Talk About Efficient Rejecting

Here's one sent in by an anonymous LROD reader:

I once received my query letter back with manuscript attached.  No note. No stamp. Just a big red letter "R" in a circle on the top of the page.  I swear this is a true story. 

Somehow I believe it. 

Sorry to Inform You

Here's a sadly classic rejection note sent in by an anonymous reader:

"Dear Writer: Thanks for you interest, but [name of magazine] has been discontinued. Sincerely, The Editors"

It's not you....we're just going out of business.

Or Maybe That's Just Plain Crazy

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." -- Winston Churchill.

Dude is a Prince

Dear WR:

I confess that I am both highly flattered and somewhat dumbfounded to
be the subject of such literary interest. I assure you that I don't
think of myself as particularly successful, from a publishing
standpoint, and I have received far more rejections than acceptances.
Since I imagine some of your readers are interested in hard numbers, I
have received approximately 11,100 rejection letters over the past
fifteen years--as well as one phone rejection (from the late,
brilliant George Plimpton at the Paris Review); since I've published
eighty-two stories, that's a decidedly low acceptance to rejection
ratio. I suppose the key to the limted successes that I have had is
perseverence. And a great deal of good old-fashioned dumb luck. And
the reason I keep doing it so simple that it may disappoint some of
your readers: I love writing stories.

I do have one piece of advice for other writers: Don't take rejection
personally and never take it to heart. I've received a number of
strange, discouraging, and even provocative rejection letters over the
years, but my two favorite read as follows: The first letter stated:
"I imagine some editors find your work amusing, although I cannot
imagine why. Please don't send your work to XXXXX ever again."
Another, from a different journal, read in entirety: "Dear Mr. Appel:
Do not consider this note of rejection specific to this story.
Consider it a preemptive rejection of anything else that you are
thinking of sending our way. The Editors." The two letters hang on
my office wall. And I continue to submit to both journals in the hope
that their editors will have a change of heart or pass the editorial
baton to a more receptive audience.

I also hope that I will publish a book someday. I remain cautiously
optimistic. I suspect your readers will be among the first to
know--that they may even find out before I do.

All the best of luck with your fascinating website. I have only had
an opportunity to peruse it briefly, but I think it's one of the
cleverest sites on the internet. If there are any other specific
questions that you have, feel free to put them my way.

Sincerely,
Jacob M. Appel

Another Editor Goes Awry

If you think the recent VQR insanity wasn't enough, Rebecca Wolff, editor of Fence Magazine has apparently told one of the writers she's published to "eat shit and die," and then brags about it on her blog, publishing the childish exchange she had with the offended writer. Thanks to Book Fox for bringing it to attention. The comments on her post are good, so it's worth checking out, but here's the exchange basically in full.  It's so sick, I couldn't resist:

"One of the strangest corollaries of being a literary journal editor is being made aware from time to time of how many contributors there are out there silently hating you for a multitude of perceived offenses, however real or unreal. The below correspondence is real, but identifying facts have been changed to preserve anonymity of contributor/correspondent. Note that I, Rebecca Wolff, was the first to get truly offensive, but also note that I have developed, over the years, a deficit of patience with contributors who act as though I am somehow out to get them. Also note that I have given myself the last word here; for all I know XXX will choose to ignore my final command and will speak to me again. I’ll keep you posted.

*

February 14

Hi Rebecca Wolff,

Recently you were kind enough to accept two of my poems for the current issue of Fence. Do you send out contributors copies? Just wondering because I haven’t received anything yet.

Thanks
XXX XXXX
XX E. XXXXX Street Apt 16
New York, NY 1xxxx

PS Saw the website. Thanks for posting XXXXXXXX!

*

February 14

XXX,

Did you used to live in XXXXXXXX, NJ?

R

*

February 14

Yes. My parents live there, so if you sent it there I will get it eventually.

XXX

*

April 6

Rebecca Wolff:

Well, I finally found the time to pick up a copy of Fence—not easy, since I work three grueling shit jobs, and don’t have time to track these things down—and it’s a good issue.

Regan Good’s poem The Atlantic House, in particular, is a knockout. I can’t say the same for the way you treat your contributors, though. I edit a XXX-page journal and even though it’s tough on me financially, I make sure every contributor gets a free copy.

The fact that you’re backed by a university and still can’t fork up a lousy contributor’s copy is unforgivable. The fact that you couldn’t even answer my simple question as to whether or not you provide complimentary copies is even worse. I guess my question wasn’t intellectually-ambitious or post-post-post-avant enough for you.

