Literary Rejection

When I worked for ZYZZYVA between 2007 and 2009, I spent hours sorting through the slush pile, skimming cover letters, and smirking at resumes. I would trash everything but the manuscripts and the SASEs (self-addressed stamped envelopes).

On my desk, within reach of my left hand, would be a stack of freshly copied rejection letters. I would date-stamp one of these and include it with each manuscript/SASE pair. Gradually I would build a stack of submissions, sometimes hundreds, 99% of which would never get close to being published.

Howard Junker, the founder and now-former editor of ZYZZYVA, would look at every last essay, short story, free-verse poem, and "excerpt from my unpublished novel." Most of the time he would read the first paragraph or stanza, stuff the manuscript and rejection letter into the SASE, and toss the package into the outgoing mail. Sometimes he would persevere through a whole piece, then dispose of it in the same manner. Every now and then, a submission would survive. There it would sit, palpitant with relief, on the office futon.

Ultimately it, too, would probably be rejected.

In an industry full of unpaid slush-pile interns, Howard's routine was an extraordinary display of editorial diligence. Nevertheless, he would occasionally catch flak for refusing to alter his standard rejection letter, with its standard apology "for not offering comments or suggestions," and its standard handwritten (and repeatedly photocopied) sign-off: "Onward!"

("As if we're all on some glorious boat ride to the tropics, sailing through a storm.")

But I, for one, liked Howard's form letter. It was kind ("Do not be discouraged by this or any other momentary setback") yet blunt ("I don't think a few quick remarks would really help"), and unmistakably Junkerian in tone. Why change it?

Besides, I'm not sure how writers would feel if they actually received personalized rejections.

I've often had this thought during the past few weeks, as I've been plowing through microfilm of a nineteenth-century periodical called the Golden Era. Like ZYZZYVA, the Era was based in San Francisco and devoted to west-coast literature. In a weekly column entitled "To Our Correspondents," the editors would publish feedback to recent submissions. Usually they offered polite encouragement. Sometimes, though, they wrote things like this:

Dobbs: There are only two objections to your communication; one, that it is too lengthy - the other, that it is sadly devoid of all manner of interest.

Well, then. Onward?