I have a rejection slip story to end all rejection slip stories. Early in my efforts to get published I sent my short story "The Aviarian" to a magazine called Samisdat, now defunct I believe. The editor wrote me a letter of rejection instead of a rejection slip and said, among many other things, "Who the fuck told you this is a story?" I was devastated and didn't write again for a year. BUT - read on.
The same story was later chosen by Kurt Vonnegut for the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project; it was then chosen as one of the Ten Best PEN/Available Press Short Stories of 1984; then it was chosen as one of three for a special reading at the Library of Congress in 1985.
I have a work in progress about that incident that will go in a longer piece. I wanted to tell it here for any writer who is disheartened after going through a long period of repeated rejections.
You need to be a member of She Writes to add comments!
Join She Writes