David Baker #Poetry #Editor of #KenyonReview Shares a Rejection at #AWP

David Baker was on a panel with good-old-W,R this morning. He shared this very clever rejection depicting what kind of rejection it was. Looks like someone punched him in the face, right?

Was There A History of Internal Editorial Comments at the VQR After All?

Remember the 2008 uproar over the Virginia Quarterly Review here at old LROD? This was when the VQR got caught sending snippy internal notes to one another about certain submissions? And they ended up with an apology: "It seems obvious—and is regrettable—that some writers got the idea that VQR delights in belittling unsolicited submissions. Nothing could be further from the truth. (yadda, yadda, yadda)." Well, here's one from the archives. I cannot read what the message says on the second page, though.  Something about Gerard Manly Hopkins? Something about Peggy being uptight?  Not sure. But maybe those insider editorial comments emerged from a kind of history at VQR.  Just sayin'.

You May Be A New Woman, But You Are Still Rejected

Here's a very 70s rejection for you.  Hope to hear from you again.

A Y.A. Rejection of Yore from the InterWebs

Time may change the equipment on which these bastard rejections are written, but it doesn't change the content much, does it? I found this modern classic while surfing the InterWebs.

Remember the Days of the S.A.S.E.?

As I recall from the old days, agents and editors were always losing prepaid envelopes and refusing to send back manuscripts. That was back in the day when the U.S. Post Office ruled. (You probably wouldn't understand.) However, before my time, it appears that the editors were the offending parties.  In this 1922 rejection follow-up, the editor of Love Story Magazine is returning twenty-six cents in postage to the author, who wrote a letter of complaint. Now that is quaint.

Conjunction, Junction: What's Your Function?

I did a quickie search and found that Martin is Martin Dibner, author of The Admiral, which was published in 1967.  However, Conjunctions magazine was started in 1981, so maybe not. I'm not sure. Also, there are no search results that I can find for a story titled "The Jesus' Paradox." Is that what it says? Can anyone shed some light here?

Houghton Mifflin Cannot Read Your Tome

Here's a good trick to avoiding rejection that stings: send a manuscript no one can read! I mean, it's a thought.

Our Very Own New Yorker Addicts Preferred

Here's an argument for how it's all about who you know. The New Yorker will hire its very own internal cocaine junkies, thank you very much.

New Yorker Rejection: So Sad, Not That We Don't Like Sad, Just...Well, No

Here's one from the New Yorker archives of confusing rejections*:

Dear Mr. Irwin Shaw:

We have a feeling in general that a story so ambitious, so sad, of such generally dismal setting, hardly has a place in a more or less cheerful or humorous magazine. We think, however, that you write with considerable distinction and we want you to do more at once and send them all to us.

I did not mean to indicate above that we do not publish stories of tragedy, but that we are perhaps more demanding and critical in such cases than we are in our lighter moments. After all, I suppose that it is perfectly justifiable, and that the grimmer aspects of life require more delicate handling than the more comic.

John Mosher
Editor
The New Yorker, 1935

*Courtesy: The New Yorker and the World It Made by Ben Yagoda (Scribner, 2000)

Idea Has Been Done Before

Essanay Film Management Company from Chicago, IL, took the easy way out of rejecting screenplays and scripts back in the day.  Love the list, especially "Overstocked," "Not Interesting," "Improbable," and "Robbery, Kidnapping, Murder, Suicide, Harrowing Death-Bed and All Scenes of An Unpleasant Nature Should be Eliminated."  Indeed!

I'll Have A Classic Coke, Please

It's an American standard form rejection is what it is, a classic. I stopped sending out short stories a while back, though I do have a collection of them that was never published as a book. Ah, books! I know a writer who used to make a living in the newspaper business with a syndicated column. Of the 20 papers that used to carry this friend's column, exactly 1 is still standing today. What is the fate of these print literary reviews? I can't help but wonder. Remember when books were things people wanted to have? I am just as guilty as anyone; I gave away all but a small shelf of books, mostly keeping those that were published by friends, or those that I love to use for teaching, or those that I simply love beyond reason. Also, I imagine, that very soon these paper rejections will be a thing of the past too. I feel like my novel is one of the last to be published on actual wood pulp at this late date in the new Century, don't you?

I Seriously Love Kurt Vonnegut. Have I Mentioned?

Here's one from the archives from the Atlantic Monthly, just to show that even KV got the heave-ho from time to time.  Lots to be Thankful for this year. Will write my annual list tomorrow.  I'm off to my in-laws, so it promises to be better than last year's disaster. Don't eat too much Tofurky mice; it will only make you sleepy vegans.

August 29, 1949
Dear Mr. Vonnegut:
We have been carrying out our usual summer house-cleaning of the manuscripts on our _____bench and in the file, and among them I find the three papers which you have shown me as samples of your work.  I am sincerely sorry that no use of theses seems to us well suited or our purpose.  Both the account of the bombings of Dresden and your article, "What's a Fair Price for Golden Eggs?" have drawn ____________ although neither one is quite compelling enough for our final acceptance.
Our staff remains fully manned as I cannot hold out the hope of an editorial assignment, but I shall e glad to know that you have found a promising opening elsewhere. Faithfully yours, Edward Weeks.

Photo of rejection courtesy the Saturday Evening Post. Fill in the words if you can and let me know what they are; I can't read them off the photo of the framed letter.

New Woman Rejection

The fonts alone on this rejection seems ancient: 1970s fershizz.

"I linger, desperate..."

This plea to publishers was apparently written by someone's great, great grandfather, dating back to the Civil War. Seems like dude never got published, but his rejections and manuscripts were unearthed in an attic somewhere and passed along to family members. I find the whole thing kind of depressing, especially this note from 1879, which has been typed up here for easier reading.

There is No Rejection to End All Rejections

As someone commented here recently, it would be nice to be accepted. But, alas, rejection is an age-old fact for the writer.  This one is from 1936, predating even WWII, the war that truly modernized and changed the world.

A Legend Scribbles

It's one thing to have gotten a classic Gordon Lish rejection, such as this.  It's another to have gotten a handwritten "Good to see. Keep on _______ (something or other)" from the man himself.

One Reader Felt...

Too much detail, too slow: a border-line case. Alas.

Standard Rejection From Standard Magazines

These were the days when they held your story manuscript for you to come pick up. Paper was a lot more valuable in those days, or maybe it was because typing was difficult, and you couldn't just press "print" on your computer. Anyway, too bad about "Beneath the Ashes." I do believe Robert Silverberg probably published the story somewhere. If it's the same guy, who is a prolific science fiction writer. He would have been 14 when he sent this out.  Not sure. Maybe one of you sci-fi mice can enlighten us.

Well, That's Real, Real Nice...Sort Of

I'm getting into these music rejections. They feel related to my own rejections, but distant enough to give me some perspective. For instance (and I paraphrase): "It was real nice. It fell short on melody. It ain't going to lead to a breakthrough. I pass." What can you do? (Rewrite the music, I guess.)  Me? I'm rewriting the novel again.  I had an actual breakthrough last week about the nature of the story I'm writing; how it's one story in the end, not two.  That's always good to know. Oy. It only took a decade and change to pull it back together into one story.  Oh well, at least I'm breathing, and God gave me something to say and the computer on which to say it. That inspires a little gratitude.

The Golden Age of the Blue Copy

This is a fun piece of history. Remember the smudgy blue copy under the formal typed page that you kept for your files? Remember when editors told you optimistically to try MacMillan or Random House, as if you might just pick up the phone and say, "Hello, Random House, have I got a book for you!"