A Simple No Would Do

Over the years I've had my writer's share of rejection slips. If you're unfamiliar with the process of sending out your writing without having an invitation or agent, it's quite simple: You put your manuscript in a manila folder, add a tasteful cover letter that suggests you know something about the publication, add return postage, and wait for two or three months. When I was in graduate school, the writers would compare rejection slips, boasting of ones that indicated near misses, showing off the ones that came back written, apparently, by a human being.

There were several kinds of slips: simple printed form letters, usually sent as postcards; printed letter-size rejections; quick notes from an editor and signed in ink suggesting that they actually read what you sent; and, if you were lucky, an extended missive with critical remarks about the writing along with reasons why it was declined. My favorite slip came from a little-known university literary journal that had boxes for the editor to check, with witty remarks such as "feet smell", "dog peed on it", or "thanks for the paper cut."

Writers have thin skins, especially this one, and I once was told by an author, since deceased, that I'd never make it if I took umbrage with being kicked around a little. Besides, he said, you could send the same story to the same magazine on different days, using different typewriters, and one would sell while the other drew rejections. If your envelope was opened after a hearty staff lunch, they probably fell asleep reading it. If it landed on a Monday morning, the staff may well be hung over.

To show I have no hard feelings, I'm going to present a selection of my more successful failures from the cornucopia of slips from my over-the-transom submissions.

"Dear Ms. Hyman. As before, I admire the writing, which is energetic and stylish. The story, however, doesn't add up to very much, and we'll have to pass. Please try us again." -- The Atlantic.

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"I'm sorry our tastes here are so particular and that I can't take any of these pieces, but the work is vital, energetic and accomplished, and I'd say you're just about to take off with publications. Please stay in touch, I'd be glad to read more." -- Esquire.

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"The writing style itself was excellent but the pace of the story was just too slow. You do have a lot of talent. Sooner or later, it's going to break your way." -- The Missouri Review.

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(Printed on a stock reply card) "We regret that we are unable to use the enclosed material. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it." The Editors, The New Yorker (signature and note at the bottom: Sorry, and thanks.")

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"Sorry that your novel chapter was not for us. Obviously flashbacks can work well in a novel, but to have so many in the first chapter is a little disconcerting. Thanks for the look." -- Playboy.

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"This story came very close. I sent it through four blind readings and while two readers (new persons here) didn't recommend it, our senior fiction editor loved it." -- Prairie Schooner.

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and....then....

"We loved 'Oh, Burning Power...' and want very much to publish it. Please assure us it's available, so we can go to the printer. Many thanks for the story." Paul Lyons, Carolina Quarterly.

But wait for the punchline. The story that the Carolina Quarterly loved and published was written in a single sitting, in a bar, as a satire of the kind of short, hyper-real fiction of the late 1980s that I loathed, and included the use of a character modeled to poke fun at people who loved the genre.

Not long after that, I stopped submitting fiction to the magazines. I won't say I'm bitter, because I'm not. These are rejection slips to die for. But I'm sensitive, and the dead fiction writer who lectured me was right. That a writer should have such little tolerance for caprice, the green fuse that flowers all creative life, is an unlovely thing.