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.
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4 comments:
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").
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.
What a hoot! Just what I needed to lighten my load.
I love doing this kind of research. :)
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