Writers are always swapping rejection slip stories: The rejection that came on a teeny-weeny slip of paper, as though the editor could hardly stand the thought of wasting any tree pulp on us at all; the inscrutable rejection; the oddly worded rejection; und so weiter. The feeling in my critique group seems to be, if you don’t want my story, fine, just say so; anything beyond the basic “not suitable for our present needs” formula (anything that can’t be interpreted as encouragement, that is), is disturbing and causes us to lose sleep.
One of our members brought a rejection slip to tonight’s meeting that I believe takes the cake. It reads:
All right, SUZANNE….and yes, I know it’s YOU….
Is this some kind of a joke??? DON’T YOU THINK YOU’VE DONE ENOUGH DAMAGE???
Unless you cease and desist in harassing me, I will have no other choice than to pursue any and all legal action against you. That is not a threat….that is a promise.
Enough is enough. Kindly do us both a favor and get out of my life and stay out of my life.
Rick
This was paperclipped to her returned submission. And by the way, her name is not “Suzanne.”
Funny, huh? Yeah, I don’t think so either. I think it’s rude, creepy, and more than a little misogynistic.
Filed under: writing
Awful. It reminds me of some of the rejections Snoopy gets (there’s a great book, Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life, that has many of the strips of Snoopy as writer). In one of them, Snoopy writes: “Dear Editor, Why do you keep sending my stories back? You’re supposed to print them and make me rich and famous. What is it with you?” Maybe “Suzanne” should try that.
[...] at Charlottesville Words, provides perhaps the strangest rejection letter that has ever been sent. We’ve been a little sensitive about our own rejection letters ever since David Keeling [...]
Wow. I am almost speechless. Pretty crass. You would think there is a story behind it, but who knows. It still stands as crass, quite creepy and just….crazy as is.
Could it possibly have been a mistake? Maybe attached to the wrong rejection letter? If not, I’d actually give some thought to contacting that person’s manager and letting him/her know what the jerk did.
I saw the letter too. I doubt that it was a mistake, because it’s obviously a photo copy, and not a first generation one either.
I remember I once got a rejection from an online mag that was so cute I actually couldn’t make out what it meant, not even on the basic point of whether they were accepting or rejecting my submission. I wrote back to them something very simple: “What does this mean?” And got a response from the editor in ordinary English explaining that it was rejection.
Another thing about that photocopy. There’s no date, no letterhead, nothing. It is in its entirety what Elizabeth wrote in her post.
Horrible. Very creepy and unprofessional.
This is just creepy.
The NYT got an article over rejection slips from Knopf archives: they’ve got very nasty ones, check it out http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/books/review/Oshinsky-t.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin
That’s a great article, Smithereens. Although Knopf looks crazy now for turning down those manuscripts, the rejection letters at least prove that the manuscripts were actually read.
As the author says, “Today, as publishers eschew the finished manuscript and spit out contracts based on a sketchy outline or even less, the scripting of rejection letters has become something of a lost art.”
[...] might be the most horrific rejection note, ever (via [...]
Felicia’s rejections of my work, on the other hand, have been quite humane. Hi, Felicia!
There’s got to be a story behind this…or I’m just naive.