It made the short list, but still comes the big No.

Dear Edoardo,

Thank you for submitting “The First King of All the Earth” to […]. Unfortunately, we have decided not to accept it for publication.  It’s a well written tale.  The plot was intriguing (is this a retelling of the Tower of Babel?), but there were a lot of really good submissions, and some of the other stories were a better fit for the overall anthology.  Best of luck placing it elsewhere.