Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Five tales from the slush pile


Interesting things or practices found in the slush pile…

1. Beer

Funny objects? glitter, chocolate, and our favorite, a six pack of beer.


2. A picture of the writer with a gun

You… get distracted by prisoners who think it a good idea to include a picture of themselves with a gun pointed at the viewer (true story).


3. Paper salvage

The bottom two-thirds of the last page cut off with scissors because that’s where the submission ended.


4. Viruses

Michele sent a polite rejection note via e-mail to someone... He sent it back to her with a computer virus attached.


5. False claims

I received a story with a polite cover letter asking me to respond as soon as possible because of the special circumstances involved: the writer was a prisoner and to be executed in less than a week.


Turns out he was a prisoner, but when the editor wrote back quickly to say that she would have liked something different (to be published posthumously of course), the prisoner had a miraculous stay of execution.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those links were great. Thanks for sharing.

This rejection did make me smile:
Sylvia Plath ("There certainly isn't enough genuine talent for us to take notice").

Marian Perera said...

Glad you liked them. :)

And I have a book called Rotten Reviews and Rejections. I'll see if your Sylvia Plath quote is among them, and maybe quote a few of the best for another post some time.

Hazardgal said...

What a hoot! Just what I needed to lighten my load.

Marian Perera said...

I love doing this kind of research. :)