WTF? Rejection

I sent a bunch of submissions out a few months ago, so the rejections are rolling in. Here's a rejection I received recently from Memoir (and), which is quite cryptic:

Dear [entire rejected writer's name]:

Your submission "[entire long title of essay]" has been withdrawn from consideration by Memoir (and).

Sincerely,
Editors
Memoir (and)

At first, I thought they caught me doing something wrong (like submitting elsewhere at the same time), and so were withdrawing my piece as a punishment, but in fact I think this is just how they are informing me that they didn't like my essay well enough to publish. What do you think?

May Day Rejection--But Who Can Remember?

The Adirondack Review had this one so long it could have given birth to other stories.  Seriously, I'm talking a long time....maybe even a year.  Maybe longer.  I could count up the years with Diane Goettel's perky emails, announcing contests and books, etc. (I am traveling just now, but will check my notes and confirm the date of submission with an update). 

On Apr xx, 2008, at 1:15 PM, Kara Christenson wrote:

Dear Writer, Rejected,

Thank you very much for submitting your work to The Adirondack Review. I do apologize for the lengthy turn-around time.

After reviewing "[title of story]", we have decided not to publish it.

The Adirondack Review receives hundreds of stories every year and only publishes a handful.

We wish you the best of luck finding a home for your story.

Regards,
The Adirondack Review Staff
--
Kara Christenson
Fiction Editor, The Adirondack Review
www.theadirondackreview.com

Good thing I gave them an "exclusive read" (not), since they've had the thing since the 1980's practically, and since they note on their website that they "discourage simultaneous submissions."

Fiction in a Bottle on a Napkin from a Letter?

Commercial Magazines are in trouble this week with kiddie porn in Vanity Fair (though I happen to think the shot by Leibovitz was rather artful, but clearly against the kid's branding).  

With writers commenting here, the trouble is with Esquire:  in particular Esquire's Napkin Project and Letter-Inspired Fiction.  

My take is that the world is pushing hard to make fiction something gimmicky so that the reality-TV-watching, data-bombarded, Internet-using, non-book-reading public will find it cute.  I don't like cute fiction, but that's just me.  And since when have we aimed for Regular Joe Nonreader as the audience?  I think it's a mistake. You?

Your "No Sim-Sub" Policy is Stupid

Lest we go too far afield with our recent debates about editors, agents and editors, an anonymous reader sent us this tidbit for consideration:

"I once received a rejection from a small literary journal TWO YEARS after submission. The rejection, which is now long gone, was 80% apology and 20% rejection with an invitation to resubmit using simultaneous submissions, which was strictly against the lit mag's policy.  What the editors didn't know is that I always send my poems out to at least 6 magazines at a time, regardless of policies against multiple submissions. In my view, the world moves too fast for me to sit around waiting forever while minds are made up...or more accurately not made up."

It begs the question: Do you send your stuff out simultaneously even when not permitted to do so? Should magazines do away with exclusive read policies?

Dear Commercial Magazine Editor

Oh boy. We've got ourselves another writer's manifesto in the making. This is a response to the heated debate going on here at LROD. I added internal links to this anonymous commenter's response, so that readers could follow along with the issues. Have at it, friends:

"To Dave Clapper: I'm an anon who has nothing against you, sir, and I have no problem with you or any other editor publishing your "friends" or even soliciting. In fact, I think that's a GOOD thing. It certainly is natural, normal, pure human nature -- and, in fact, to DENY it is wrong, I believe.

Naturally, as a writer, I also want to be "friends" with good editors. And I believe that if I write well enough, and send the right editors the right kind of things, that I will of COURSE become their "friend."

However, I do have a problem with this. A big one. And that is that the editors of commercial magazines, web sites, and all other publications do not WANT good literature. None of them publish it. And of course there is the fact that the commercial short story market is almost completely extinct. But Dave, honestly, I have no beef with you and I do wish you the best -- but I do not read Smokelong nor do I submit to it, simply because I don't believe in these journals where the authors are unpaid. I'm not an academic, not an MFA rich kid so I don't have the luxury to submit to such journals. I am a working writer. I have belonged to the National Writers Union (which recommended its members to NEVER write for a magazine that pays less than a dollar word).

