I got an acceptance yesterday. I KNOW. Rune Bear will publish a micro-fiction piece of mine on April 1st. I’m actually really excited to have that publication date. Somehow it feels very me. This is, however, not my first acceptance. For all my whining, you’d think I’d never received one. I’ve technically received three as an…
Author: Nathalie Lawrence
Rejection and Colin Firth
Another rejection last week. It was fine. However, I stumbled across an interview with a literary magazine editor that tripped me up. This was the editor’s advice to writers: Don’t take rejection personally. This way of thinking is as pervasive as it is outmoded. No, I don’t believe agents/publishers/magazines dislike me when they reject my…
Rejection and Medieval Animal Trials
I’ve been reading about medieval animal trials this week. As in, people used to bring in misbehaving animals to court and put them on trial for their crimes. My friend sent me an article about it at least six months ago, but I only now got around to reading it because I’m a horrid friend….
Rejection and the CIA
I got a rejection this morning but was too busy feeling groggy from too much melatonin to care. Physically, it felt like a sharp shove but then I remembered I had more important things to deal with today. In any event, it’s probably time to tell you about my, uh, let’s say peculiar, family. Specifically,…
Rejection and Monsters
I got a rejection on Sunday while parked in some snow on a random side street in Chicago. Surprisingly enough, it was a positive rejection, and the editors encouraged me to submit again soon. Finally, I got a pitying shoulder squeeze instead of a punch to the face. God, what a relief. I must…
Rejection and Q and Not U
I knew it was a rejection before I even knew it was a rejection. I don’t know why, but this particular magazine was bumping around in my thoughts all day on Friday. Nauseatingly hopeful bubbles formed in my head that morning as I thought about some of the pieces they’d published. Mine would fit in…
Rejection and K.I.D.S. Radio
I got a rejection at 4 A.M. on Saturday. I’m not taking it too, too personally, but I like to pretend the following is what happened: The editor read my piece on Friday night, and oooh, it sent them into a rage. They hated it. They hated it so much. But the other editors were…
Rejection and Sno-Mo
Got a rejection today, and it sent me into a mild rage. Pro tip: Don’t ask me to like your social media pages after you reject me. In case you, dear phantom reader, think I’m thin-skinned and whiny– oh wait, that’s actually true. Regardless, my point is that I am no stranger to rejection. At…
Rejection and French Cursive
Got a rejection yesterday. Made me roll my eyes, but it didn’t hurt. Progress, yes? You know what’s weird, though? French handwriting. I grew up writing French cursive, and my teachers did their best to beat the classic rounded letters into my terrified fingers. Cursive was ridiculously important to them. Some twenty-ish years later, a…
Redacted Poem: War and Thoughts
A friend and I were talking about how most of the people we went to high school and college with (including ourselves) turned out to be pretty mediocre. This sparked a search for one of my classmates to see if he ever made it in LA. A few years after college, I remember him being…