1st Story Accepted in 2009

I've been actively lobbying to get one of my stories published in the Notre Dame Review, pretty much since the first day I started my MFA at Notre Dame back in 2005. Even before I got into the program, I'd respected the Notre Dame Review for many years now. I think it's one of the top 20-30 literary journals. But the problem was that I just couldn't get a story accepted there and fuck, I had a connection this time. It secretly delighted me in a strange kind of way that I kept getting denied because I realized that William, the Senior Editor, was pretty damn objective and wouldn't sacrifice his standards to help former sutdents. This is a good thing, I think.

Of course William doesn't accept submissions of current students, that I understood then, but I still tried anyway cuz I'm like that. But today, after rejecting five other pieces of mine that spawns four years, starting with the AWP contests in 2005 and 2006, and then several short stories that I'd sent him since I graduated back in 2007, William finally accepted my piece "City of Sand." It's one of my favorite, more conceptual and older stories. It's about a letter that travels from Mali to Paris, New York and finally, Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, and all the different people it affects along the way. I originally wrote this story in the first workshop I ever took (in my life) at Portland State University, back in 2002, and I've revised it probably fifty times since then.

So, I finally have my first publication for 2009. And it only took me four years to get it! But yo, I'm not complaining. It's all about little steps, and this is my first one of 2009 Mashallah.

Good Rejection from Leslie Kaufmann

Dear Jackson,

Thank you for thinking of me and Kneerim & Williams and allowing me the chance to read your work. I read your submission with interest and found much to admire here, but unfortunately decided that this project isn't right for me. I'm so sorry not to have better news, but feel it's better for me to step aside for someone who can truly champion this book!

I wish you the very best of luck finding an agent who is enthusiastic about this and look forward to seeing your name on a bookshelf soon.

All best,

Leslie

Fiction Editor from Identity Theory Writes Back

Hi Jackson,

Matt Borondy came upon your Blue Mosaic Me post about Identity Theory not responding particularly fast (or at all) to some submissions, and first, my apologies. I went back through our Gmail account and for whatever reason we've been especially bad getting back to you.

I've been the fiction editor for a few years now, and in that time our system for reading submissions has changed quite a bit. It started off with me and one other editor--I would do the first read, he would look at ones I liked, and I'd handle all the correspondence. Then, while I was having a grand old time with Hodgkin's in 2007/8, our submission rate mysteriously doubled (you weren't the only one at that point to not receive prompt replies, for sure). So last year we brought on more assistant editors, which has been great for staying on top of submissions but not ideal for consistency. So, yes, at this point we do resort to form emails in many cases, and I've reminded my colleagues that at the very least, during those busier weeks, we have to acknowledge every writer by name and the title of their piece.

It's not ideal. Three years ago, when we got far fewer pieces, I used to write detailed feedback on every single one. But with more submissions and a much worse signal-to-noise ratio, we have to use a more traditional, slightly less personal system. It shouldn't result in pieces getting ignored or our responses sounding completely copy-and-pasted, of course. But it just reminds me of when I had a temp job for a few months at Harvard's rare books library, sorting through twenty years (~1928-1948) of correspondence between The Nation and prospective writers. The same writer would get the same hand-typed, one-line rejection dozens of times. No greeting, just "Thank you for thinking of The Nation but we cannot use your submission."

Best,

Andrew Whitacre

 ::

And my response:

 Andrew,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond, especially to my sad literary blog that's basically a catharsis pretending to be a literary fiction blog. When I was reading for the Notre Dame Review, and interning at Hachette Books USA, I saw the avalanche of submissions arriving in little storms. Everything was always behind schedule, no matter how on top of it editors were or what venue it was. And I know that editors at IT get paid nothing or almost nothing, so I'm sympathetic to your situation. It's ironic in a way, the more successful you become as a journal, the more work you have to do. I guess that's the price of publishing something that matters to people.

Anyway, gambatte with the Hodgkin's. And thanks again for writing. It was gracious of you, and totally unexpected.

