Another Installment of Angry Rejection Mail

We (meaning I and the majority of the staff at Prick of the Spindle) think the gross majority of e-mails sent in angry, impulsive response to rejections (even the nicest and most helpful of rejections) are largely hilarious.

A while back (don't ask me how long ago) I posted an article I wrote featuring some of the best hilarity-inducing e-mails. Due to the more or less steady influx of such letters (which I attribute to the more or less steady stream of rejections we send), I think featuring these every now and then might be good for a larf.

One note, however: we have noticed a strong trend. Since implementing the Submishmash submission manager, we have noticed that both a) the decrease in overall submissions received and b) the increase in quality of submissions received has coincided with a sharp decrease in the number of angry rejection mail (ARM). Coincidence? Perhaps. Or...not so much.

Without further ado, ARM #1 of this installment:

You would have found everything that you suggested if you read the story slowly. Not every story can be understood, even if it is written simply and expecially if it is more complex than it initially appears, if it is quickly read. But today's editors are more than often too overwhelmed with and desensitized by submissions to read them any other way. Thus, contemporary literature has become like so many other things in this country--a cheap product to be quickly consumed in vast quantities.

As for the parotting dialogue, that is the character's personality, a personality strongly based on a real person.

Writer X

5. "expecially" should provide some idea of the quality of writing we're dealing with here
4. "Today's editors." Yeah. I'll let that one stand on its own.
3. Submissions don't desensitize me--this work is my passion. I am, however, becoming better at analyzing the volumes of work that come in and determing whether something can be "rescued" by editing, or if it is flawed at its very heart and the result of a writer not yet developed.
2. Yeah, we're all about that "cheap product." We're Wal-Mart shoppers. Faded Glory over Gucci.

And the best one yet...
1. Oh yes, fiction is always best when it imitates life and actual people and events closely. After all, that's what fiction's all about--staying true to the events, not the story. Nonfiction is for the birds!

~

The Producers

It's hard to believe it's been more than a month and a half since my last blog post. For shame! I slap my own hand.

It's a day that's threatening rain and perfect weather to write. But on the agenda for this weekend is a whole lot of reading. I have read through many manuscripts for Aqueous Books, and still have many more to read through, including going through final edits for our first publication, Michael J. Atwood's interlinked short story collection, HiStory of Santa Monica.

In other exciting news, on Monday, April 12, I met with Jerry Ahillen, Pensacola Little Theatre Artistic Director, and Michelle Hancock, the Little Theatre's Beyond Boundaries Program Coordinator, to discuss my Outreach Initiative for Youth Drama idea. I am excited to provide the results of that meeting in the following press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Prick of the Spindle literary journal partners with the Pensacola Little Theatre to produce plays for youth in the Fall of 2010

Pensacola, FL, April 23, 2010 ― International nonprofit literary journal Prick of the Spindle announced a new partnership with the Pensacola Little Theatre, who will be producing plays for area youth through the journal's Outreach Initiative for Youth Drama competition. Prick of the Spindle is hosting a competition open to international dramatists for youth in three categories. Playwrights can submit work for children in age groups 4-8 years old; 8-12 years; and 12 and up. View the guidelines.

This initiative promises to continue the impact on area youth that the Pensacola Little Theatre is known for. A winning play from each category will be produced in the fall of 2010 through the Pensacola Little Theatre's Beyond Boundaries program. The program, managed by Coordinator Michelle Hancock, brings drama into schools, assisted living facilities, and community centers in an effort to provide a cultural experience to people from all backgrounds. The journal's vision aligns neatly with that of the theatre. "It has been my vision from day one to promote quality work from writers of all backgrounds," says Prick of the Spindle Editor-in-Chief and founder Cynthia Reeser. Both organizations are poised to offer top-level material to the community at large.

The Pensacola Little Theatre was founded in 1926, according to their Website, on the closing of The Opera House. The Board of Managers (later to become the Board of Directors) brought the theatre successfully through the Great Depression, and have been serving the community ever since. Now midway through its 73rd season, the Little Theatre is host to such stage shows as Little Shop of Horrors, The Producers, Victor Victoria, A Midsummer Night's Dream, 12 Angry Jurors, and more.

