It takes money to publish books, and most of that money flows out the door before the book is released and sales begin, so my publishing company, Shadowpaw Press, is turning to Crowdfundr to help …
Shapers of Worlds Volume IV, the fourth anthology featuring authors who were guests on my podcast, The Worldshapers, is now available everywhere, including directly from Shadowpaw Press. Here’s a handy universal URL with links to …
My publishing company, Shadowpaw Press, has three great titles coming out in the first two months of 2024, all of them science fiction or fantasy. The first two, The Good Soldier by Nir Yaniv and …
Here’s another seven-sentence short story! I ran the workshop again at Ganbatte, an anime convention in Saskatoon. It went well, and here’s the one I created, again with the instructions, created by noted SF short-story …
Another When Words Collide, another Seven-Sentence Short Story workshop, as I once again led a group of writers through this plotting exercise devised by noted science fiction short-story writer James Van Pelt. As always, I …
Soulworm, my first published novel (originally released by Royal Fireworks Press in 1997), is now available in a brand-new, lightly revised edition from Shadowpaw Press Reprise. You can purchase it at one of these links …
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"Please forgive me for not accepting your rejection letter…"
From a long (and well-worth reading in its entirety) article by Brian Doyle in the Kenyon Review ruminating on rejection letters, comes this example of an author’s (Stefan Merkan’s) response to a rejection–a response that speaks for every author ever stung by one:
“Please forgive me for not accepting your rejection letter. At this time I cannot accept a rejection of my short story. I accept more than 99 percent of the rejections I receive. Many I don’t agree with, but I realize that accepting a piece of fiction for publication is a very subjective judgment call. My acceptance of your rejection letter is also a subjective process and therefore I am returning your letter to you. I did read your letter. I read every letter I receive. Your letter was well-written, but due to time constraints from my own writing schedule, I am unable to make editorial comments. I do make mistakes. Don’t you, as an editor, be disheartened by this role reversal. The road of publishing is long and tedious. You need successful publications and I need for successful publications to print my stories. I will expect to see my story in your next publication. Good luck in the future.”
(Via Normblog.)
Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2008/12/please-forgive-me-for-not-accepting-your-rejection-letter/