Suicide Rejection

The Cum Hither Global (nice name) reports that a literary critic and podcaster named J. Johnson Edwards penned a romance novel to prove how ridiculously easy it is to master the genre, and then took to his house with an axe and had to be put on suicide watch after receiving his first (FIRST!) rejection.  The story is reported in full here, unlinked and unverifiable.  I guess it's a joke, right?  (You know how I sometimes miss a joke.) It'd be funnier if it were real.

Iowa MFA Grad Speaks Out

I love the LROD commenter "Iowa Grad" who posted over on the Blah, Blah, Blah post (66 comments and going strong; you people are insane).  Minus the MFA, I feel as if Iowa Grad and I are kindred souls.   Here it is, his/her searing response to one of the bitter bobs (not me, though I am bitter):

Hey, angry anon: I have an MFA from Iowa. I earned it in the late '80s, wrote three unpublished novels before publishing my first book eleven years after getting the degree. I also taught as an adjunct at several colleges, sometimes earning a whopping sum of $1,000 per month for teaching four classes, with no health benefits or retirement, etc. It's been twenty years now since I got my degree, and I've published a few books and have a good job, but I still get rejections from little magazines and book publishers alike. That's part of the business, buddy. No one owes you squat. Nobody. Oh yeah...I'm a first-generation college student and accumulated a boat-load of debt for all three of my degrees. Based on your rants (or maybe there's more than one angry anon on here), I should have been handed a sweet book deal and a cushy job upon graduation. I guess I'm failing to see how you and I are different, except that I've worked my ass off to get where I am, and all you seem to be doing is bitching and moaning. I'm exhausted by the anti-MFA rant. I've never -- ever -- had an editor or agent ask me where I went to school, and I quit mentioning it on my cover letter once I realized that, no, it didn't get me anything. Hell, I'll go one step further and say that there's probably more anti-Iowa folks out there than pro-Iowa folks ready to open their doors and hand me a fat check. One more thing: Would I care if you liked my work? If you did, great; but if you didn't, no, not really.

New No-Win Nonfiction Contest (JoAnn Beard)

Looks like we've got another no-win contest on our hands, friends. Fuel for another debate? Or just too boring?  Either way, this just came in from an anonymous LROD reader: 

"Dear Entrant,

We at Columbia: A Journal of Literature & Art, would like to thank you for your submission. There were many fantastic pieces to choose from this year, and the selection of winners was carefully considered by our judges. The fiction and poetry winners can be read in your complimentary issue of Columbia, and runners-up can be found on www.columbiajournal.org.
After much deliberation, nonfiction judge JoAnn Beard exercised her right not to select a winner, as written in our contest rules.

We encourage you to enter our 2009 contests. Judges will be announced on our Web site in the fall."

JoAnn Beard has judged a lot of contests and has once before refused to choose all the winners, as reported here on LROD; maybe it's a habit of hers.  Anyway, I'm pretty sure she's rejected me several times along the way, though I didn't submit for this particular contest.  But could it really be that not one creative nonfiction piece was good enough for publication?  Thanks for sending this, "A Lonely Writer in the Trenches." Given the insult of this rejection, I hope you are a poet and fiction writer.

Not You, Not Ever

Announces its Spring 2008 issue now available online and featuring:

FICTION
Richard Bausch         Italy, Winter 1944
Lisa Cupolo               Bread
Louise Jarvis Flynn A Windfall
Barry Gifford            The Age of Fable
Jeanie Kortum         Stones
Reese Kwon              Superhero
Mattox Roesch        All the Way Rider
Holly Wilson           Where’s the Beauty, Jimmy?

POETRY
Matthew Dickman
Mike O’Connor
Alberto Álvaro Ríos
Jennifer Tonge

NONFICTION
Lynn Ahrens        Going Hollywood
Rick Bass             Oil
Tom Grimes       The Leash
Donald Hall        Gaudeamus Igitur

WORKS IN PROGRESS
Marvin Bell
Amy Bloom
T. Coraghessan Boyle
Robert Olen Butler
Stuart Dybek
David Guterson
Jim Harrison
Min Jin Lee
Cynthia Ozick
Jane Smiley
Ayelet Waldman
and many others

CLASSICS
Stephen Crane     The Blue Hotel

Go to NarrativeMagazine.com.

The Narrative First-Person Story Contest, with $7,000 in prizes,
is accepting entries of fiction and nonfiction. Entry deadline: July 31.

_______________________________

Note From W,R:  This came today, following an email from earlier in the week with fabulous photographs of a very fancy party and all the literati smiling like fat cats.  As for this announcement, though, what's with the works in progress?  They won't publish your finished masterpiece, but they will publish the mindless scraps of famous writers.  Oh boy, that's taking reality too far.  I like the finished products, thank you. And, also many others? How many others?  Who's left? (Besides you and me, that is.)

Why Waste Paper?

Here's one from today's mailbag: "I once received my query letter and manuscript returned from an agent without a rejection letter. Just a charming rubber stamp message on the top of my letter.  It said REFUSED."

MBA Not MFA

My petulant banner ad at the bottom of the blog has changed yet again. Where once they sported faulty links to rejection, cheerleaders, potties, and medical devices, now my ads feature higher education.  Yesterday, LROD was promoting business school ads.  Nice!  Looks like those bastards at Google AdSense are trying to tell me to get a real job. 

Bakeless Doesn't Rise

I sent in a book of creative nonfiction for the 2008 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize.  Sadly, though, no dough.