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 (just the) "Rejection" Entries And my 300th Rejection is from.... September 9, 2007 F&SF! Yes, following the pattern of my last ten or so subs there, JJA only passes every other one up to GVG. This one JJA sent back to me within 10 days. But good news for my next story, innit? For those playing last week's guessing game, I'm fairly certain I have both winners' emails, so I'll contact them directly.
 2007 Submission Log: Weeks 31-32 August 14, 2007 Submissions 414-415 Two comics pieces to MAD Magazine about a week apart. Rejections 292-294: Weird Tales, story, 36 days. The New Yorker, gag cartoon, 32 days Actor's Theatre of Louisville, play, 285 days Of Interest: MAD Magazine just might be the first place I ever submitted anything, back when I was a kid (and before I started keeping track). IIRC they didn't actually _take_ subs back then, though. Don't remember whether I ever got a reply. Quite a different experience to be following the guidelines, though they still say they don't reply to every query. Still: the one part of DC Comics that actually considers script submissions. Until Vertigo answers a query, this is as good a bet as any. The one year anniversary of my graduation from Clarion hit a week ago. I'll say more about that later this week.
SALE/3rd Place Win in the 13th ChiZine Story Contest July 27, 2007 My story "Shooting Dogs for Fun and Profit"* will be published in ChiZine #34 later this year, having won 3rd place in the latest Chiaroscuro/Leisure Short Story Contest. Which means my second SFWA-qualifying sale arrives almost 14 months and over 150 submissions after my first one. Phew. It felt like even longer. (*For what it's worth, the title is quite abstract. No animals appear--much less are shot for any reason--in this piece.)
2007 Submission Log: Week 26 - Halfway Point June 30, 2007 Submissions 397-399: Stories to Strange Horizons (my 10th), Weird Tales (my 4th, but first under current editor Ann VanderMeer), and the 13th Chiaroscuro Short Story Contest (my first, but I've submitted to Chizine before). Rejections 275-279 Strange Horizons (20 days on a story; no comments this time), Shimmer (10 days on a story; "just wish there'd been more spec"--meaning "speculative element") and Tin House (12 days on a batch of poems sent for the Winter issue; form letter) Of Interest: I forgot about this last week: Doug Cohen (slush editor for Realms of Fantasy) emailed me to let me know that my current story submission will be passed to Shawna, which makes two in a row for me (my only two times getting past Doug since he joined the fray). And I woulda hit 400 subs today, but I misremembered a playwriting deadline as "postmarked by" instead of "received by." Now I've gotta get all angsty and superstitious about what that milestone sub should be.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 22-24 June 16, 2007 Submissions 391-394: Stories to M&FSF (my 18th), Strange Horizons (9th sub overall, but 6th fiction sub), Asimov's (15th overall, 9th fiction), and Analog (10th). Rejections 266-272: Two from MF&SF (28 days from GVG, 9 days from JJA), Futurismic (32 days), Flytrap (37 days), and the last of the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest non-placers which I'll be counting here (see below). Of Interest: Of my last six subs to MF&SF, it looks like every other one got to GVG, and often not the ones I'd expect, based on my judgment of the stories and my reading of the magazine. Decided to stop counting Cartoon Caption Contest entries as submissions, because I don't want it to get to the point where I've "subbed" there more often than I have anywhere else. Might still throw jokes their way, so long as I have stuff in the New Yorker's "real" slush pile. But it's a throwaway thing, on the off chance that my name will flash across an editor's eyeline, but it was never an important part of my submission strategy. Writers of the Future has posted its 2007Q2 Finalists to its blog at just 60 days from the entry deadline. Nice because this has freed up my entry-story to send it to another market, even before I got my rejection.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 20-21 May 29, 2007 Submissions 386-390: Stories to Interzone (my 2nd), ParaSpheres (my 1st) and Tin House (my 5th). And two more entries into the New Yorker Gag Cartoon Caption Contest. Rejection 265: 62-day rejection from Strange Horizons, with a note about humor being subjective. Of Interest/Queries Corner: After ten unanswered queries to Marvel, I've received my first ever response! It was a form letter saying that I don't quite have what it takes to be an illustrator for Marvel yet. Which I agree with. Which is why I queried them as a writer looking to pitch some stories. But if that wasn't clear, then my writing chops really need work. (Or maybe it was just payback for this submission faux pas). So I have finally gotten Marvel to open one of my envelopes. I know this because the form letter came in one of my SASEs. Now how do I get an editor to read what I send them? It just might take ten more queries before I figure it out...
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 16-17 May 1, 2007 A third of the way through the year. Submissions 369-373: Stories to Glimmer Train (3rd), Flytrap (my 3rd), and Sword and Sorceress (my 3rd). Filmish things to Gizmodo (don't ask; it didn't end well), and Wholphin (as writer, not director, which is exactly as it should be). Rejections 255-258: From Sword and Sorceress (about a day) and all the comics awards (when they announced their winners/finalists). Not at all surprising, but it's an honor just to be seen by the judges. Of Interest: Glad to see Sword & Sorceress starting up again. MZB's anthologies and magazine were among the first places I've ever sent my fiction starting in 1998. I never got any of Bradley's legendary berating rejections (just form letters and a few "is this supposed to be humorous?" rhetoricals), but then I probably wasn't worth her time. I actually enjoyed the writing of two new prose stories in a row this month. That can't be right.
First Post November 13, 1998 (Selected republication of old entries from the pre-Movable Type journal...) I've got good news and bad news for the first entry of this writing journal. The bad news is that I received my first rejection letter. I sent a creative nonfiction piece to a print magazine, and got turned down this Monday. I must admit, it gave me a small amount of satisfaction when I noticed a misspelling in the publisher's letter.
Filed Under: Eggplant Literary Productions, Jackhammer, Journal, Prose and Poetry, Rejection, Submissions, Writing, Writing Life |
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Alex Wilson writes fiction and comics in Carrboro, NC. His work has appeared/will appear in Asimov's Science Fiction, The Rambler, Weird Tales, The Florida Review, Futurismic, Shimmer, ChiZine, FutureQuake, Pif, and Dragon. Locus Magazine has called him a "promising new writer," and Publishers Weekly also has nice things to say. Alex runs the audiobook project/podcast Telltale Weekly and the writer wiki Guidevines. He publishes the minicomic/zine Inconsequential Art. He is a 2006 Clarion graduate. Blog Archives 2008 - Clever Label TBA 2007 - BadYearNoCookie 2006 - Clarion! 1st Pro Sale! 2005 - Peers and Peerless 2004 - Telltale Launch 2003 - Dog bites, acting out 2002 - In my mind, I'm going... 2001 - Marriage, Macs, 1st Cons 2000 - Setback, Milestones 1999 - Engaged, Graduated 1998 - Creative Independence     Powered by MT 3.35 MySpace Profile Technorati Profile |
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