPLOYMENT.
Produce my hiring agreement if you think I am employed by an MFA program.
After all, LROD is speaking truth to power. Sooner or later someone is bound to notice.
Truth to the power of...tiny journals that don't pay and that nobody reads? Uh-huh. Yes, I get it. You and your pals here are the pieces of shit around with the universe revolves. Waaah, we're victims because our stories stink and we get form letter rejections! That's why everything is about us! That's why the very minor successes of some other people are awful and wrong! Waaaah! PAY ATTENTION TO US WAAAAAH!
Tell me, anonymous loser, do you employ someone to wipe your tears away each night, or just your ass?
Real pros just keep submitting. It takes a few years to start selling a few stories, that is if you take writing, rather than this sort of asinine handicapping, seriously. Try it some time. Sucker.
100% adherence to "diversity" is a prerequisite to MFAland, to that kind of thinking
Ah, scare quotes. How dare those Negroes take the slots in those little magazines you don't actually care about that are supposed to be yours by birthright, eh? Any excuse, any reason, any complaint, anything but the truth:
Your stories are shit. If they weren't, you'd put up a link that we can follow to them, as I did.
"You're not unpublished"
Well, you got one thing right
What was that about misquoting?
"I don't write"
See, I can do it too! You don't write. You whine and bitch and see awful black people and MFA grads behind every tree. It's not you, it's that mysterious Them keeping you from being published in journals that you despise so much you...keep collecting form rejections from.
Uh-huh. That makes perfect sense.
i think nick mamatas has serious anger issues. he needs to work something out about his attitude toward other writers, middle aged women and black people. wow, just chill man.
i think nick mamatas has serious anger issues. he needs to work something out about his attitude toward other writers, middle aged women and black people.
I think "Nate" needs to learn how to read. I didn't complain about either middle-aged women (or men) or blacks; the other anonydopes on this site did. They whine about "politically correct" "diversity", cluck their tongues over "homeboys", and fume about "middleaged schoolteacher[s] writing inane stories about young schoolboys diddling their middleaged teachers."
Indeed, the anons here are SO concerned about middle-aged sorts that they insist that someone in her mid-20s IS middle-aged.
Other writers? Well...I see no evidence that there are other writers here. Claims, sure. No evidence. The anons seem to hate all writers though, especially those that dare publish instead of fail, fail, fail.
NM's posts are past-virulent.
W/r, have you dropped your restrictions on civility/name-calling? How much abuse can pour unabated out of one person? How about:
"You and your pals here are the pieces of shit around with (sic) the universe revolves."
He's so out of control with anger that he can't use the right word.
You're right, anony. Sorry about that. I've been swamped in deadlines, so I've only been giving the posts a cursory glance to make sure they are on topic.
NM: Knock off the name calling and insults. Use your civilized words, please.
Everyone else: please behave. I hate having to be your mother/father.
NM clearly has unresolved anger issues, and needs help. He may be dangerous, though I think his writing of fiction serves as an outlet.
But some are goading him on, and you should examine your motives. Your actions are akin to trying to enrage a caged animal by poking a stick at him. This is sadistic.
As for my patient, I'm seeing little progress. His frequenting of this blog is a form of obsessive-compulsive behavior. OCDs are highly resitant to treatment.
There are a clearly no rules against insults and name-calling here, as even a cursory look at the threads will demonstrate.
You're allowed to insult black writers by saying that they are published only thanks to a "diversity" ideology.
"Rich kid MFA" is another classic insult.
It's easy enough to find plenty of cursing. Few typos though, that is true. I guess when whiiiining behind the veil of anonymity is one's only chance at publishing, you try to make every keystroke count. My own missives are dashed off with just enough thought put into them to send you into the sort of tizzy a puppy in a preschool might spark.
No surprise that when reason runs out--or rather, when there had never been any reason to begin with--the only options are psychological transference and crying for the official censor. "Waaah, Nick says our shitty ideas our shit and corrects our facts! SOMEBODY STOP HIM!!!"
Like I said before, you're all just getting what you deserve.
There is a rule. But nobody follows it.
Yeesh! I'm with Dr. Fraud. This guy is either the consummate troll, or off his meds. Nuts. Step back from the screen. This thread is only alive in your imagination. Look out the window, check out your houseplants, that stuff is real. This is not real life. Get a grip man. GET A GRIP.
Then it's not a rule, it's a cudgel. Only outsiders can have their commentary expurgated; anonylamers of long-standing come here precisely because they CAN be as free with insults as they like. The rule only exists for people who offer them a taste of their own medicine (and who happen to be much better at it).
Nice place you got here, W,R. How does it feel to you that CAPSMAN is the best regular commenter on your blog and that John is #2? (I'm aiming for the bronze medal myself!)
For f*ck's sake the fight's over.
3 Rounds. That's it. Go home.
I'm not judging the next fight, WR. I quit.
Ohmygod, that is fu*king lame. They actually wrote "sorry"? Like that's going to make you feel better? That they're "sorry"? And here's the deal--they're not "sorry." They're glad! They're glad to get the story off their f*cking desk. If they HAD to write something (which they didn't have to do; they could have just skipped writing something), why can't they say, like, "Eat candy!" "Have a martini!" "Buy some shoes!" Some suggestion that actually might be useful.
That's not really Nick Mamatas, btw. I know Nick Mamatas and he wouldn't hurt a fly! This here is clearly the work of Nick Pacione, character assassin.
"However, after a few stories, I want to write a rejection letter that reads"..
You WANT to?
THEN WHY DON'T YOU?
Editors today do not have courage. Just tell the truth. Write the truth. Tell submitters how you really feel. You'd get a lot more respect if you did.
"Although judging by"..
Yeah, you're so judgemental too. That's the other problem with editors today. They like to point fingers about who is judgemental but they're the most judgemental of them all.
No one is reading this thread anymore but I had to laugh out loud at this: "You are unpublished because you cannot tell the difference between what is in your head (middle-aged instructor!) and the facts right in front of you (a 25-year-old woman)."
When you're in college, someone in their mid twenties is not "young" at all and yes, by the time you're pushing thirty, you're definitely middle aged. Maybe this critic here is even older than that author, and in denial of the obvious!
I've been known to pull a rejection letter from hell if I get pissed off enough -- call my magazine The Ethereal Gazette, The Ethereal Gayzette I will give that kind of punishing rejection letter or if the person says I need Decades of Therapy I would go on video as a rejection letter and show her manuscript meeting my friend Mr. P. Shredder. The name of the author who did this, Mary Sangiovanni the Cruella DeVille of Rockaway, New Joisey. What pisses me off with her and Kealan Patrick Burke is we are all the same age. I pulled out a story no one ever seen before with her infamous quote and his story You In because he pulled something like calling me a retard. I said I could very easy pirate this story but I am not -- every single one of my readers called this a Robert Cormeir move. An act of psychological warfare in a brutal display to a potato licker and the resident unfit mother. I said to him, I am going to lay Sangiovanni's career to rest and make his life a living hell reminding him that a kid from Chicago nailed his ass hard. I insult Sangiovanni hard because she stifled my first anthology and it's sequels -- the decades of therapy comment was the last straw.
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