by Michael Fedo

When was the last time you received a rejection note from an editor? If you’ve been routinely getting editorial turndowns during the past few years, consider yourself lucky—not because you’ve been rejected, but because you were informed of those rejections.

It’s been my recent experience that many editors no longer notify writers that a submission didn’t pass muster, and I’m left wondering whether my manuscripts were lost in transit or, if submitted electronically, went missing in cyberspace.

I’ve made more than 50 submissions in the last three years and have been fortunate enough to place most of my writings eventually. But during this period I assume I’ve often also been rejected, since I’ve never heard about some of those submissions.

To be fair, a number of publications state on their websites that they only respond when interested in a submission. Others add that a piece should be considered rejected if the author hasn’t received a reply within a specified time period—usually two weeks to six or more months. Other editors announce they’ll respond to queries and manuscripts, but many fail to do so.

About ten years ago a friend who had completed a literary biography received a letter of interest from a major university press. The editors stated that the manuscript would be considered only if they were granted exclusive refusal. My friend acquiesced, but the press took more than a year before returning his manuscript, albeit with an apology claiming their outside evaluators had dallied in reviewing the text. Not a legitimate excuse.

Discouraged, the man abandoned the project for several years before finding a receptive editor at another publisher, where the book won an award for biography. The lesson here is not to guarantee an exclusive unless the editor agrees to respond within a specified time that seems fair to the author.

Because many editors either don’t acknowledge or hold manuscripts for months, I almost always make multiple submissions. And yes, on a few occasions I’ve received more than one acceptance. One book received three offers to publish within a week. I chose the best financial arrangement.

A few years back I made multiple submissions of a short story, sending one copy to a long-established literary quarterly. The story also was read by more than a dozen other magazines over the next 14 months before a small journal agreed to publish it. The next day the previously cited quarterly also accepted the story and offered a $250 payment. I obviously chose the $250 offer, but that magazine had held the manuscript for 14 months before making a decision. Since this editor had not responded to an inquiry regarding the status of the story months earlier, I assumed he had passed on it without informing me.

Even editors who have previously published my work sometimes have not gotten back to me when my submissions have been declined. It seems that for every dozen stories or essays I send out, I’ll only see three or four rejections, when in fact, all the pieces have been nixed.

There was one exception of sorts that maybe set a record. Late last year I opened a handwritten note in which the editor apologized for the “inordinate delay” in returning my story. Although this one hadn’t worked out, he hoped I’d send him others in the future. I had forgotten that I’d mailed him the story six years earlier, but it had been published two years after that by a different magazine.

I suppose I should cut him some slack because he at least responded.

So what are we to make of editors who fail to advise of a rejection even with a form notice?

For me the multiple submission is a partial solution, and I’ll make them unless I have a prior publishing relationship with an editor. I’ll do this even when a publication may insist on exclusives, especially if editors also indicate they may hold the manuscript for six or more months.

I allow that editors may be overworked; literary quarterlies or annuals may be operated by one or two persons. But how difficult can it be to slide a rejection slip into a self-addressed stamped envelope, or type “No thanks” and hit return on an e-mailed submission?

Having gotten this off my chest, I recently received a 180-degree turn on the form rejection—a form acceptance. While not a delight per se, it certainly beats its sister notification of “Thanks but no thanks,” and is clearly better than the implied rejection of an article or a story by an editor who doesn’t inform the author at all.

This essay originally appeared on A View from the Loft on November 8, 2010.

Michael Fedo‘s eighth book, A Sawdust Heart: My Vaudeville Life in Medicine and Tent Shows, by Henry Wood as told to Michael Fedo was published in May, 2011 by the University of Minnesota Press.

by Pat Dennis

I first became aware of the waif-like woman with the warm, big eyes at Once Upon a Crime Mystery Bookstore. Theresa Weir was one of 50 or so authors scheduled for the annual Write of Spring daylong book signing. When I shook her hand, she introduced herself as “Anne Frasier.” Embarrassed, I mumbled that I hadn’t read any of her novels. Her subsequent laughter made me feel so welcomed.  I immediately purchased one of her books. After reading her thriller Hush, I decided to read all of this author’s work—a daunting task because Anne Frasier’s real name is Theresa Weir.