XXX XXXX

*

April 6

See below; eat shit and die.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Wolff

“February 14

XXX,
Did you used to live in XXXXXXXX, NJ?
R

February 14
Yes. My parents live there, so if you sent it there I will get it eventually.
XXX”

*

April 20

What is this supposed to mean? I was just at my parents last week and no Fence, and this months after it came out. Is “eat shit and die” your way of saying you sent it to me? [Editor’s note: What I should have said was: “No, eat shit and die is my way of saying check your facts, you corroded node, before getting on your high horse to send me an email accusing me of not doing my job.] If you DID send it to me, you could’ve just said so and all this could have been avoided. Like I said, it never got to me. I’ve supported you for years, buying your mag and sticking up for it when my writer-friends basically condemned it.

Let me share a brief anecdote:

One spring day when I was sixteen, my friend and I were posting flyers at XXXXX Academy (private school for rich kids) for a concert our metal band was playing. The board was in the dining hall and soon as we walked into the room–two skinny long-hairs–the place went dead. Then someone yelled “Throw them out!” and we were basically driven out on a rail. It wasn’t traumatic at all, but the memory has remained for its novelty, I think it’s kind of funny, actually. But more to the point, I’ve always thought of that dining hall as being the equivalent of Fence (read: snobbery). You’ve proven me right.

XXX

*

April 20

XXX,

I just don’t take kindly to receiving accusatory mail. Read your email to me and you will see that you are attacking me for not responding to your initial query when, in fact, as I showed you in my response (and that’s why I said “E. S. & D,” because I was proving you wrong), I DID respond to your query. Yes, I sent the issue to the NJ address; I don’t know why it never reached there but all you had to do was write back politely and say that the issue never reached there and I would gladly send another. Instead you wrote me a snotty note–I am not responsible for your or anyone’s neurotic complex about high school–implying that I had not responded to your query, when in fact I had.

If you would like to give me your correct address I will send the issue there.

RW

*

April 21

Becky Coyote,

God you are a vile human being. Saw your photo at Norton Poets Online and in Poets and Writers–your looks match up with your personality perfectly. No wonder you have issues. And I feel sorry for your kid–I’m sure he’ll grow up to be mean and ugly, just like his mommy.
*

April 21

You’re a total loser. Never speak to me again."

Yikes! Lady editor is a piece of work, and offended writer got pretty damn low to the ground, too. Seems like more of the same.

2nd Place In A Pinch

I'm beginning to think that You Know Who is unstoppable.  This time dude didn't take first place, but won 2nd place in a contest by The Pinch, a literary journal from the University of Memphis!

Other Appel publications can be read:

• Here
• Here
• Here
• Here (he writes plays, too!), and
• Here

More importantly, do you think you say his name like the fruit?  Or with an accent on the last syllable?

Books or Blogs: Choose Your Poison

Gawker is sporting this chart, as revised from this chart, clarifying that the people who read books intersect only vaguely with people who read blogs, or people who buy books written by bloggers.  It's a whole lot of clicking for a small joke, but I kind of liked the charts.  I thought you might too.  Slow rejection news day?  I guess so.

Junker v. Genoways (Round 2)

The Genoways and Junker bout from yesterday is going strong for Round 2.  Who's going to win this one? (Who cares?)  It's kind of interesting to watch them pummel each other and insult each other's lit mags.  At the same time, as some fine commenter on this blog pointed out, maybe they should get back to reading the slush pile and looking for work by...us.

A Book Only Charles Bukowski Could Love

An anonymous submitter gives us this joy today:

Dear [Writer]: Thank you for seeking me out. I must be one of hundreds that you have sent this email to. I sense that you are “gritty” and can most likely handle any and all feedback, especially as a connoisseur of, what was it, the greasy spoon eating establishment. My first reaction is this—what a shame that Bukowski is dead. I must admit that you would find my review elitist and polysyllabic—something unbecoming and unpleasant to the ethos which I think you are seeking to express. I appreciate being contacted, but feel that I am the wrong person to review your work. 

Says the writer:  I had sent a single page letter, personable, but professional. There was no sample of the writing contained in it. The response was so off-base, cruel, and out of whack that it didn't really sting. I was kind of mesmerized by it. He somehow made some connection between myself and the late poet Charles Bukowski (my novel has no basis around any of that), and he also acquired this bizarre idea that I ate in dive restaurants (there was no mention of food or any such thing in my business-like query letter). This guy jumped to a strange conclusion, and then ran with it, even describing how he feels I wouldn't understand words with more than one syllable. All without having seen a single word of the book. 

Seems like a real disconnect. Maybe this was a mistakenly addressed rejection.  That's got to happen sometimes. 

What Are Your Stats?

