I Have Become Accustomed To Rejection

Outstanding Submissions: 25

Rejections: 1, form
Yet another form rejection from Smokelong Quarterly. My favorite thing about their rejection letter is the brevity of the dismissal. I really love it.  No one’s time is wasted. You get the message–your story was so unappealing they needed to rid that bad taste from their mouth with ruthless efficiency. Excellence.

It is cold and raining. I have a great deal of work to do this weekend. I hope I get something done instead of surrendering to my normal inertia and ennui. I am not optimistic on this front.

I got a message from an editor of a big fancy print journal asking me to “tweak” a story I submitted an eon ago. I will tweak that story like an unruly eyebrow.  I will make it such that the story always looks surprised and penciled in. Once I get his notes.

There is a new issue of Night Train out and in it I have a story, The Mark of Cain.

PANK’s first chapbook will be How to Take Yourself Apart, How To Make Yourself Anew by Aaron Burch, editor of Hobart. We are proud and honored to have read so many excellent chapbooks. It was a nearly impossible decision.

At Barrelhouse, I continue to discuss my obsession with Chris Gaines and share a little about my alter ego.

All day it has been a dark gray of a day. Cold rain, sometimes sleet and snow, cold winds, downright inhospitable. The winters here are long but something tells me that this winter will be the longest of them all.