Theresa Weir/Anne Frasier is the best-selling author of 19 books in multiple genres, including suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, and paranormal. Theresa was born into a blue-collar family and when divorce hit she grew up in poverty. After high school, she worked as a waitress, then at the Levi Strauss factory and ended up tending bar in rural Illinois. There she met an apple farmer and three months later, they were married. After moving to the farm, Theresa, a natural-born storyteller, decided to write a novel. At the time, she was so unaware of the writing process she didn’t know if a manuscript should be single- or double-spaced, or what she should do with the book once she finished it. A year later she mailed her manuscript to the address of a publisher she’d found inside a book. As happens with most novice writers, her manuscript was sent back with a rejection notice. She sat down, rewrote the story, and mailed it off again and again. Three years later, the cult phenomenon Amazon Lily was published.

by Emily Brisse

My girlfriends and I have a Christmas tradition: we exchange ornaments, and after, we verbally unpack our individual years, one by one, no time restrictions. The only rule we adhere to is that for every low, there must be two highs.

It is August now, months away from ornaments and tinsel, but one full year since I finished my MFA degree, and I feel the same tendencies today to look back and evaluate as I usually do at the close of a calendar. So, will you be my listeners here? My non-sweater-clad friends? All I ask is that you mumble a few hmmms, perhaps nod once in a while. After all, we’ve each experienced the ups and downs of something, right?

by Lawrence F. Farrar

It takes patience to be a writer. Of course, it takes imagination, a way with words, familiarity with syntax and grammar, and lots more. But it also takes patience, an ability to hang in there and to endure the vagaries of the writing life. Whether defined as virtue or necessity, it doesn’t matter: if you have it, it works to your advantage; if you don’t, life is not always beautiful. It has something to do with emotional well-being.

(Part I of this article was published on March 14, 2011)

by James Cihlar

Revising for Publication: Books

Now that you’ve generated individual poems, have used the tools of a writing buddy and writing group, and have tried some of the simple revision approaches discussed in Part I of “Entering the Sweepstakes: The Optimistic Approach to Revision,” it’s time to think about how your poems might all fit together in a book. Unless you are Adrienne Rich, simply putting together in sequence the poems you’ve written over a period of time is not going to be enough to hold a book together. A poetry book should be greater than the sum of its parts. However, it’s also possible to stray too far in the other direction, the themed poetry book, where every piece adheres to an overarching conceit; these can end up feeling forced and gimmicky.

by James Cihlar

Revising Individual Poems

The first steps in revision are the most basic. You must read a lot, and you must write a lot. Because cutting and reshaping are common revision tools, it helps to have plenty of material to work with. As you write first drafts, turn off your censor and generate poems. Keep it going every day, if you can. Your mind is an engine, your life is an enterprise, and your poems work from, elaborate, and develop your sense of how the world works, and how you work in it. Poems are a record of your attempts to mediate the world. Embrace that to begin with, and don’t give it up. Keep it separate from the revision process.

As writers who live and work in a community, we often give each other feedback. A funny thing about criticism: there’s something strangely hopeful about it. By pointing out what’s wrong, by naming the mistakes of the past, we unavoidably imply a world in balance, lay claim to our inherent rights. Writers do this in their subject matter, and in their process: we move from criticizing what is to imaging what could be. This visionary act requires faith. Writers seem to be more willing than most to take our chances in hopes of the big payoff, the personal achievement, the artistic success. We know the odds are against us, but we plunk down our money for the lottery ticket every time.

by Lawrence Perlman

pensiero

The following remarks were made prior to a reading by Lawrence Perlman at Open Book October 6, 2010, from his novel The Last Layer.

Thank you all so very much for coming. Before I read a few passages from The Last Layer, I thought I would address the question that is more or less on all of your minds: “How did this guy, who spent his life in the real world—as a lawyer, law professor, and CEO—come to write a novel?”

by Michael Fedo

When was the last time you received a rejection note from an editor? If you’ve been routinely getting editorial turndowns during the past few years, consider yourself lucky—not because you’ve been rejected, but because you were informed of those rejections.

It’s been my recent experience that many editors no longer notify writers that a submission didn’t pass muster, and I’m left wondering whether my manuscripts were lost in transit or, if submitted electronically, went missing in cyberspace.

I’ve made more than 50 submissions in the last three years and have been fortunate enough to place most of my writings eventually. But during this period I assume I’ve often also been rejected, since I’ve never heard about some of those submissions.

