Writing and sending out manuscripts for decades now, I've had my share of rejections. From the submission tracker Duotrope, I am told that my 14.3% acceptance rate is higher than the average for those authors who have sent to the same publications. Still that means 85.7% rejection.
In the past two months, I've had three unique rejections.
First, for my short story, The Horse Whistle, I was sent a standard rejection notice. Two days later, I received an unrejection notice, apologizing for the first. One week after that I received a final rejection notice, this time being told it was final. My first ever unrejection became a rejection.
I sent my short story, WTF, to freeze frame fiction in March 2015. It was accepted. And then nothing happened. This is not too unusual, projects, even those with good intentions, sometimes die. I sent the piece out five more times. Two acceptances and both of those journals expired before publishing. I began to feel the story was cursed. Then in August 2021, six-and-a-half years after it was accepted in freeze frame fiction, I was told the project was back on track. And there I am, first in the table of contents.
Finally, I sent a poem to the Milwaukee Irish Fest poetry contest back in July. I didn't win the contest which was decided in August, and that's not a big deal, only one winner. Today, I received in the mail a handwritten note from one of the judges, all the more surprising because I entered the contest electronically:
Dear Mr. Ortiz,
[Name redacted] here of the Milwaukee Irish Fest poetry contest. This is a very tardy acknowledgement of and thank you for "You're Never Too Old to be Young."
Your poem is very refreshing in style and content: a true ribald ballad that would bring down the house in Irish pubs around the world.
Thank you
--- ----
Any acceptance is better than any rejection, but I suppose going out of the way to snail mail a sympathy note is a fine gesture.
0 comments:
Post a Comment