More rejection: On balancing bad news with good.

[I watched a bit of the Presidential debate and really needed to process it, so I literally did that. I translated the speaking into music (and drowned out the speaking) to make this video.]

So I had a delightful time in March writing a collaborative poetry MS with an old friend. We wrote poems back and forth (she had the time since she was a librarian and the libraries were closed) and quickly assembled a really interesting manuscript--lots of strange diagrams and drawings, odd riffs off an old and eccentric article from a newspaper published in 1910, some lovely and unexpected passages about whales. We edited and revised and then sent it off to several publishers. Well, today I got the following rejection. They loved it but still, no thanks. It's too long (although in truth, if they really wanted to publish it they could since they do publish long books quite often.) Ah well. I'm glad that these thoughtful readers enjoyed it.

I’m writing to you (and ____) about _____. The members of the poetry board agreed that it’s the best title we can recall coming across! It’s almost a book in and of itself…

The board loved the manuscript. It’s fun, inventive, joyful — which they definitely appreciated in this moment.

In the end, however, it’s considerably too long for us, and the board didn’t choose to offer you one of our very few poetry spots. There are so many great manuscripts and so few spots for them... 

I’m really sorry. 

All the best 

I should say that while of course I'm disappointed, I do know that the manuscript is still being considered elsewhere. And, more importantly, I'm not dead. I mean, it's disappointing but there are dire things going on in the world and I do put it perspective. Also, I just got this great gig as Writer in Residence at Sheridan. Did you know? I'm really happy about it and THAT is definitely good writing news. Also, I've got several poems coming out in magazines and journals (I just got a $300 for a suite of visual poems coming out in the Fiddlehead. Gotta buy myself some deluxe sweatpants!) and I've just had a super beautifully designed chapbook come out with Knife Fork Books that I wrote with my friend, Kathryn Mockler. So, I think the best way to deal with the ups and downs (the "vicissitudes") of the writing life is to be involved in lots of things so it really can be a case of "you win some you lose some." One increased the chance of winning by doing more things, by trying more often. Also, it's good not to die. Instead, I get to keep on writing. In fact, though I've had a really bad flu (I'm actually going to get Covid tested tomorrow just in case) and spent a couple days feeling lousy in bed, I managed to write a bunch more on my novel (some terrible jokes where my protagonist is taken to IKEA by Death to find a portal to the underworld) and make a few visual poems and write some other text only poems. So, I keep on keeping on. 

Here's part of an ongoing project where I'm modifying an old anatomy textbook by adding new visuals and inserting new poetic text in with the original text. I made a few pages in the last few days.