I'm just a rejectionable sort of guy.

A few posts ago I talked about how I'd forgotten to withdraw a piece submitted to a literary magazine I thought had gone defunct, but then they (luckily) rejected me anyway. Now I'm not so certain that people might just be rejecting me for the fun of it.

I checked the mail when I got home today and found a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with the return address of a literary magazine I'd recently submitted to--a place where I'd remembered to withdraw my submission. There was a reply of thanks to my withdrawal email, congrats on landing the story, and well-wishes on any future work, but apparently someone didn't update their records, because I tore open the envelope to find that it was rejected anyway. Unnecessarily. Whee. OK, maybe there was some small part of me that hoped the editor was mailing me personally to tell me just how jealous he (not being sexist by assumption, the editor is male) was that he couldn't publish it himself. Don't tell me you wouldn't have felt the same.

After further consideration, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd have been in the same pickle had they mistakenly accepted it (see earlier post), but I still have copies of the withdrawal and reply, so I'm golden.

Whew, I'm plum tuckered out from posting after all this time away, and this one wore me out. I believe it may be time to knock down a few more pages of Tropic of Cancer and call it a night--it's been too long since I've read this one.

Multiple Submission Etiquette: How I Flirted with Disaster

I just received a rejection slip in the mail yesterday. Here’s the kicker; I’m rather surprised I even got a reply. I suppose that requires a little bit of background.

A while ago—a looooong while ago—I submitted a story to a certain fiction journal. This journal isn’t anywhere near what I’d call top-tier, but it appears to be fairly respectable. It's listed on Duotrope’s Digest (where I seem to recall finding it) and I think my writing in general matches their general aesthetic—generally—but apparently not this time, which is fine.

No, really, it is fine, because the story in question is forthcoming elsewhere. Yup, it was accepted and has already been through the proofing edits in preparation for an issue either later this year or early next. Anyone familiar with submitting their work knows that not informing the first journal immediately of acceptance elsewhere is bad form on my part. But wait, there’s more.

What if I told you that I contacted that journal (many) months ago to inquire about the status of my submission? What if I also told you that not only did I received no response to my polite inquiry, but their website sat unchanged since my original submission and they didn’t have a new issue that entire time either? As far as I was concerned, that journal had gone defunct and I wasn’t going to waste my time waiting for a response. The rejection slip proves my assumption to be 100% wrong, but even if I think the editor’s actions at the journal are grossly unprofessional, I still feel like I dodged a bullet. Here’s why: if that rejection slip had been an acceptance letter, I would’ve been stuck in a position in which I would have to explain how I failed to follow protocol and contact them to withdraw my submission—and it would have been entirely my fault. When it comes right down to it, I’m the starving artist eager for my story to appear in their fine publication, and I’m certain they have a hefty slush pile from countless people like me they’ll never see the end of unless they reject them all en masse and start from scratch.

Best case scenario in that situation is that I could sweet-talk (read: kiss some major ass) and explain it away as a simple mix-up, and worst case would probably be that I pissed them off royally, resulting in me being black-listed from their journal no matter what quality work I send their way (chances are they’d never know one way or another because they’d see my name and not even bother reading it). As I said, my personal opinion is that this particular journal’s behavior has been unprofessional—and I’ll stand by that—but even so, I’m not eager to burn that bridge because there’s a chance I may feel like submitting there again.

One thing I should stress about all this is that I made it a point to read and follow their submission guidelines. Always follow the guidelines. In fact, don’t even think about submitting without consulting the guidelines (not every place is the same), because even though you may not hurt anyone’s feelings by not being thorough enough to research their journal, you will almost definitely give the impression that you don’t care enough to have done so, which is probably just as bad. Congratulations! I hope you wrote one hell of story, because it’ll have to be in order to pull you out of the hole you just dug yourself.

Bottom line, as ugly as this may sound, your fate rests in the subjectively whimsical hands of each and every editor you submit to, and unless you have even a fraction of Joyce Carol Oates’ clout or own a printer that only prints gold*, no one’s going to put up with your crap. I know I’m a nobody, and luckily I learned this lesson painlessly. Even if my email floats off into the ether as soon as I hit the send button, my ass will always be covered by the formal (and time-stamped) withdrawal sitting in my ‘sent items’ folder.

Now I if only I had the problem of being accepted so often that sending withdrawals are necessary.

*I can’t take credit for the quip about the golden printer. Others may have said it, but I heard it first in a conversation with Ryan. Possibly accompanied by profanity.

I should wait on this, but...

I just can't help myself. Yeah, two posts in on a blog that looks like it's in danger of becoming neglected, and what am I going to do? That's right, it's time for me to write a vanity post. As humbly as possible.

First, the humility: I'm currently experiencing the submission itch after polishing up a couple short stories and completing my first ever piece of shit flash fiction (short-short if you prefer). I like to research the various journals and fiction reviews out there by doing exactly what they suggest; find out what their aesthetic is by buying an issue or two and reading them thoroughly. When you're broke as hell, that's not always an option, so the past couple days have been spent browsing NewPages and Duotrope's Digest in order to make a list of possible targets. I'm realistic enough to know I'm essentially a nobody (how's that for humble?), so I tried to keep the list realistic as well--no examples so as not to offend any lit mags with my subjective view. Anyway, today I've been going down the list, scouring their websites for general info and/or reading samples, and looking up any feedback on each publication.

Here's where I transition over to the vanity portion of our show: I found this website, The Review Review, and noticed that someone named Stephen Dorneman wrote a review for Alimentum, and it happened to be for the issue in which my first publication appeared. "Hey, let's see what he had to say," I thought. He talked about the stories in the order they appeared, so mine being third from the end, I eventually made my way down to see this:

And then there was “Apples” by Erik Hanson. “Apples” is about a dog, and apples, and hungry soldiers, and the evils of war, a terrible story with unpleasant characters an unhappy ending that you should read, and that will stay with you forever, because it is unsparing in the depiction of the large and small cruelties, and triumphs, that happen in wartime.

Not bad. I definitely liked the "stay with you forever" part, but that's not how Stephen made a friend in me. He mentioned the last two stories, and then says this:

...but “Apples” was the best story of the issue for me.

Ah, many happy returns to you, Mr. Dorneman. I've always wondered what it would be like to read a review of my work, and now I know. I like how it felt. A lot. I probably should get back to my research now.

Read the review for the entire issue here.