There was a time when fiction was relevant. And when there were good editors. And when you could make a living as a writer, and didn't have to become a professor instead. I want that world to come back, that world where fiction is popular, is read by many people, is commercially available -- and is something that good writers can make a living off of.

So my beef is not with you, sir -- your journal, although I don't read it, I do wish it the best -- but my beef is with the editors and publishers of the commercial magazines. The ones I've learned about on LROD, the ones whose work records have been detailed time and time again on this blog. The ones that killed the short story, and subsequently killed literature.

You know the ones. Someone posted on here before, suggesting a boycott of all Hearst and Conde Nast publications. Yes! That's it, those are the ones. From Redbook to Men's Journal, Details to GQ, Vanity Fair to the Saturday Evening Post, these commercial magazines are terrible, filth-ridden rags. Very base, very stupid, and poorly written, too. But I took up an LROD suggestion, and sought out an antique issue of one of my target magazines. (Actually I found a bundle of them at a book sale.) And I began to read. And first thing I thought of was how REFRESHING it was to read articles that didn't have that smarmy tone that every magazine seems to have now. And articles that were SINCERE about living, even the simple things. And I also thought that most college kids today couldn't even PARSE a 1960's copy of Saturday Review or an old Esquire or Cosmopolitan. That's so absolutely pathetic.

I write for a living. And I can write an article for a magazine like Vogue about something with a third-grade mentality (but graphically sexual), and be paid two dollars a word for my "efforts." But when I do that, I feel like I'm a drug dealer on a playground or something -- it's disgusting. And I am paid obscenely well for stupid, stupid non-fiction "profile" pieces, "trend" pieces, and all manner of fluff. Again, up to two dollars a word for this stuff.

But these editors have zero interest at all in fiction. Most of them no longer print any fiction at all. If you read a GQ of today, you'll never ever realize that even in the early 90's, they used to print serious articles and serious fiction, 7,000 word short stories. The few that do print fiction, like Esquire, print only the basest, dumbest crap you've ever seen put into words. Some of it was featured here on LROD. Look in the archives and follow the links. Please, READ this stuff. Read that "story" about Heath Ledger. The sad thing is, we'll have more and more of that kind of crap from these magazines.

So I'm angry about this, and I want to do something about it. I voice my disgust with it. I say, "Voice it loud. Let the world hear it. (Especially their advertisers.)" Get them where it hurts, let everybody know that we don't think they are cool, we don't think they are smart, and we don't want to be seen TOUCHING their filthy magazines. Yes, I call these editors to task. I think it's time to name names, to call these people up, invite them to discuss -- let them defend their positions. Let's hear it from them. Why do they shovel out this crap to the world, when so many people are obviously hungering for something more?"

No Agent? No Sweat...New Trend?

Our new friend, Dave Clapper, editor of SmokeLong Quarterly, offers us this article about Steve Almond's experience going agentless, which another commenter has disputed, saying Almond has had an agent for years, but I think he says as much in the article. But anyway, perhaps a new trend is born! Shall we all go boldly forth into the world of books without an agent? (Frankly, I've been doing it on and off for years, but, you know, this time it would be planned because I'm a winner, not a loser.)

A Slim News Day?

Mediabistro's Galley Cat has been stumping former hot-chick book publicist Sloane Crosley's book of essays  I Was Told There'd Be Cake so much that someone sent in this anonymous complaint: "Enough with the Cake Already,"  which made me laugh. And just to give you an idea about how Sloane crazy they are over there, here are the frenzied posts from the cake-smitten pussies.

• "Scene @ Sloane Crosley's Helmut Lang Book Party"  (Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 4:00)
• "Let Them Eat Cake" (Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 4:02)
• "The Cake at Sloane Crosley's Book Party Was Sort of Underwhelming" (Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 4:15)
• And my favorite, least you think they might cover a different book or a different topic, is plain old ironic: "'I Was Told There'd Be Cake' Continues to Climb the 'Times Bestseller List'" (Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 4:34) This last post aims for cheeky as if the bloggers over there are innocent of revving the hype machine: "Hey, have you heard anything about this Sloane Crosley book? Understandable if you haven't -- it's not like it's getting much hype. But that hasn't stopped it from hitting #14 on the Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list, tying with #13, which is by Michael Pollan. The book debuted on the list at #19 last Sunday." 