Prick of the Spindle is a Pensacola-based nonprofit organization founded in 2007. It is the first literary journal to establish a presence as a Kindle magazine on Amazon.com, and has seen a rapid increase in its readership since its inception. It is one of the few literary journals publishing drama, and has interviewed a variety of established and up-and-coming authors and editors. Authors published in the journal have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the StorySouth Million Writers Award, Best of the Net Anthology, Best of the Web Anthology, and more. The journal is hosting a reading featuring published poets, fiction, and nonfiction authors on June 19, 2010 at Dolce Vita on South Reus Street in Pensacola; the event is a fundraiser whose profits benefit a youth art program.

For additional information, contact Cynthia Reeser at pseditor@prickofthespindle.com.

Visit Prick of the Spindle and the Pensacola Little Theatre online.



We're looking for playwrights! Folks, send me your best work. I can't wait to read it. Guidelines are here.

Paintings Afire.

I am so very pleased to have sold "Blue Staircase" (quite honestly, it's a heartbroken sort of pleased) and to have placed "Intrinsic," which I sold in 2008 at auction, for the cover of a poetry chapbook forthcoming by Stacy Julin from Tiger's Eye Press.

I suppose I should keep painting.

Howie Good is Good.

Howie Good--you know the one--his work is everywhere and he set some kind of record for the number of poetry chapbooks published by a single poet in a year in 2009? He has yet two more chapbooks in the works (and I know of at least a third, but Shhhhh! I'm not talking).

Check them out. They are:

Pig/Iron
&
Anomalies

~

Because I am Tired, and Shameless, and Writing Moves Me.

Things that have kept me lately from blogging as I should:

1. Working what I think works out to about 100+ hours per week.

2. Reading stories like this one, by Scott McClanahan.

3. Bringing home a brand new bundle of ISBN. (Yes, the plural for ISBN is "ISBN," which cracks me up. It figures that the initialism to such a term has its own grammatical rules.)

4. Getting published in Metazen.

5. Getting mentioned at The Kenyon Review.

6. Getting rejected (again) by The Collagist.

7. Having my work read on video here.

8. Having my book on children's publishing reviewed here and here.

9. Finishing up the final edits on my book on Kindle publishing.

10. Being a guest reader at Lynn Alexander's Full of Crow Poetry Hour.

11. Reading Aqueous Books submissions.

12. Reading submissions for Prick of the Spindle.

13. Final judging for Prick of the Spindle's Poetry Open Competition No. 1.

14. Gearing up for the Art Party VII this weekend.

15. Keeping track of Prick of the Spindle Kindle Magazine subscriptions.

16. Being afraid of missing my deadline to send in my NewPages book review for March, for The Cormorant Hunter's Wife, by Joan Kane.

17. Reading Mel Bosworth here and here and here.

18. Writing a story for an upcoming e-book from Metazen.

19. Having Light and Trials of Light reviewed here .

20. Guest blogging here and here and here.

21. Getting mentioned here and here and here.

22. Getting interviewed here and here.

23. Finishing a painting and another.

24. Listening to this. Over and over.

25. Writing blurbs for such excellent forthcoming books as Paper House by Jessie Carty.

~

Full Of Crow: Weekly Poetry Hour

Full Of Crow: Weekly Poetry Hour

In which I am a guest reader.

Just...stuff

The manuscripts for Aqueous Books are rolling in. I'm really looking forward to reading the material we're receiving.

If you haven't caught it yet, Jason Behrends of Orange Alert kindly interviews me here. Thanks, Jason. You are good people.

I'm looking forward to receiving my shipment of Light and Trials of Light. And, of course, the first issue of Artifice, which is stacked. Have you seen the line-up? Gaw. Check it out.

And, on a non-writing-related topic, I feel the need to document somehow, in some medium (and blogging is as good a medium as any other), the cuteness of my 3-year-old child. Most of you are familiar with how children go through phases, especially when they are very young and when it comes to their speech patterns. I know I am not alone as a parent in thinking that my child is precocious (and precious). For example, his latest cute-ism has been, "When you were a..." His dialogue is often:

"When you were a _____, you (or I) _____."

Examples of late have been:

"When you were a chicken nugget, I ate you all gone."

"When you were a race car, I drove you."

"When you were a light bulb, I turned you on."

"When you had a foot on your head, I put a boot on it."

"When you were a bottle, I drank you."

"When you were a chair, I sat on you."

"When you were a hat, I put you on my head."

To me, this is the perfect fodder for a children's book. Who knows, with inspiration like this, maybe one will be in the works soon.

~