Rejected

Casey,

Thank you very much for your submission to BREVITY. I am sorry to say that we will not be able to use the essay, but we appreciate your sending it for our consideration.


Good luck with your writing.


Dinty W. Moore

Editor


I was rejected by BREVITY.

I submitted a short piece of nonfiction to the online literary review last Thursday and received the decision yesterday. It wasn’t promising news, but it was a very quick turnaround.

Of course I was bummed. I’ve submitted three different essays to as many publications and was hoping to go three for three. The two other pieces are still under review, so we’ll see how those turn out. But even though my remaining submissions may get accepted, I still wallowed in my rejection for a night.

Rejection is an unwelcome but necessary and common occurrence in a writer’s life. I haven’t done much submitting until now, but I think this is the fourth or fifth time I’ve had a piece of my writing rejected. After receiving the email I walked the ring road on campus before heading home, and I let self-doubt and negative thoughts conquer my mind.

“You’re not a good writer.”

“That essay was horrible.”

Self-recrimination ran amok as I walked to my car. Of course, the voice of reason was relegated to the back of my mind, but I could still hear what it said: BREVITY’s next issue has a hot and cold theme (“don’t take it too literally,” the website said), and the essay I submitted had nothing to do with hot and cold (literally or not). Perhaps I should have waited to submit it.

I had a couple beers last night, but I didn’t think of the rejection much after getting home. I took it in stride and started rewriting and planning for my next submission. It’s not gonna keep me down.

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