Dear Edoardo,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your story, “Through the Dart.” After reading and discussing it, we have decided that it does not work for us. Good luck placing it elsewhere.
To tell the truth, we’re just plain getting tired of seeing vampire stories. Even clever and original ones, like yours.
Not this one, but definitely, we’d like to see more stories from you.
Via Bridges and Tangents, this useful guide to the real meaning of everyday English phrases.
After discussion and final voting among the editorial staff, we’d like to publish “Traction” in our Spring issue of The Colored Lens which will be released in mid-March.
If you have any other questions for me, feel free to ask, otherwise I’ll pass you over to Daniel. Thanks again for the submission, and good luck with the rest of your writing.
I’ve just made my first Freedom of Information request! The Blair/Brown governments may have been among the worst the country has ever had foisted on it, but credit where it’s due: at least one good piece of legislation accrued from those myriad Acts of Parliament. The request is over a personal matter, but I will keep you informed as to how long before I get a response and whether they divulge the information I have requested.
If there’s anything you want to find out about, I suggest putting in a Freedom of Information request. It’s surprisingly easy – more information here and here.
Following hot on the heels of no.1 in the series, here’s no.2!
Edoardo,
We would like to publish your story, “The Dream of the Night-Shift Power Worker”, in Daily Science Fiction. We’ll email a contract to you shortly for your approval. A sample email, including any edits to your story that may be necessary, will come later. The edits will be sent with enough time for your feedback, so we may resolve any issues and present the best possible story to our audience.
It’s been a long, lean period, so this email was really welcome!
Dear Edoardo Albert,
Thank you for sending us “Neighbour From Hell.” We love it and would like to publish it in the Trust and Treachery Anthology. We will be in touch in a few weeks with details and to discuss the editing process. In the meantime, please confirm receipt of this letter and send us a short bio (150 words or less) so we can post it on our website.
Thanks again, and we look forward to working with you!
It’s always exciting when you first see the cover of a new book, so here it is!
A Beginner’s Guide to Imam Al-Ghazali is due out in March. Preorder a copy here.
Dear Edoardo Albert,
Thank you for sending us “The Dream of the Night-Shift Power Worker”. Unfortunately we will not be able to use this work. We receive many well-written, compelling, stories, but can only take a very limited number due to constraints of space and style. We wish you the best of luck in placing your story elsewhere.
P.S. It was a pretty good story. Sorry to say no. This is not our customary rejection.
Also from the excellent Inklings blog:
I am sure that some are born to write as trees are born to bear leaves: for these, writing is a necessary mode of their own development. If the impulse to write survives the hope of success, then one is among these. If not, then the impulse was at best only pardonable vanity, and it will certainly disappear when the hope is withdrawn.
That’s CS Lewis and Arthur C Clarke, rather than the American explorers. The two of them corresponded and met once. Clarke wrote:
“Less sympathetic to our aims was Dr. C. S. Lewis, author of two of the very few works of space fiction that can be classed as literature -– ‘Out of the Silent Planet’ and ‘Perelandra’. Both of these fine books contained attacks on scientists in general, and astronauts in particular, which aroused my ire. I was especially incensed by a passage in ‘Perelandra’ referring to ‘little Interplanetary Societies and Rocketry Clubs’…
An extensive correspondence with Dr. Lewis led to a meeting in a famous Oxford pub, the Eastgate… Needless to say, neither side converted the other. But a fine time was had by all, and when, some hours later, we emerged a little unsteadily from the Eastgate, Dr. Lewis’ parting words were, ‘I’m sure you’re very wicked people – but how dull it would be if everyone was good’. ”
H/T: The Inklings blog.