In the mail today, a couple of interesting things. The first, a rejection letter, but not any ol' rejection letter. This editor has rejected me dozens of times (and published me one time) and usually just scribbles a note on his form rejection, or just sends the form rejection.
This time, he sent my cover letter back to me, scribbled upon. I'll not note all the scribbles here--just the important one. Responding to a line in my letter that noted my submission cycle to that particular magazine is every six months, he wrote: "sorry my cycle is slower: namely, not until you have a book out."
What is this? Playfulness? Rudeness? Exasperation? or.....a challenge?!?
*
My ex-gf, the one who's married to a math professor, sent me a photograph (or rather, a scanned/printed on a piece of Xerox paper) of us in happier times. It's in San Francisco, somewhere, (or maybe Berkeley?) and she looks beautiful and I look (dare I say?) handsome, happy, and....FAT. I have a huge gut. Not that I'm svelte now, but damn--what did she see in fat ol' me?
*
It is raining in Eugene. It feels nice.
*
I'm retiring Lucky Error. If you run a press or judge a contest and you want it, let me know. Otherwise, it's done. I think the poems can either die quietly, or leap into other manuscripts.
*
Canary submissions are rolling in. Send some stuff in. If your name is Kathleen Miller, please send us poems.
*
Still no place to live. Still no money. Waiting for cash to fall from the sky. Or at least some manna so I don't starve.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
That's an editor being a dick. I'm not that rude even to the people I suggest should stop submitting for a while.
This guy's published me before too. I want to think he's just being a jerk, because I would never write something like that on a rejection (and in my five years of editing, never have), but on the other hand, we've exchanged a lot of playful letters in the past, but this one seemed a little weird.
Move to San Fran!
Well, it might be different then, if you have a prior history. But it's still a pretty dickish thing to say.
It's weird. Hard to say what he's on about. If he's already published you before, then his book requirement doesn't really hold, right?
Post a Comment