Yuck. On so many levels, here.  Just yuck.

The Agent Question

A great question came in from the anonymice peanut gallery. This one will probably rile up the agents, but what the heck. We already stirred up some editors. Let's see what you all think.

"I'm feeling quite anxious and I have a request for you, WR.

Been a while since anyone has had any good agent gossip but some time back there was a discussion about how no agents today were like Binky Urban or The Jackal Andrew Wylie or even tried to be like them. Cynic that I am, I (alas) have to agree with that sentiment. I feel that "serious" writers are basically SOL right now.

And when I see stuff like the newest agent at Lippincott, Massie, McQuilkin who is responsible for "The Handjob Handbook: A Work of Non-Friction " (sorry) or the agent at Levine Greenberg who herself is writing some kind of "diarrhea cookbook" (sorry) or the young agent whose "cutting-edge" interests includes a new dictionary for descriptions of the sex act (sorry), well I get more than anxious.

So if you're soliciting another Ask LROD, I would like to know: who are the best serious literary agents out there now (under 65, please, but preferably under 50)? Any up-and-comers worthy of note, agents who wouldn't be caught dead peddling the above tomes? Or are all agents (especially the young ones) basically incompetent, rude idiots now, too?"

Simultaneous, Yet Conflicting

From an anonymous reader:

"Best synchronised rejects I had, in a single day, from 2 sim subs. sometime in 2004:

1) You can write, but can't tell a story.

2) You can tell a mean story, but can't write.

helpful huh?"

Cop Show or Short Story?

An anonymous reader sent this rejection story in.  It's a good one:

"This happened around 1995 when I just starting to dabble in short stories. I finished a little short story (probably 3-4 pages) about a cop discovering either a murder scene or a scene of domestic abuse (Hell, I don’t remember). If I recall, it was sort of poignant but probably not particularly well written. I wound up submitting it to Caffeine Magazine which I was aware of because it was handed out for free at various coffee houses in LA. The story seems to have made it past the initial reader because when I got the rejection letter back, it actually had (brief) written comments from three judges. One of those judges gave me the funnest rejection I ever received. He wrote (paraphrasing here as I got rid of the original letter 13 years ago): 'Next week’s episode of TJ Hooker?'”

But wait there's more, a side note and some sleuthing:

"The story was later accepted by an Australian Goth Zine called Dark Angel Magazine and actually was a seminal (am I using that word correctly?) moment in my slow-as-a-glacier development as a write.

On and off again for the last decade, I’ve snooped around the internet trying to determine the fate of the editor of Dark Angel magazine. The problem is that I never knew her real name (She went by the moniker “Azriel”) I know that she left the magazine and went to the US to manage a band, but she has left little in the way of traces of her existence.

Caffeine still exists (in virtual form) and you can find a nice description of the original, paper version of the magazine on Rob Cohen’s Linked-In page: (I don’t know Rob in any way, shape or form)."

Fire Storm At "Get Real"

Looks like my post about getting some friends in high places has caused a bit of a sh*t storm in the comments section at Kelly Spitzer's blog.  She and her participants don't exactly appreciate my reaction, which seems like a pretty natural one for a writer, rejected like me.  I always enjoy Kelly Spitzer's blog, and link to her interesting discussions often, calling her the Spitzmeister, and sending all of you over there for an insider's view.  I guess I'm just never going to be popular among the editor set, whether big guns or small potatoes.

Anyhoo...they are mad as hornets over there at me (one commenter called me a "dork," and another called me an "asshat," and there's some question about my balls, which is kind of fun.) 

So, Kelly, who is pissed, and never mentions all the good press I give her, has asked the following question:  

"I guess my problem with Writer, Rejected and [another blogger] Vanessa’s comments are lack of evidence. Can either of you back up your argument? Do you have personal experience? An editor who rejected you because they solicited a piece instead, maybe? I’d like to know! I’d be stunned and find that despicable, but at least I’d understand where you’re coming from."