Peace, Blessings,

--Jackson Bliss

Why I Won't Submit to Identity Theory Anymore

Not right for us, sorry -- but thanks for thinking of us, and apologies for the delayed response, James Warner

I waited almost 8 months for this? You've got to be joking.

My problem with Identity Theory, even though I think it's a good journal, is that:

1. It always takes them 7-12 months before I hear from the fiction department, and only after I send them an email pestering them, which means they're not making a habit of responding to submissions, which is absolutely lame

2. The stories I read in their magazine are never better than the ones I submit, just different. Often, they seem to value hipness over literary merit

3. Really, I could forgive all the above two points if James Warner had just written my name in the email. My name is not not right for us

So, as Howard Junker says in his rejection letters, onward!

Good Rejection from New South

Dear Mr. Bliss-

My name is Peter Fontaine and I am the prose editor for New South. I'm writing in regards to your electronic submission of [ ] to our publication. While I enjoyed the humor and some of the more interesting elements of the story, we can't place it right now for our journal. Thank you for taking the time to submit and for your patience as we read and deliberated over your story. Good luck placing [ ] elsewhere, and please think of us again when you are sending out new fiction.

Slightly Obnoxious Rejection from Fence

Dear Jackson Bliss:

Thank you for sending us [ ]. We appreciated the chance to consider it, but it didn't work for Fence.

Sincerely,

The Editors of Fence

And that my friends, is how not to write a form letter rejecting a story through email, especially after 10 months. To add to the frustration, everytime I sit down a read story from Fence, I always like (sometimes quite a lot), but I'm never blown away. And my story [ ] will blow your shit up. Their loss.

The Waiting Game

Everything in the literary world is behind schedule: that short story I submitted a year and a half ago to Zoetrope, the literary agents that placed my manuscript in the sludge pile after telling me they'll read my partial, one of my stories I gave William O'Rourke to publish in the Notre Dame Review more than a year ago, the Kenyon Review's online version of my short story "Cowboys of the Heart: the 6-DVD Boxset", Stand Magazine's Winter issue that "Nimble Calligraphy" will be published in + of course, the 2 PhD programs I applied to, none of which have responded yet. I expect some uncertainty + delay. Actually, a lot. But I what I don't expect, is uncertainty + waiting across the board.

My bad.

New Yorker Finally Rejects Story (after a Year and a Half)

Hi Jackson,

Did I never respond to your story? My god, if so, I apologize. There's some sharp writing within, a very nice handle on the voice, but ultimately we didn't think it was quite right for us. Do feel free to try us again and good luck finding a home for this. We appreciate your giving us the opportunity to consider it.

Best,

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
The New Yorker
Fiction Department

The Hudson Review Finally Responds. . . 17 Months Later

I waited seventeen months so The Hudson Review could tell me about their next submission period was. Bizarre. Thank guys, but what I really wanted to know is what happened to my manuscript [ ]. The funny thing is that despite how gracious this email is, it doesn't actually tell me anything.

Dear Mr. Bliss,

We realized recently that your fiction inquiry did not receive a timely response, and we regret that you are only hearing from us now. Your story should have been returned to you, but if not, it could indicate that we never received it. Our next fiction reading period is from September 1 to November 30 2009, and our response should normally take three months. Thank you for your interest in The Hudson Review

The Editors

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The Hudson Review

60th ANNIVERSARY

684 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10065

(212) 650-0020

Katherine Fausset Finally Responds

Dear Mr. Bliss,

I have someone who helps me with the enormous number of queries and manuscripts I receive. He has just alerted me to your recent emails and tells me that we replied back to you some time ago. But perhaps our response did not arrive, or there was a mistake on our end. I do not know. I am very sorry, however, that you have been waiting seven months for a reply. Do you have your manuscript available to send as an email attachment? If so I will make it a priority and will get back to you immediately. Again, please accept my sincerest apologies.

