Rejected
by Ann Tompert

Is there a writer who has never, ever received a rejection letter? I rather suspect that we have all suffered the slings and arrows, even the rich and/or famous. Before William Saroyan, for example, got his first acceptance, he had a pile of rejection slips thirty inches high.

The comments of rejecting editors make for interesting, enlightening, and sometimes entertaining reading.

Mary Higgens Clark's short story, Journey Back To Love, earned the comment, "We found the heroine as boring as her husband did."

About Colette's book, Claudine At School, an editor said, "I wouldn't be able to sell 10 copies."

Irving Stone's Lust For Life was rejected with the comment, "A long, dull novel about an artist."

Dr. Seuss's And To Think 1 Saw It On Mulberry Street was "too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling."

Commenting on Harry Crew's Unpublished Story Collection, an editor advised, "Burn it, son, burn it. Fire is a great refiner."

The editor of a literary magazine saved A. Wilber Stevens (later Dean of Arts and Letters at the University of Nevada) the trouble and trauma. When the SASE Stevens sent with his manuscript came back, he opened it and out fell a little pile of ashes!

One could always stockpile one's rejections with the view to breaking the world's record which, according to the Guinness Book Of World Records, stands at 106 received for World Government Crusade by Gilbert Young.

Lee Pennington, a well-published magazine writer, papered a room (all four walls) with the rejection slips he received in a six-month period. If a writer finds that collecting enough to paper a room is too overwhelming or depressing, he/she might consider
gathering enough to paper a lampshade, laminate a coffee table, or a wastebasket. The latter project might be especially appropriate,

Rejection letters have other uses. For some writers, they have been the goads that pushed them to self-publishing. The most famous children's self-published author is, of course, Beatrix Potter, whose The Tale Of Peter Rabbit was rejected at least six times before she published it herself, using her savings.

It was e.e. cummings's mother who published his poems when a dozen publishers rejected them. He exacted sweet revenge with this dedication: "No Thanks To: Farter & Rinehart, Simon & Schuster, Coward-McCann, Limited Editions, Harcourt, Brace, Random House, Equinox Press, Smith & Haas, Viking Press, Knopf, Dutton, Harper's, Scribners, Covici, Friede."

Over time, writers have been urged to "hang in there." Success will come. In the words of Joseph Hansen: "It seems important to me that.., writers ponder this--that since 1964 1 have never had a book, story, or poem rejected that was not later published. If you know what you are doing, eventually you will run into an editor who knows what he/she is doing. It may take years, but never give up."

And I say, Amen to that.

This article first appeared in the fall '99 issue of "Once Upon a Time" and may not be reprinted without permission from the author. For Ann's address, contact editor@kidsbooklink.org.

Ann Tompert has authored many many books in her forty year – and still-going career. Her latest is ST. NICHOLAS. She writes everyday and is a columnist for the "SCBWI-MI News" and "Once Upon a Time."

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