Category: Rejection Letters

Random Rejectance: “Storyteller” Magazine

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

So since last week I posted a rather depressing update on my Blue Roses progress, I figured that this week, I would cheer everyone up by dipping into my vast pile of rejection letters. 😁👍

On this occasion, the Gods of Randomness told me I should look in the “S” folder of my expandable file, which, as you can imagine based on the prevalence of “S” in the English language is one of the more well-populated ones. And what should I find on top in that section but two letters from the Canadian magazine Storyteller, of which one was, as expected, a rejection, but the other was one of those rarer beasts, an acceptance. So in the interest of inducing a little mood whiplash, I scanned them both. First, let’s do the rejection:

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Random, Uh, Brochure: The Scott Meredith Literary Agency

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

So this week I beseeched the Gods of Randomness to tell me what to pull out of my vast trove of rejection letters, and they told me, Lo! Thou must pick the sixth item in the folder for the letter M! So that’s what I did. But it’s not a rejection letter. It’s not even a form letter. It is, essentially, a brochure—an unsolicited submission, if you will—from the Scott Meredith Literary Agency:

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Random Rejection: Indigenous Fiction, “Leech Field”

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

So this week, the Gods of Randomness told me to reach into my giant collection of rejection letters and pull something out of the section labeled “I”. Well, okay, they originally told me to pull something out of the section labeled “P”, but all the good stuff in the “P” section has already been done already. Could it be I’m running out of rejection letters?! Nah, there just weren’t that many magazines whose name started with “P”.

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Random Rejection: Glimpses Magazine, “The Magician’s Finger”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

So this week I fired up good old Random.org and had it pick a letter of the alphabet and a position, and thus I reached into my vast trove of rejection (and a few acceptance) letters and pulled out this little gem, from when I submitted a story called “The Magician’s Finger” to a magazine called Glimpses:

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Random Rejection: Dark Regions, “The Last Vacancy”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

Realizing it has been a long, long time since I did a random rejection, this week, I decided to fire up the old random number generator and reach into the old accordion file of denials (and the occasional acceptance). This time I was told to take the 26th rejection from the “D” folder, and so here we have this one, from Dark Regions magazine (which is still around, and is now the specialty book publisher Dark Regions Press), for my short story “The Last Vacancy”:

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Random Rejection: The Leading Edge, “Draw”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

It’s been quite a while since I reached into my giant pile of rejection letters, so today I spun up random.org and it told me to pick the third letter from the “L” folder. As it turns out, this is a rejection from the magazine The Leading Edge for my short story “Draw”, a science fiction Western, previously excerpted in a Teaser Tuesday.

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Random Rejection: Pulp Eternity, “The Fold”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

As it’s been a while since I dipped into my trove of rejection letters, this week I turned to random.org, asked them for a letter, and got an “E”. So I reached into the folder and pulled out this nice one, from Pulp Eternity, which is either from the end of 1998 or the beginning of 1999:

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Random Rejection: Weird Tales, “The Short Route”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

It’s been a while since I reached into my giant stack of rejection (and a few acceptance) letters, so I figured it was time to totter off to random.org and ask them what letter I should choose. They told me “V”, but I already did the only V in my pile, so I asked them for a different letter and they told me “W”. As it turns out, nearly all my “W” rejections are from Weird Tales, or, as indicated in the scan below, “Worlds of Fantasy and Horror”, which is, uh, not quite as catchy a title as Weird Tales. (The astute reader will not be surprised to learn that this temporary title change involved the legal system.)

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Random Rejection: Zoetrope Magazine, “Silkscreen”

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It’s been a while since I reached into my giant stack of rejection (and a few acceptance) letters, so I decided it was about time to visit random.org and have it pick me a character to represent the name of the agent, magazine, or publisher who had rejected (or maybe accepted) a submission. When it came back with a Z, I pretty much knew that it was going to have to be a rejection from Francis Ford Coppola’s magazine Zoetrope, as I couldn’t think of any other venue starting with that letter to which I had ever submitted. Although I did find a letter in the “Z” section from one of my cousins, who had read my story “The Short Route” and sent me back a note that it should be expanded into a novel, a movie, or both. (Maybe someday, Susan!) But of course I couldn’t use a letter from a cousin for a Random Rejection, and so, Zoetrope it is!

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