but your story is not suitable for our publication.
Ah, the words I hate to see in my inbox and my mailbox. Recently I've been getting some rejections that are a little unusual. They haven't been the typical "Dear Writer" notes so I thought I'd share a bit about them here.
Positive Feedback Rejection
One of my favorite stories has been searching for a home since 2003. Its gotten a lot of 'almost' responses and found a home once, only to have the publication go under before it was published. It just got a nice rejection from a publication that gave me some feedback on what didn't work for them. Its pretty rare to get feedback as part of the rejection so the fact that the editors had some thoughts and want to see more stories from me, gave me new hope that my little story will eventually find a home.
Re-submit in a Year Rejection
I recently completed my first hard science fiction story. I think it was really good.. if I do say so myself :-) The oddest/most positive rejection I got on that one was from an anthology. The editor told me that the story almost made it and if it hadn't found a home by the time they are looking for submission for next year's anthology to send it to him again.
Same Last Name Rejection
I sent a flash fiction piece out for consideration recently and got a response back in literally a few hours with the standard "thank you for your submission, but it is not appropriate for our publication at this time". I sighed, shrugged and immediately sent it back out. In two days I got an email from the publication telling me that they had accidentally rejected me because my last name "Miller" was the same as another author and the story was still under consideration. I operate under full disclosure and they do say "no simultaneous submissions" on their guidelines so I told them I'd already sent it out for consideration elsewhere, but if they wanted to keep it in their slushpile I would let them know right away if it was accepted by the other publication. It is still in review and I'm not holding my breath that I'll end-up with two publications interested.. but it would be a nice problem to have.
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