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  • Rejecting rejection

    We were supposed to talk about rejection again yesterday. But I knew you didn’t want to. Who wants to talk about rejection? Right before Halloween?

    So instead I called up Craig Bartlett, Creator/Executive Producer of Nickelodeon’s Hey, Arnold!, author of the Hey, Arnold! children’s books, and now Creator/Executive Producer of the new PBS/Jim Henson Company children’s cartoon, Dinosaur Train, and interviewed him.

    Unfortunately, that interview’s not ready to post yet. I need to get some pictures from him and verify his bio (all I know for a fact is that he worked with me on our school paper in 1980, and even that I might be misremembering. . .after all, it was the eighties) and ask him a few more questions about craft—we spent an inordinate amount of time catching up on each other’s lives and hyucking it up over shrink-wrapped geoducks.

    So in the meantime we will toy with rejection only in terms of how, hey, it’s Halloween, right? It’s just a form letter, it could be from anyone, it could be about anyone. It doesn’t have teeth. You can set it on fire if you want to, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Meanwhile, there are ghosts and skeletons and and other manifestations of the really serious issues of life bumbling around out there, banging on your door and demanding treats to leave you alone.

    Seriously—things could be a lot worse, now, couldn’t they?

    For starters, go to Kung Fu Grippe to learn how to handle rejection like a grown-up. I don’t know who this is, but I LOVE them.

    Little, Bown acquisitions editor Alvina Ling has written a piece on on Decline Letters.

    The Rejectionist displays a rejection from the NY MOMA to Andy Warhol. Boy, I bet they feel stupid.

    Then if you still haven’t had enough, read Kung Fu Grippe’s version of an honest rejection letter.

    Happy Halloween!

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    2 Comments

2 Responses to “Rejecting rejection”

  1. Terresa Wellborn said on October 29th, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    Is it possible to look forward to rejection letters? Because that means I’d be finished writing my WIP. And also finished writing query letters. And yet right now I feel light years away from either. So, despite probably what is a general consensus, I will someday look forward to rejection letters. Honest.

  2. Victoria said on October 30th, 2009 at 9:29 am

    Yes, Terresa, it sure as heck is.

    And this is such a great question I’m going to devote Monday’s post to answering it.

    Victoria

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Scott Warrender
Short story author Scott Warrender is a Mentoring Program client. I have done full Copy, Line, & Developmental Editing on a number of short stories for him, the first of which was his poignant fictional memoir of Africa, ''The Boy With the Newsprint Kite,'' now published in the Foundling Review.

Clients’ Books


Bhaichand Patel is the author of two nonfiction books: Chasing the Good Life (Penguin Books India, October, 2006), and Happy Hours (Penguin Books India, October, 2009). I edited Patel's debut novel, When the Streets Were Cold and Dark.

I've edited a number of nonfiction essays for my friend Lucia Orth. (Many years ago, my contribution to Baby Jesus Pawn Shop was simply a peer critique and participation in a standing ovation.)

The poet Chris Ryan is the author of The Bible of Animal Feet (Farfalla Press, 2007). He has recent stories in Pank, Anemone Sidecar, and A Cappella Zoo. I edited Ryan's novel The Ishmael Blade and worked with him on his debut novel Heliophobia and WIP Pogue.