To be fair, a number of publications state on their websites that they only respond when interested in a submission. Others add that a piece should be considered rejected if the author hasn’t received a reply within a specified time period—usually two weeks to six or more months. Other editors announce they’ll respond to queries and manuscripts, but many fail to do so.

About ten years ago a friend who had completed a literary biography received a letter of interest from a major university press. The editors stated that the manuscript would be considered only if they were granted exclusive refusal. My friend acquiesced, but the press took more than a year before returning his manuscript, albeit with an apology claiming their outside evaluators had dallied in reviewing the text. Not a legitimate excuse.

Discouraged, the man abandoned the project for several years before finding a receptive editor at another publisher, where the book won an award for biography. The lesson here is not to guarantee an exclusive unless the editor agrees to respond within a specified time that seems fair to the author.

Because many editors either don’t acknowledge or hold manuscripts for months, I almost always make multiple submissions. And yes, on a few occasions I’ve received more than one acceptance. One book received three offers to publish within a week. I chose the best financial arrangement.

A few years back I made multiple submissions of a short story, sending one copy to a long-established literary quarterly. The story also was read by more than a dozen other magazines over the next 14 months before a small journal agreed to publish it. The next day the previously cited quarterly also accepted the story and offered a $250 payment. I obviously chose the $250 offer, but that magazine had held the manuscript for 14 months before making a decision. Since this editor had not responded to an inquiry regarding the status of the story months earlier, I assumed he had passed on it without informing me.

Even editors who have previously published my work sometimes have not gotten back to me when my submissions have been declined. It seems that for every dozen stories or essays I send out, I’ll only see three or four rejections, when in fact, all the pieces have been nixed.

There was one exception of sorts that maybe set a record. Late last year I opened a handwritten note in which the editor apologized for the “inordinate delay” in returning my story. Although this one hadn’t worked out, he hoped I’d send him others in the future. I had forgotten that I’d mailed him the story six years earlier, but it had been published two years after that by a different magazine.

I suppose I should cut him some slack because he at least responded.

So what are we to make of editors who fail to advise of a rejection even with a form notice?

For me the multiple submission is a partial solution, and I’ll make them unless I have a prior publishing relationship with an editor. I’ll do this even when a publication may insist on exclusives, especially if editors also indicate they may hold the manuscript for six or more months.

I allow that editors may be overworked; literary quarterlies or annuals may be operated by one or two persons. But how difficult can it be to slide a rejection slip into a self-addressed stamped envelope, or type “No thanks” and hit return on an e-mailed submission?

Having gotten this off my chest, I recently received a 180-degree turn on the form rejection—a form acceptance. While not a delight per se, it certainly beats its sister notification of “Thanks but no thanks,” and is clearly better than the implied rejection of an article or a story by an editor who doesn’t inform the author at all.

Michael Fedo’s eighth book, A Sawdust Heart: My Vaudeville Life in Medicine and Tent Shows, by Henry Wood as told to Michael Fedo will be published in May, 2111 by the University of Minnesota Press.

by Linda White

Publicist: Here’s a novel that was published last March. I know it’s October now, but this is a very interesting story. It’s about a couple who . . .

Editor: Oh, yeah, well, um, sorry, but you know, I’ve got about a thousand books that came after that one, and they kind of need some attention. Is the author doing anything currently?

Publicist: There’s a signing at the mall next month.

Editor: Next month? Hmm. Well, you know, I like to give my reviewers a little more time than that. Sorry. Try me earlier next time.

Yes. Try the editor earlier—every time. Oh, and it’s likely you will never have this exchange; the editor is just too darn busy. He doesn’t have time to be this charitable.

Interview by Dara Syrkin

During her 1999 Bush Fellowship for midcareer physicians, Maggie O’Connor dedicated 10 percent of her time to learning how to write. “I had terrible writer’s anxiety. I chose my college classes based on which ones required the fewest essays. English 101 gave me stomach cramps. I decided I had grown up. The time had come to deal with my anxiety about writing.”

Fear or no, Maggie embraced the newness of writing. “My dad started weaving when he retired. So when I set out for the Loft with my guts quaking, I had the reassurance that old people can learn. I sat in classes and introduced myself as a science and math jock who wanted to learn how to write. One of the wonderful things about being a beginner is that you are free to ask any question.