Dear Author
Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 9:22 am
1. Dear Author: I am sorry to inform you that I will be unable to use your story, "The, Badly Punctuated, Title With Speling Mistaks" in Title Redacted Magazine. You may be heartened, however, to know that your story inspired me to perform interpretive dance for my assistant.
2. Dear Author: Thanks so much for sharing with us the most profoundly inappropriate example of electronic flatulence we have ever observed. This piece is so far from acceptable, that the light from acceptable will not arrive for 2 million years.
3. Dear Author: I keep thinking about what one of my writing teachers told me... about the writer who submitted a manuscript... and a few weeks later, got back a pile of ashes in response.
4. When I started editing at the California Quarterly, I was warned not to write in a rejection what the previous editor had written, which was the two-word note, "Tree killer." The California Quarterly is the lit magazine of the University of California at Davis, which is a tax-supported school. The writer was a California resident who, after receiving the rejection, called his state senator, and the senator actually came onto campus to ream the editorial board.
5. Dear Author: I know that you've had success placing your work with several major publications, and have even been nominated for numerous awards, but I can honestly say that neither I nor any of the people I know actually care for your pretentious literary wanking--including this. The fact that you're also a slush reader with delusions of grandeur makes me want to cry. Pass.
6. Dear Author: Enclosed please find my eyes. I won't be needing them anymore.
7. Dear Author: Please to write with both hands on the keyboard. I see that one creeping down to your waistband.
8. Dear Author: I watched the Twilight Zone once too.
9. Dear Author: Your participles are dangling. Please tuck in.
10. Dear Author: When your writers group says they want more exposition about how this works, they lied.
11. Dear Author: All your characters are TSTL. Also, I am, pretty sure the vampire is going to eat the serial killer at the end.
12. Dear Author: I feel sorry for your spouse.
13. Dear Author: Perhaps therapy might be more useful than another story about how damaged your family is or has made you."
2. Dear Author: Thanks so much for sharing with us the most profoundly inappropriate example of electronic flatulence we have ever observed. This piece is so far from acceptable, that the light from acceptable will not arrive for 2 million years.
3. Dear Author: I keep thinking about what one of my writing teachers told me... about the writer who submitted a manuscript... and a few weeks later, got back a pile of ashes in response.
4. When I started editing at the California Quarterly, I was warned not to write in a rejection what the previous editor had written, which was the two-word note, "Tree killer." The California Quarterly is the lit magazine of the University of California at Davis, which is a tax-supported school. The writer was a California resident who, after receiving the rejection, called his state senator, and the senator actually came onto campus to ream the editorial board.
5. Dear Author: I know that you've had success placing your work with several major publications, and have even been nominated for numerous awards, but I can honestly say that neither I nor any of the people I know actually care for your pretentious literary wanking--including this. The fact that you're also a slush reader with delusions of grandeur makes me want to cry. Pass.
6. Dear Author: Enclosed please find my eyes. I won't be needing them anymore.
7. Dear Author: Please to write with both hands on the keyboard. I see that one creeping down to your waistband.
8. Dear Author: I watched the Twilight Zone once too.
9. Dear Author: Your participles are dangling. Please tuck in.
10. Dear Author: When your writers group says they want more exposition about how this works, they lied.
11. Dear Author: All your characters are TSTL. Also, I am, pretty sure the vampire is going to eat the serial killer at the end.
12. Dear Author: I feel sorry for your spouse.
13. Dear Author: Perhaps therapy might be more useful than another story about how damaged your family is or has made you."