Dear JR,
Thanks for sending your piece, but I decided not to use it. I'm sorry, I can be pretty dense sometimes. I don't really understand what's happening.
Although I can't use this particular story, please feel free to send another.
John Benson, Editor
Not One Of Us
My knee-jerk reaction: I'm getting very very perturbed. Perhaps I'll put on some brass knuckles and try ThugLit. I'd like to wear one of their t-shirts to work and kick some major ass.
9 comments:
Finding the right place is just as hard as writing the thing. I spend as much time looking over journals as I do . . . man .. . it's frustrating. I just sent something to the Bellevue Literary Review . . . yeah - the famous New York looney bin has a literary review thank ya very much.
James,
It gets even more bizarre.
I once had an editor say to me,
"Based on your reputation, I'll print anything at all that you will send in."
I dutifully sent in a short story about a guy going through a divorce, getting up in the morning undecided over shaving or cutting his throat."
Rejection.
Me? God's chosen?
I heard accusing chipmunks out of the old Charlie Brown song rhyming in usison: "Yes you!"
How was I to know that the editor himself was going through a divorce.
Much, much later somebody steered me straight. Find out all you can about the editor, his likes, his dislikes his sexual hangups--then tailor a storoy to that kind of personality.
My next story was about a sexually marginal guy whom even viagara couldn't cure when it came to satisfying his wife.
Socko-boffo! Paydirt.
Things have probably changed in thirty years. Most editors now are women.
How would you pander to a female editor's likes, dislikes, sexual hang-ups?...For the life of me, I don't know.
I hve made this offer before: Send me your best piece here at Island Grove Press.
But make sure it follows a kind of journalistic-Aristotalian structre, LEAD, BODY, POINT, the point agreeing with the lead.
Surrealism and stream- of -consciousness can come later.
Ivan
Jim, That dude sounds very very dense! Keep trying and don't give up! --Bro, Ron
i guess writing is wearing two hats...the creative hat for the writing process and the cold business hat for the selling process
Anonymous,
You have hit the nail on the head.
Ivan
I once got a standard form rejection slip with a personal note from the editor telling me how great the cover letter was, had the whole office laughing.
I wrote him back and asked him why "they didn't print the fucking cover letter then?"
I never heard anything back But I guess I flushed my toilet with my response to their response.
TWM,
I don't mind rejection letters. What really gets me is when an editor claims to have been brain dead at the time he read it.
Thug Lit ~~ now there's something I can rally to.
To steal Lulu's apt expression, some of these clueless editors really are fucktards in disguise (please excuse my French -- it was Bastille Day yesterday)
Keep on truckin' Jim!
Keep hammering away at them, JR! Less dense sounds plain and simple so thinking isn't required!
I wish I had a fish pond like yours. I guess that answers Josie's question about what you do with all the fish you catch!
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