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Rumpus Book ClubThe Fine Art of Rejection Letters
Jean Hannah Edelstein rejected over a thousand books during her two year publishing career. She was once fifteen minutes into a date before she realized she had rejected her partners manuscript. Over at The Guardian she considers a compendium of rejection letters to be published in 2010 (why publish literature when you can publish literary rejection?) and discources on (the fine art of?) rejection. The two goals of the rejection letter, she writes, are to not make the writer feel distraught while discouraging him or her from ever contacting you ever again. The danger of being too nice is that the writer might come back.
Edelstein points to something learned by all long practicing writers: the rejection letter is a lie. The only thing to be believed in a rejection letter is that this person has no interest in your work. To read anything else into it is folly.
See Also: Why I Must Give Up Writing by Merrill Joan Gerber
January 21st, 2009 at 6:07 pm
In many years as an editor (including a decade as editor-in-chief), I often wrote rejection letters to writers whose work I really did hope to see again. What they submitted wasn’t right for the magazine or wasn’t fully realized, and yet I saw something in it that intrigued me and raised my hopes for the future. Sometimes I’d suggest another, more likely market for the piece. Of course there are talentless writers or just plain inappropriate writers one simply wants to be rid of. But in my experience, it’s a gross overstatement to describe the rejection letter as a lie.