Corey Ginsberg on “The Two Faces of Rejection”

How can I distill 530 rejection letters into a few paragraphs? What can I say about rejection that hasn’t already been said by 1,000 other writers in 1,000 other ways? Maybe nothing. But what I can do is tell you how it feels to be on both sides of the rejection process. In addition to being a struggling writer, I have worked at four different publications. Being in a position to send out rejection letters while receiving my own has helped to illuminate the process for me. Let me tell you what I’ve learned about editors:

Some days you’re in a bad mood. You’ve read 40 submissions about birds, and none of them has a single concrete image, let alone a compelling snapshot that warrants an entire stanza, much less a twelve-page poem. Out of the past 200 submissions, only ten writers used the proper submission format. Some wrote in size 48 font, bold, Calibri. Others shaped their poems like the Eiffel Tower, like a heart. You are tired—undervalued, under (not) paid. Your office is a closet that you don’t even have the key to, and it smells like sweat and pee pee. You skipped breakfast, and are especially disgruntled since you got your own slew of rejections in the mail that morning. And your journal is so poor it can barely afford postage, let alone sixty pounds of paper for personalized rejections. Your options are limited.

Now, let me tell you what I know about writers:

You write because it’s what makes you happy. Because you can’t not. Because you got a 400 on the math S.A.T. Twice. You write for your own validation, but also hope that your words make it out there, and that some audience, somewhere, will get to hear them. You don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to be heard. Some days, being rejected is okay. The “We’re sorry but. . .” letters exist in a space that is apart from the one where your sense of self-worth lives. Then, you get three rejection letters on your birthday. Your mental stability wavers. One of the letters says “This isn’t a poem.” The other two are so small they look like fortune cookie inserts. You rock fetal on the floor next to the SASEs, and wish you had other life skills. What about juggling?

Now, I want to speak both as a rejector and as a rejectee. In order to find a common ground, I’d like to propose five rules, each for writers and editors:

Rules for Writers:

1. Keep your cover letters short. That means not more than 150 words. No matter what. Even if you’ve been published in The New Yorker and are as brilliant as your third grade English teacher insisted you are.

2. Use the tier system: If you’ve never been published, send your work off to Ezines, then small presses. Then shoot for The Paris Review and Glimmer Train once you’ve racked up a few publications. It will save you postage costs, as well as a lot of sadness when your own sloppily-written SASE boomerangs back to you.

3. For every rejection letter you get, send out two more submissions.

4. Cut the editors some slack. If their web page says they will get back to you in three months, give them four before querying. Their slush pile is probably taller than the stack of unread books next to your bed.

5. Recognize that this is a process; those on the other side make your job possible.

Rules for Editors:

1. Writers have first names. Not “Writer.” Not “Submitter.” And surely not “_______.” Even if you have to send out the most generic rejection letter, use the writer’s name. Don’t use any gender-specific labels. (Sometimes “Corey” is a girl name, too.).

2. Never ask writers, in a rejection letter, to purchase a copy of the issue from which they’ve been rejected. That’s like dangling a pork chop in front of a starving person, then beating them with the bone once you’ve devoured the meat.

3. Pick one piece—just one piece per issue per genre—that was a near miss. And write a really awesome, really constructive rejection letter. Tell the writer what was working, what wasn’t, and why. Likewise, have a form letter ready for all those writers that made it to the “discussion” phase of the rejection process. It’s titillating to know your piece was discussed, even if it didn’t make the final cut.

4. Publishing karma exists. Every rejection letter you send will come back to you in some form. The words you send could someday be the ones you find in your inbox. Be kind—we’re all on the same team.

5. Recognize that this is a process; those on the other side make your job possible.

It’s just not enough to tell a struggling writer that rejection is “part of the process,” that it will “make you stronger.” That works for about the first hundred or so. I’m tired of wearing my rejection slips as purple hearts. Now, each impersonal eighth of a page drives me deeper down the slippery slope of self-loathing we writers often think is inherent in the job description. Things don’t have to be that way.

Maybe what writers want is to know there is a real person on the other end of the submission process, not just a temper and a copy machine. Maybe what editors want to know is that the writer respects his or her budget and time constrains. And opinion. Only by mutual empathy and respect can writers coexist with editors to produce a great end product.

Corey Ginsberg’s “Closed Doors” will appear in Issue 8. She has submitted each of the last three reading periods. This is her first LAR acceptance. We’re proud to have her as a contributor.