--Katherine Fausset

Good Rejection from Frederick Hill Bonnie Nadell Agency

Here's the rejection I got from Carolyn Kellogg. Originally, I wanted Bonnie Nadell to read BLANK since she helped get Infinite Jest published, which is a miraculous feat considering how hostile publishing is to innovative literary fiction, especially when it's prolix. Instead, I received this very kind (but obviously, very disappointing) rejection from Carolyn Kellogg. Here it is:

Dear Jackson:

Thank you for thinking of Hill Nadell Agency for your novel BLANK. While you clearly are an accomplished writer, I'm sorry to say that we've decided your project is not a good fit for our list.

Best wishes in finding the right custodian for your work.

Sincerely,
Carolyn Kellogg

Restructure Amnesia + New Query Letters

After licking my wounds from Molly Friedrich's rejection (I respect her enormously, but still feel cheated that she only read 45 pages of my novel), I decided that the best way to get over the hope and rejection of one of America's most prominent agents, is to:

1. Restructure The Amnesia of Junebugs. Virtually every writer and editor who has read my novel (or a portion of it), from editors at Harper Collins, the best literary agents in the whole world, to respected writers like Valerie Sayers, Frances Sherwood, Chuck Wachtel at NYU + Julianna Baggot at FSU, has loved the voice of Winnie Yu, the culture-jamming graffiti artist in the second section of my novel. But after MF stopped reading at page 45, I realized it's possible an agent may never actually get to the 2 couples with more substance, where the heart of the novel is (my first couple just fucks a lot and overintellectualizes everything, kinda like going to Oberlin College). So, to remedy this, I've switched sections one and two. Now, section two, the middle section, is chock full of sex, sandwiched by deeper, more complex, and more human characters.

2. My second response, which is just as healthy, and just as likely to break my heart someday, is to send out new novel queries to new agents. So I sent out a query letter to an agent at The Gernert Company in New York, and another one to David Foster Wallace's agent in SF.

Stay tuned. . .

Molly Friedrich Rejects BLANK

Yes, it breaks your heart. How could it not? When one of the best literary agents in the whole world (who represents four Pulitzer Prize winners for the love of God) asks to read your complete novel, and wants the right to respond first in case the other literary agents you'd send a query letter to, decides to represent you. It all seems so possible. But it's not, not with this agent. Anyway, here is the rejection letter I got ten minutes ago. I'll get over this in a day or so, but right now I have to say, it hurts. It fucking hurts. Here it is:

Dear Jackson,

Thanks so much for sharing BLANK with me. I've now had the chance to read a fair portion of the manuscript, and I'm confident that it's not for me. I think you've got an ambitious concept here that is vastly appealing and you pitched it quite well, but for me, the writing left me feeling at once both raw and disconnected from these characters. It's very tough to pull off an ensemble piece, and it may also be that when it comes to this kind of speculative, or if you want to call it "post apocalyptic" fiction, I'm predisposed to be an unusually harsh judge. But whatever the root of my reasoning is, the narrative just didn't reach me. I do appreciate your thinking of me with this submission, and I hope that your other agent prospect has had a more enthusiastic response.

Warmest wishes for the New Year,

Molly Friedrich
Post-apocalyptic? Speculative Fiction? What? Did I send her a copy of Minority Report by accident? Molly Friedrich is a fabulous, fabulous + smart agent.  She has an impressive client list.  She knows what she likes + she knows how to sell the novels she loves. But the reality is that BLANK is none of those things--neither post-apocalyptic nor speculative. It just appears that way for the first 30 pages or so. But then again, "Magnolia," seems like a real downer for the first hour too.

Molly Friederich Responds in 12 Hours!

This is the second email she sent me today! Of course, it doesn't mean anything in itself, and I won't get my hopes up right now. But this is possibly one of the best replies I've received from an agent since Lynn Nesbit told me she wanted to read my entire novel. Rad! Check it out:

Dear Jackson,


Thank you for answering everything, and quite thoroughly! You don't, by any chance, happen to know N.H.? The G. Smith and Yale connection made me wonder, and she's one of my newest clients.

