Dear Edoardo Albert,
Thank you for submitting “The Hallowing of Hell” to […]. We appreciate having the chance to read it. Unfortunately, we have decided not to accept it for publication. It did make it to our final round of consideration, though, and we’d love to see more of your work in the future. We’ll be open to submissions again in July.
Sincerely,
[…]
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.
Another interesting rejection – so much more fun than the standard, this-didn’t-quite-grab-me letter (I’m looking at you, John Joseph Adams!).
Edoardo,
I just finished with To Sail the Eden Sea. I’m sorry we won’t be offering it a place in our anthology.
The picture you paint with your words is impressive. I could almost feel myself smelling the salt marsh. But what happened for me was that too many things were all going on so I wasn’t able to follow what was happening. House of wonder, dust, getting into a boat… god food.. too much all at once for a short story.
After many boring form rejection letters, which I’ve not bothered to include in this series (if I had, we’d be up to Rejection note no.432 by now), this one at least provides some interest.
Dear Edoardo,
We do hope your story will find a good home elsewhere, and that you’ll consider us again when sending our your work.
Edoardo,
Throwing this one open to comment. Now, last Friday I received this email (incriminating information removed):
Sincerely,
[…]
Submissions Editor, […]
By this point in my career, I’ve had enough experience to know not to get too excited when receiving emails like this, but even so, I think the follow-up, a couple of days later, was pretty poor.
Hello, Edoardo.
[…]
Editors-in-Chief
Sure, it’s their magazine, they can publish whatever they want, but I think, after the first email, a little more by way of explanation in the second would not have been out of place – even it was only to say that they’ve run similar stories or they’re moving the magazine in a different direction.
What do you think? Am I being over sensitive or is this just another example of the lack of regard in which writers are held?
Edoardo Albert,
Thank you for your submission to […]. I regret to inform you that we are unable to use it at this time. Here is what our editorial assistants had to say about this story:
Vote: Reject
Thanks for the wait while we considered your work. I’m sorry to say this is a “no” from me. While I loved the fact that Carvel had a unique voice, the voice was so distant that I never felt a real connection to his character. On a positive note, I liked the way you simply placed the reader into the story and never gave any more background information than was needed to understand what was happening in the moment. It was a pleasant change from the dreaded info dump. I hope you will continue to think of us for your future work. Thanks for submitting.
— […]t
Edoardo,
Thank you again for giving us the chance to consider “Riding the Line.” We’re sorry to say that it’s not quite what we’re looking for right now, but we hope you find a good home for it soon.
If you’d like to submit more of your work to us, please try again in the Fall, when we’ll be reading for our Winter issue.
Quite an interesting one here, with some comments on the story. Since another rejection is just as likely to make completely contrary points, I probably won’t change the tale as yet – it’s not been through the rounds yet!
Dear Edoardo Albert,
Thank you for letting us read The First King Of All The Earth. Unfortunately, it does not meet our needs at this time.
As far as fables go, this isn’t a bad one. I thought it might turn into a speculative Tower of Babel story, but I’m glad it didn’t. The writing itself was sparse but straightforward, the story came to a predictable but solid climax.
I’m not sure if there’s enough depth here, though. I enjoyed it, and it tried for some greater meaning with the comments about the king’s descendants, but in the end, everyone in the story got what they wanted, with little struggle. They instituted slavery, the king kept knowledge from the star…but nothing came of it.
My apologies: I’ve received quite a lot of rejection notes and failed to commemorate them on here, for the simple reason that they’ve all been too boring to be worth mentioning – come on, editors, think up some more interesting ways of saying no! But, just to let you know that they’ve been coming in steadily, here’s my most recent rejection note. Enjoy.
Hi Edoardo