Etiquette and the Rejection of a Rejection

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the summer kickoff and barbecuing and otherwise being festive. I’m not but that’s okay. As long as you all are having fun, I will live vicariously through you.

Did you know that sometimes writers reject a rejection? They do. And I’m not making any judgments here but 100% of the time, that writer is a man, at least in our experience.

When you receive a rejection containing feedback that was perhaps quite candid but always well intended, and you disagree with that feedback, that’s your right. Our feedback is subjective and your writing is, in some cases, apparently beyond reproach. We were not aware of that when we communicated with you. Pardon our error. It’s just that when you use ellipses more than thirty times in a story, we will feel compelled to point that out because perhaps, that was something you overlooked. And maybe you use too many modifiers or say things like “I feel” too much, and maybe the ending doesn’t work or the beginning doesn’t work or there are some tonal inconsistencies. When we point these things out, we are not attacking you as a person. We are not saying you are a bad writer. We are not saying that your writing is irredeemable. We’re saying the writing in question is simply not right for PANK and we’re providing you with a little information as to why so that the next time you send us something, you might have a better sense of what we’re looking for. We’re offering you one opinion about your work that you can take or leave. We are not right. We are not wrong. We are not infallible. We are certainly not being mean.

When you receive a rejection, and you have a strong reaction to it, you can vent and otherwise rail against the many ways in which we are misguided, arrogant, delusional or otherwise mistaken, to your priest, therapist, wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend, nuclear family, the guy on the street corner, your blog or other means of social networking. You can hire a skywriter or take out an ad in a major newspaper. Whatever you need to do to deal with that rejection, we understand. We’re writers too and we get rejected frequently and enthusiastically. We, for example, generally blog about our rejections and find that quite satisfying. We very much understand that rejection sucks. Sometimes, it stings. We understand feeling misunderstood. We understand thinking that the editor just doesn’t get it. We accept that we may not get it. All of that is fine. What is less acceptable is sending your rude and abusive emails to us. It really really isn’t okay. We do not need to know about your inappropriate emotional reactions. We don’t want to know.

Most rejections of rejections involve bad words and angry sentiments and personal attacks that basically boil down to this: “I don’t care what you think about my writing. I think you suck.” What confuses us is this: if you don’t care what we think, why do you submit? If you are only looking for a “Yes,” you’re perhaps not cut out for the publishing game. More often than not, the answer is going to be no because any magazine can only publish so many writers. We’re basically full through October online and about 90% full for our next print issue. The majority of the writing we receive is great but we, like most magazines, are in a position where we can only publish the writing that really grabs us, that really makes us fall in love, that really moves us.

Whether we send form or personal rejections, writers enjoy writing back, striking back, and otherwise making it clear where we can go stick our rejections. Why in the past four days alone, the following missives were sent our way:

“Why don’t you take your gut and shove it up your ass.”

“I certainly don’t mind being rejected, but I do take issue with the arrogant and disrespectful “criticism” you passed along. As a writer, editor and professor, I must say that I find your it reactionary, gratuitous and completely unprofessional. As a student who wishes to join the ranks of academia and a fledgling writer seeking respect, you should really think about your attitude and approach. Neither one of them are doing you any favors.”

“Fuck you and your magazine.”

I know I shouldn’t post this, what with my being a fledgling writer and all, but this is just not the week. We look forward to your next submission. Truly.