How To Reject a Writer: The Good, the Bad & the... Huh?

A Literal Literary Loser Has a Day

I am a professional writer. I get rejected all the time. All. The. Time. Constantly, regularly, and any other synonym you can think of.

I just got rejected three times yesterday alone. In three completely different ways.

The first came when I tried to pitch a story about Irna Phillips, the woman who invented soap operas and is featured in my upcoming historical fiction novel, “Go On Pretending,” to a local publication. The problem was, my sole connection to the local publication was that I’d once lived in the area.

The response came back: Alina, thanks for contacting. I love the idea but I can't, unfortunately, really see a local angle to the story. (Having a local author isn't enough). If you can think of a tie-in, we can reconsider it. But thank you so much for the suggestion.

Lovely, polite, professional. And completely reasonable. So lovely that I sent a thank you note for the rejection. Which I sincerely meant.

The second rejection came after I sent the below excerpt from “Go On Pretending” (are you seeing a pattern, here; always be promoting!) to a publication which solicited works “that deal with the American Jewish Experience.”

This is what I submitted:

Rose was no innocent, but she was a virgin to the notion that happiness didn’t have to be complicated. Of course, matters were complicated. They were more complicated than they had ever been. But, at the same time, Rose could close Jonas’ apartment door to the world, to jobs, to nightclubs, to restaurants, to nay-sayers, and it became utterly simple.

There was her, there was him, there was them.

Simple.

The only hurdle still between them, one that Rose had done her darndest to keep behind the shut door but it kept hammering incessantly when she least expected it, was the business of Rose’s past – and how it could affect both their futures.

They were lying in bed, Jonas on his stomach, Rose’s head propped up on one elbow, tickling her fingers down his back with her free hand while he smiled sleepily, when she finally gathered up the courage to say, “I never graduated from high school.”

Jonas rolled over slowly, facing her with a quizzical expression. “You went to college.”

“I took the test. Got an equivalency.”

The side of his mouth twitched, trying to remain serious, “If that’s the worst thing you ever did – “

“It isn’t,” Rose cut him off. And the twitch stilled.

He sat up, back against the headboard. He took her hand in his, stroking the palm with his thumb. He looked down to meet Rose’s eyes but, when she looked away, he didn’t push. “What is it?”

“I told you I grew up going to Workmen’s Circle. Attended their summer camps, sang with the chorus. They’re a social-action organization. They taught me to stand up for the rights of the oppressed, call out injustice, fight for freedom. Not just my own, everybody’s.”

“Sounds like a cause I could support,” Jonas said softly, encouraging her to continue.

“I was seventeen. I was sure I knew everything. I was sure I knew better. Certainly more than my mother did. Certainly more than anybody who told me to think my actions through did.”

“What actions?” No judgment, just support.

“I went to Spain. To fight with the Republicans in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade against the Nationalists.”

It was clearly not what Jonas expected to hear.

“I didn’t really fight,” she admitted. “I arrived towards the end. We didn’t know how close we were to losing. There were colored soldiers,” she recalled, a detail Rose hadn’t remembered up till that moment but suddenly saw as significant.

Jonas nodded, “Langston Hughes wrote about them. Said he saw no difference between the Nationalists and the men in white hoods.

“Our forces were integrated. Everyone was equal, men and women, too. Though the one time this all-women anarchist delegation tried to attend the National Confederation of Labour Congress they were told their presence would undermine working-class interests….” Rose dropped that train of thought in favor of, “Workmen’s Circle, it’s a Socialist organization. Except the Socialist Youth of Spain refused to send women to the front lines. Anyone who wanted to participate in the fighting had to switch allegiance to the Communists.”

That last word caught Jonas’ attention. It was 1952, how could it not?

“And that’s what you did?” he asked cautiously.

Rose nodded, swallowing hard.

Jonas exhaled, briefly closing his eyes and running a hand through his hair. “Then what happened?”

“Then the war ended. I came home.” That sounded convincing. Nothing to question. It was even mostly true. “Couple of months later, Stalin signed a pact with Hitler. We had speakers from the American Communist Party come to Workmen’s Circle to tell us why we should support it, but I’d had enough. I quit. I went to college and never really looked back. Well, I did work for WEVD, but that was – it was a soap-opera. It was barely political. I work for Procter & Gamble now! It doesn’t get more all-American than that!”

“Does Miss Phillips know?”

“No. The one time somebody mentioned the loyalty oath to Irna, they ended up slinking out of her office like The Burghers of Calais.” Jonas should appreciate the Rodin imagery.

“So you’re in no danger.”

“Not at the moment. But who knows what might happen tomorrow? Phillip Loeb, he was in The Goldbergs on Broadway, then on television. Red Channels called him a Communist and General Foods insisted Gertrude Berg fire him or they’d drop their sponsorship. Pert Kelton had to leave The Honeymooners. Jackie Gleason covered for her, said it was heart trouble, but she was listed in Red Channels, too. Lucille Ball only got away with keeping her show because Desi claimed she was too dumb to know what she was doing when she registered as a Communist.”

“You’ve been keeping a close watch.”

Rose shrugged. “I had to. The Hollywood 10, they were all writers, all blacklisted.”

“Any colored folks on that list of theirs?”

“Paul Roebson, Lena Horne, Langston Hughes, Harry Belafonte, Hazel Scott, Canada Lee,” Rose rattled off. She hadn’t realized she’d been keeping track.

“So we all can’t claim to be too stupid? Hardly seems fair, seeing as how we’re judged too stupid to do anything else.”

She wondered if Jonas were truly offended, but his laugh quenched that fear.

“So now that you know, if somebody asks you about me – “

“If someone asks me about you,” Jonas shifted his weight to turn towards her, kissing Rose’s shoulder, the crook of her neck, her collarbone, the base of her throat, murmuring, “I’ll tell them you’re a beautiful woman, a brilliant writer, and a compassionate human being. That’s all they’re going to get out of me.”

And that’s all Jonas was going to get out of her. Because, no matter how smoothly this part went, Rose had no intention of ever telling anybody what really happened in Spain.

This was the response: Hi Alina. Thank you for sending this excerpt. While your book may contain passages dealing with the American Jewish experience, this except does not, so we’re going to pass. We’re open to excerpts that are more in line with our mission.

So… uhm… Workmen’s Circle, Americans who went to fight in Spain as part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and the McCarthy blacklist aren’t part of the American Jewish experience? That’s… a take.

I am a professional writer. I get rejected all the time. All. The. Time. Constantly, regularly, and any other synonym you can think of.

Reject me because my prose isn’t good enough. Reject me because my submission doesn’t fit what you’re looking for or because there’s no local angle or because you don’t like the color of my hair. But make it a legitimate reason.

Finally, here’s an update on my third rejection of the day:

I submitted an excerpt from “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” to David Michael Slater, the fiction editor at “Judith Magazine.”

David didn’t like the excerpt I submitted. He wrote: I think the writing here is strong, but as an excerpt, I felt that, simultaneously, background was missing and that most of it was background information (history lesson), to the exclusion of action/drama. I generally find that chapter ones are best for enticing readers to seek out the entire book. Might that be the case for this one?

See? This is how we do a legitimate reason to reject.

I sent David Chapter #1 from “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region.” And he went for it!

Stay tuned for details on where and how you can read it, shortly.

For those keeping score at home, that was three rejections and one acceptance in a 24 hour period. Pretty good for a freelance writer, no?