FC2 Rejects Defiance of Objects

Dear Jackson,

Thank you for submitting The Defiance of Objects to FC2 for consideration, and for the time and effort you put into composing your manuscript. After much deliberation and careful consideration, I’m very sorry to say that FC2 has decided to pass on it.

FC2’s mission has been and remains to publish books of high quality and exceptional ambition whose style, subject matter, or form push the limits of American publishing. FC2 prides itself on being open to new-to-FC2 and/or previously unpublished authors. However, out of the over 300 submissions we receive annually, we are able to publish only six books per year and therefore must be very selective.

Thank you once again for your interest in Fiction Collective Two.

Best,

Carmen Edington
Managing Editor, FC2
University of Houston-Victoria

4 Things to Inspire Hope

1. I recently submitted defiance of objects, my first collection of short stories that i've been working on for years now (and this summer, revising) to 2 more first book contests at:

FC2's innovative fiction prize
The bakeless prize at middlebury college

2. Brick Magazine sent me a nice rejection letter that said "piano lessons" was engaging and stylistically beautiful. right then.

3. I'm still working on my short novella/flash fiction collection about people looking through windows. i'm almost halfway done. i'm planning on including this in my second collection of short stories once it's finished. Maybe.

4. If i don't get an agent or a publisher in the next 6 months, i'm gonna start submitting to some of the excellent small/indie presses: greywolf, soft skull, red hen, granta, stuff like that.

Get Your Game On Jackson Bliss

University of Iowa has a short fiction contest, awarded to a first book of fiction, so yesterday i sent DEFIANCE OF OBJECTS, my first, and more experimental collection of short stories to iowa city, all 234 pages of it, for the short fiction award. i'm also planning on sending this collection to one or more of the following first book contests in the next few months:

1. umass juniper prize
2. FC2 prize
3. bakeless prize

I'll continue working on a second collection of short stories very soon that is more plot and character-based, with more controlled language, that i hope to get ready to submit in the spring. i'm aiming at one or more of these first book contests:

1. ohio state prize
2. the flannery o'connor prize
3. the pitt prize

Ginny, one of the editors at simon & schuster told me she was really impressed with my novel. she called it a great novel and had some insightful suggestions on making the ending more potent, so, right now i'm following a lot of her suggestions, and i have to say, she's right. her ideas are making the climax stronger, and the novel, simpy better. thanx ginny.

I wrote an email to my friend, bdg, at hachette/grand central publishing, who is a senior editor there, and i asked her, hey do you know these two agents, one is Michael Chabon's agent, the second is junot diaz's agent, and bdg, was like, yeah, i know them, i know them well. . . SOOOOOO i asked her if she could talk to them and get them to check out BLANK, and she said, god bless you bdg, lemme read your novel first jackson so i have something to talk about, and then i'll talk to them. let it be known that my internship is STILL changing my life for the better.