Hello? Has Kelly read LROD and my 9 million rejections? I would bet (but can't prove) that a few editors have solicited a writer from another lit mag, or from a friendly workshop, or from their friends on Face Book, after passing my work up.  But what does that prove?  They will just say what they always say, which is that I'm clearly not worthy of being published.  

Anyone want to answer her question about why editor solicitation is so irritating a practice to the serious writer who banks on good writing to open doors?

Feeling Anxious?

Anxiety is the essential condition of intellectual and artistic creation 

and everything that is finest in human history.  

--Charles Frankel

Brilliant Colson Whitehead

A funny article about faux-memoirist Margaret B. Jones (aka Seltzer) in New York Magazine's Book/Author Profile section called "Flava of the Month" by Colson Whitehead.

The article totally trumps the faux-journalistic-fiction piece at Esquire about dead Heath Ledger because, well, it's funny, and doesn't wreck the joke with  an apology or excuse for itself.  Totally worth the read.  Go here to check it out.

All The World's A Staged Rejection

Hey, look!  The playwrights have found us....those poor, poor rejected souls!  (I think writing for the stage is even more of a losing proposition than writing books.  "The theater is dead!" they all.  Maybe so.)  This anonymous playwright seems close to success: the Eugene O'Neill Conference is a huge deal.  I think the rejection is pretty nicely worded.  

The anonymous playwright notes that there had formerly been some trouble with the $35.00 submission/reading fee, which is considered high among playwrights, but wasn't bringing in enough dough to keep the Conference solvent.  

For a while, the O'Neill Conference organizers proposed eliminating the open admissions policy, allowing only playwrights with an agent to submit, because they wanted to cut down on number of submissions needing to be read to reduce costs.  To raise funds, the O'Neill also dreamed up a little idea to demand a percentage of profits from any play accepted into the conference IN PERPETUITY to ensure an ongoing endowment.  Whew!  That seems steep and a little unfair.

 

Fortunately, a group of established playwrights thought this was outrageous, and so they circulated a protest letter asking everyone to boycott the O'Neill until the Conference organizers did away with the new proposed policy.  These famous folks (Christopher Durang, Marsha Norman) thought that closing the open admission policy would hinder the success of lesser known talents.  Ultimately, the boycott worked, and the O'Neill rescinded the exclusionary policy.  As noted in this rejection, the O'Neill is starting a fund named after Wendy Wasserstein to keep the project funded without taking money away from struggling playwrights.

It makes it all sound like a supportive cozy club with the famous playwrights helping their own lesser-known comrades.  Sounds nice.  

Express Lane: 12 Rejections or Less

I wanted to see just how fast they are over at Subtropics. So, I mailed a hardcopy of my story off via the snail, and this came in my e-mailbox exactly 7 days later! I particularly appreciated the closing ad for the new issue for the Subtropics double issue, featuring none other than  stolen baboon, who has gotten in front and center, (not you):

From: Subtropics Magazine
Date: April 18, 2008 2:33:55 PM EDT
To: writerrejected@aol.com
Subject: "[title of story]"
Reply-To: subtropicsmag@yahoo.com

Thanks very much for sending us your work. We have now had a chance to read it, and feel that it isn't right for SUBTROPICS. But we appreciate your thinking of us.

Please note that we have updated our website and submissions guidelines.

http://www.english.ufl.edu/subtropics

The Editors

---
SUBTROPICS 6 will be published in May 2008, a double issue with two covers! Featuring stories by Jacob M. Appel, John Brandon, Nadia Kalman, and Celeste Ng; an essay by Timothy Cook; a novella by Peter Wells; and 41 poets, including Peter Cooley, Averill Curdy, Richard Kenney, John Kinsella, Kathleen Rooney, Reginald Shepherd, A. E. Stallings, G. C. Waldrep, and Suzanne Zweizig. In translation: poems by Silvio D'Arzo, Tomaz Salamun, and Hai Zi and a story by Ricardo Silva Romero.

http://www.english.ufl.edu/subtropics

Now that is damn fast, oddly fast, in fact. (I think I might send a whole bunch more, just to see if they can keep it up, kind of an experiment in express rejecting.)