WORDS MATTER

The Art of Publication Submission Rejection

Science it is not

It doesn’t have to be like this. Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

We’ve all been here.

You put your blood, sweat, and tears and a big ol’ chunk of your creative cortex into a written piece. You finished the first draft, read it, rewrote it, read it again, made some tweaks, read it a third time, dismantled it completely, and then finally made it into a masterpiece — or at least something that you can’t improve on any more.

Then the hard part starts.

You must decide where to submit your magnum opus. First, you have to whittle down which publications are even worthy of your consideration when it comes to getting the honor of viewing your groundbreaking literary treasure.

If you’re like me, you make a short list in your head. Then take a step back and try to be honest with yourself about whether your gem could possibly be accepted by the likes of The New Yorker or McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Then, despite the painful realization that your piece has a snowball’s chance in hell of entering either of these hallowed halls, you still submit it to both of them.

In the case of The New Yorker, you wait for months and don’t get any reply. No personalized rejection. No computerized “Thanks for your submission, but we are passing, and you can now move on with your life.”

But McSweeney’s is different. Their editors somehow manage to get back to you within a week or two with a brief but polite and encouraging rejection.

Sometimes it includes a pat on the back for making them laugh. Sometimes it’s generic yet somehow slightly uplifting. My personal favorite is when I submitted this piece about Mitt Romney’s dressage horses and got the following reply:

Weirdly we are already running an Olympic horse piece this week and we don’t want to be the weird horse publication, so I’m going to pass.

I loved this! It made me feel like I merely experienced bad timing. I picked the wrong week to submit a story about a millionaire politician and his horses doing fancy walking in the Olympics. So close to success!

Rejection is a huge part of writing. Of any creative endeavor, really. It’s the main reason so many creative people never risk putting their stuff out there.

But I appreciate the art of kind and respectful rejection. I think if more publications practiced this, we would all be better off.

So keep chasing your dreams. Keep taking chances. Keep submitting to your top 10 humor publications.

Then submit to Doctor Funny.

Bazinga.

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