Monday, August 18, 2008

Double Rejection

I had a mildly abrasive writerly experience today. I have a few stories that I think are worth circulating, and I try to keep at least one in submission somewhere. Today, I received not one, but two, rejections. The first was from the editor of the forthcoming Portland Noir volume--he rejected two stories. I still think that they are pretty good stories, but apparently not noir or Portland enough. I probably should've drafted something new, but I had sent in previously written stories that were more or less (apparently less) set in Portland, with something of the Portland vibe. My thought was to try to keep to long fiction since I've got a handful of good stories--and two published--under my belt. In any event, it's a disappointment not to be able to represent Portland, and I'll be curious to see the volume when it comes out. The other rejection came from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine--not a surprise because the story was a bit of a lark and AHMM is very competitive. The response time was faster than usual. In the past, though, AHMM has offered a personal note of encouragement; this story received just the photocopied form letter (and AHMM even sent back my cover letter, too). Back to the drawing board or the salt mines or some such.