A publisher accidentally sent Susan Messer private notes about a manuscript. Once she recovered from her devastation, she decided to turn the hurtful words into a performance piece entitled, "Rejection Rhumba." The sound is muffled, but you get the idea.
4 comments:
Hey, thanks for picking up on this and posting. I'll always remember how humiliated I felt when I opened that envelope from the lit mag. I hid it in my office, didn't tell anyone about it. Then, a few days later, still stewing about it, I realized that I hadn't done anything wrong. I'd simply submitted a short story to a magazine. Then the idea for a response began to take shape.
Well, over here at LROD we love you.
I wonder if this post about an unfortunate incident with some readers at the Virginia Quarterly Review helps explain that sometimes readers and editors just get drunk with meanness: Oopsy VQR
Anyway, you have plenty of company.
Yes to all, and thanks again (that photo of the pumpkin is amazing). And despite it all, some of us persevere. I just had my first novel published (Grand River and Joy from University of Michigan Press), and the painful rejection experiences are way-stops along the path. I hope you won't mind a plug.
http://www.susanmesser.net/grandriver&joy.html
Susan, you are a wonderfuland classy person. What a beautiful way to come back after being knocked down. Best of luck to you and your first novel's success!
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