Yes, I'd love to take a look at BLANK. Could you send along the entire manuscript, as an email attachment? I'd prefer it in Microsoft Word, if that's possible. Thanks, and I look forward to reading. Do let me know if K.F. resurfaces, because I'd like the chance to respond first if she offers to represent you.
Best,
M.F.

Three Novel Queries for Amnesia of Junebugs

In the past two days, I've become so frustrated that this one awesome literary agent--whose name I'll keep to myself, but whose top client is one of the rising stars in the Paris Review--hasn't responded to me in 6 months after asking for three sample chapters (I've sent her 3-4 emails and I still have received a response yet). Anyway, it's been pissing me off so much that I decided to sublimate my frustration into fresh new hope, so I just sent novel queries to the following high-powered agents:

1. Molly Friedrich (who represents 4 Pulitzer-Prize winners). That should intimidate me, but actually it inspires me.

2. Mary Evans (who represents Michael Chabon). I actually think this is something like the third query letter I've sent her in the past 2 years, but I could be wrong. What can I say? I'm persistent, because you have to be in this industry.

3. Doris S. Michaels (whose literary fiction clients are represented in every major publishing house in America)

So, what do I think my odds are? Oh fuck, slim to none. But I knew that going into this profession, and I'm not going to let that stop me from getting published. I'm a talented fiction writer. I'm just waiting for an agent to figure that out, and I know someday one will.

2 PhD Applications Finished + Submitted

Well, after several months of working on 2 PhD applications, writing a bunch of personal statements, revising a critical essay, obsessing about 1-3 creative writing samples, requesting transcripts from 5 schools, shepherding 5 separate recommendations from faculty in Chicago, South Bend, Notre Dame and Tokyo, + taking the GRE in Buenos Aires, I am finally done with all my applications. In case you're curious I finally decided to apply to:

1. FSU (PhD program in Literature + Creative Writing)
2. USC (PhD program in Literature + Creative Writing)

Now, maybe some of you are asking me: you already have a M.F.A., why the fuck do you need another degree in creative writing? The answer is simple: I don't. But what I do need, is more time to write and publish. And it's not going to happen by teaching English in Buenos Aires and running all over the city like an amateur speedwalker. By the time I get home, I'm exhausted. Another thing: I picked Notre Dame to get my M.F.A. because I really liked Valerie Sayers, Steve Tomasula + Frances Sherwood, not to mention it was closer to Chicago, which ended up being the best choice for me, even though I really like and admire Indiana University's MFA program very much. Tony Ardizzone seemed like an awesome guy too.

This time, I'd really love to work with Robert Olen Butler, Julianna Baggott, Suzanne Stuckey-French, TC Boyle + Aimee Bender, so really, any of the above mentioned programs would do for me. Also, this time: Florida or LA will work just fine for me. More than anything, I just want to write, learn from the best writers in the world, read 200 amazing novels, and flourish. I've got the talent, the persistence and the devotion, I just want more time to become the next big thing, and maybe expand my network in the process. Holla!

(Basically) Good Rejections from Witness + Brevity

Here are two decent rejections, not effusive, not amazing, not completely encouraging rejection letters, but also not generic either. If nothing else, I know that their readers/editors enjoyed the manuscripts I sent them. And that, if nothing else, is really important to me. See, I can appreciate the small things too:

Dear Jackson Bliss:

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your work. Although we enjoyed this submission, it does not presently meet our needs. We are grateful that you thought of us and wish you the best of luck in placing your manuscript elsewhere.

Sincerely,
The editors
WITNESS

And:

Mr. Bliss,

Thank you for submitting your work to Brevity, the journal of concise nonfiction. Although we do not have a place for your work in the issues for which we are currently reading, we wanted you to know that our readers enjoyed your essay.

We have been blessed with a large number of excellent submissions lately, and hope that you understand that we can only publish a small fraction of the material we receive. We encourage you to submit your work elsewhere and to consider us again (remembering our rule, no more than two submissions per author per calendar year.)

Good luck with your writing,

The Editors
BREVITY