ewilcox:

austinkleon:

Letters of Note: Onward!

Great “rejection” letter. But gives me pangs in my stomach from when I was trying to be a short story writer. The whole system just seems so weird to me now — you send off stuff in the mail to sit in a pile that MAYBE somebody will look at? Insane. Where would I be if I was sending off blackout poems to lit journals?

via merlin

Yeah, the system is crazy. But at least this is a refreshing rejection letter. Yesterday I got a form rejection (from a very highly respected publication) that said “We are sorry, we will not be reading submissions again until after September 21st, 2009.” Yes, crossed out like that. Because, you know, it’s obviously AFTER THAT DATE.

Underneath that was the sentence “We regret that we are not accepting any fiction submissions at this time.” I submitted poetry.

Wilcox, I’ve read your poetry. And I like it. You’re good.