A very industrious anonymous LROD reader, sent in these impressive rejection stats:

Total Career Figures

@ 283A-0M-729R
out of 1009 responses

Submissions
As of May 17th, 2008

Total Submitted: 1572
Total A/R/M: 1009
Total Resolved: 1457
Total Pending: 134
Acceptances: 283
Rejections: 729
Maybes: 0
Rescinsions (RC): 228
Returns (RT): 224
Accept Percent: 26.08%
Reject Percent: 74.97%
Return(RT+ARM): 20.01%
Rescind(RC+ARM): 17.74%

Total Accepted: 552
Total Novel: 1
Total Fiction: 3
Total Spoken: 9
Total Graphic: 3
Essays: 2

Junker v. Genoways

Looks like now the editors of VQR  (Ted Genowasy) and Zyzzyva (Howard Junker) are going at each other.  Have a read here.  What I love is how Genoways, who has apologized for ridiculing slush pile writers, cannot pass a chance to justify his actions.  Funny.  Says Genoways of Junker, who has claimed to be shocked at VQR's offensive comments:  "Of course, two weeks ago—on the Zyzzyva blog—Junker likened his own slush pile to a “barrel of crap” and a week before that compared it to John Bunyan’s “slough of despond.” (For those of you not up on your Pilgrim’s Progress, one scholar cited on Wikipedia explains that it is 'the low ground where the scum and filth of a guilty conscience, caused by conviction of sin, continually gather.')"  Oh dear.  To me they seem so alike that they should be at a bar having a drink, not pummeling each other in public.  But what do I know?

Wikipedia is My Life!

Some kind LROD anonymouse made a nice little nest over at Wikipedia. Check it out.

One correction: Rosemary Ahern is an editor formerly of Washington Square Press, not an agent. And I love that Jacob Appel is included.  I hope he gets his own Wikipedia entry, just for fun.  He deserves it (more than I do).

Suicide Rejection

The Cum Hither Global (nice name) reports that a literary critic and podcaster named J. Johnson Edwards penned a romance novel to prove how ridiculously easy it is to master the genre, and then took to his house with an axe and had to be put on suicide watch after receiving his first (FIRST!) rejection.  The story is reported in full here, unlinked and unverifiable.  I guess it's a joke, right?  (You know how I sometimes miss a joke.) It'd be funnier if it were real.

Iowa MFA Grad Speaks Out

I love the LROD commenter "Iowa Grad" who posted over on the Blah, Blah, Blah post (66 comments and going strong; you people are insane).  Minus the MFA, I feel as if Iowa Grad and I are kindred souls.   Here it is, his/her searing response to one of the bitter bobs (not me, though I am bitter):

Hey, angry anon: I have an MFA from Iowa. I earned it in the late '80s, wrote three unpublished novels before publishing my first book eleven years after getting the degree. I also taught as an adjunct at several colleges, sometimes earning a whopping sum of $1,000 per month for teaching four classes, with no health benefits or retirement, etc. It's been twenty years now since I got my degree, and I've published a few books and have a good job, but I still get rejections from little magazines and book publishers alike. That's part of the business, buddy. No one owes you squat. Nobody. Oh yeah...I'm a first-generation college student and accumulated a boat-load of debt for all three of my degrees. Based on your rants (or maybe there's more than one angry anon on here), I should have been handed a sweet book deal and a cushy job upon graduation. I guess I'm failing to see how you and I are different, except that I've worked my ass off to get where I am, and all you seem to be doing is bitching and moaning. I'm exhausted by the anti-MFA rant. I've never -- ever -- had an editor or agent ask me where I went to school, and I quit mentioning it on my cover letter once I realized that, no, it didn't get me anything. Hell, I'll go one step further and say that there's probably more anti-Iowa folks out there than pro-Iowa folks ready to open their doors and hand me a fat check. One more thing: Would I care if you liked my work? If you did, great; but if you didn't, no, not really.

New No-Win Nonfiction Contest (JoAnn Beard)

Looks like we've got another no-win contest on our hands, friends. Fuel for another debate? Or just too boring?  Either way, this just came in from an anonymous LROD reader: 

"Dear Entrant,

We at Columbia: A Journal of Literature & Art, would like to thank you for your submission. There were many fantastic pieces to choose from this year, and the selection of winners was carefully considered by our judges. The fiction and poetry winners can be read in your complimentary issue of Columbia, and runners-up can be found on www.columbiajournal.org.
After much deliberation, nonfiction judge JoAnn Beard exercised her right not to select a winner, as written in our contest rules.

We encourage you to enter our 2009 contests. Judges will be announced on our Web site in the fall."

JoAnn Beard has judged a lot of contests and has once before refused to choose all the winners, as reported here on LROD; maybe it's a habit of hers.  Anyway, I'm pretty sure she's rejected me several times along the way, though I didn't submit for this particular contest.  But could it really be that not one creative nonfiction piece was good enough for publication?  Thanks for sending this, "A Lonely Writer in the Trenches." Given the insult of this rejection, I hope you are a poet and fiction writer.