One Year, One Hundred Rejections Wrap Up
A ton of you guys read and responded to my initial One Year, One Hundred Rejections post back in July, which was fantastic, so I figured that you might like a wrap up post. If you did read the initial post, you know that September 1 marks the one-year anniversary of 1Y100R, and I can finally put a cap on the rejection bucket from the past twelve months and count my money.
During the year I labeled all of my email rejections with a bright gold label in Gmail that says “REJECTION.” All of my acceptances were branded with a big orange “ACCEPTANCE” label. I tucked all of my paper rejections into a box that sits under my desk. As common practice, I also try to record as many submissions as possible in Duotrope, but sometimes I just get lazy or don’t record them if I assume that I will be summarily rejected in a matter of days. At any rate, my record keeping strategies are lacking, but the evidence is all here should somebody care to audit me.
According to my records, I received 127 rejections and 22 acceptances during the year. There were also a couple of markets I withdrew from or never heard back from. Here is a list of all the places that rejected me, and OMG it’s long so take a breath:
1. Third Coast: Sept. 9: Form letter
2. Sycamore Review: Sept. 10: Form letter
3. Crazyhorse: Sept. 12: Form letter (“manuscript… number 23072“)
4. Mid-American Review: Sept 22: Form letter
5. Rattle: Sept 23: Form letter
6. The 2nd Hand: Oct. 10: Personal letter (a non-fiction submission with “lack of pronoun clarity”)
7. Copper Nickel: Oct. 10: Form letter
8. Indiana Review: Oct. 28: Form letter
9. Bat City Review: Oct. 31 (SPOOKY REJECTION!): Form letter
10. Catalonian Review: Oct. 31 (ANOTHER SPOOKY REJECTION!): Personal letter (a “close call”)
11. West Branch: Nov. 1: Form letter
12. West Wind Review: Nov. 4: Form letter
13. Failbetter: Nov. 4: Form letter
14. Smartish Pace: Nov. 18: Personal form letter: (“your submission was competitive (if it hadn’t been you would have received this notice sooner) and was in the mix until the end.”)
15. Fugue: Nov. 26: Form letter
16. AGNI: Dec. 6: Personal letter (“…lively and interesting…”)
17. Beloit Poetry Journal: Dec. 13: Personal letter (“How to Die is the most successful. Glad to have seen your work again.”)
18-20. GUD: Dec. 13: Form letters (they require you to submit individual poems as opposed to one document)
21. A Public Space: Dec. 16: Form letter
22. Memoir (and): Dec. 27: Form letter
23. Boxcar Poetry Review: Jan. 10: Form letter
24. POETRY: Jan. 14: Form letter (duh)
25. Crazyhorse: Jan. 16: Form letter
26. Hayden’s Ferry Review: Jan. 18: Form letter
27. West Branch: Jan. 20: Form letter
28. Cream City Review: Jan. 20: Form letter
29. Ninth Letter: Jan. 26: Form letter
30. Black Warrior Review: Jan. 30: Form letter
31. Rattle: Jan. 30: Form letter
32. Third Coast: Jan. 31: Form letter
33. Beloit Poetry Journal: Feb. 10: Personal letter (with advice for edits on a poem which later was accepted with those edits)
34. Linebreak: Feb. 10: Form letter
35. Versal: Feb. 15: Form letter
36. Ninth Letter: Feb. 15: Form letter
37. West Branch: Feb. 23: Form letter
38. Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art: Feb. 25: Form letter (masquerading as a personal letter “We really enjoyed this piece, but we didn’t feel it was quite right…”)
39. Redactions: Feb. 28: Form letter
40. New Orleans Review: Mar. 6: Form letter (happy birthday to me!!)
41. FIELD: Mar. 8: Form letter
42. Green Mountains Review: Mar. 12: Personal letter (“Our readers loved your stuff, as did our poetry editor…”)
43. Puerto del Sol: Mar. 16: Form letter
44. The New Yorker: Mar. 25: Personal letter (I will say that it contained the word “admirable” though I won’t say much else, lest I faint again)
45. Kenyon Review: Mar. 25: Form letter (after being out for a LONG time and having been on the editor’s table, not that I’m bitter…)
46. Mid-American Review: Mar. 26: Form letter
47. Rattle: Mar. 26: Form letter
48. New York Quarterly: Mar. 27: Form letter
49. Threepenny Review: Mar. 30: Form letter (“please accept our apologies for the automated message system.”)
50. Alaska Quarterly: Mar. 30: Form letter (with a sloppily hand-written “RE: Your Poetry Submission” and “Many thanks” on the bottom)
51. Nashville Review: Mar. 31: Personal letter (a bland personal note about how they enjoyed my work, no doubt spurred on by the fact that they had had my submission for a long time and they felt bad)
52. AGNI: Mar. 31: Form letter (BURNED! A form letter after a personal one… ouch!)
53. Valparaiso Poetry Review: Mar. 31: Form letter
54. Foundling Review: Mar. 31: Personal letter (“some nice lines” also my fourth rejection on March 31st)
55. Catalonian Review: Apr. 1: Form letter (with my first name misspelled “Bret”)
56. The Southeast Review: Apr. 3: Form letter
57. Ninth Letter: Apr. 10: Form letter
58. Foundling Review: Apr. 12: Personal letter (with my name totally gotten wrong: “Some nice lines in there, Elizabeth. ‘[QUOTE FROM POEM]’ We have finally decided to pass this time.” What a strange rejection.)
59. The Missouri Review: Apr. 12: Personal letter (“warm, candid…”)
60. Boulevard: Apr. 13: Form letter
61. Catalonian Review: Apr. 15: Different Form letter than before (“going to pass for the time being.” So I should send the same batch to them again in five weeks. I think.)
62. A Public Space: Apr. 15: Form letter
63. Gulf Coast: Apr. 16: Form letter
64. Black Warrior Review: Apr. 18: Form letter
65. jubilat: Apr. 20: Form letter (“Dear Writer:”)
66. DIAGRAM: Apr. 23: Form letter (one of my favorite form letters: “We get a lot of submissions and can only use a fraction of them, so please understand that this No most likely means “Not Quite the Right Fit,” not “No Good.” But in a few cases it does mean No Good or they wouldn’t have said “most likely”!)
67. Boxcar Poetry Review: Apr. 25: Form letter
68. Graywolf Press: Apr. 29: Form letter (on my manuscript submission)
69. Word Riot: Apr. 29: Form letter
70. Kill Author: Apr. 30: Form letter
71. Third Coast: Apr. 30: Form letter
72. decomP: May 1: Form letter
73. ABJECTIVE: May 4: Form letter
74. West Wind Review: May 4: Form letter
75. Cincinnati Review: May 5: Form letter (also included in the envelope was a paper asking me to give them money for a contest I won’t win)
76. Anti-: May 7: Form letter
77. Threepenny Review: May 8: Form letter
78. POETRY: May 11: Form letter
79. DIAGRAM: May 12: Form letter
80. Crazyhorse: May 13: Form letter
81. The Los Angeles Review: May 19: Form letter
82. Hayden’s Ferry Review: May 20: Form letter
83. New Ohio Review: May 23: Form letter (I had queried to ask about the status of my submission, as they had it for nearly 200 days. The editor responded and said one reader had enjoyed it and it had been passed through to the next round for consideration. Later that day I received this form letter.)
84. The New Yorker: May 25: Form letter
85. DIAGRAM: May 25: Form letter
86. The Atlantic Monthly: May 31: Form letter
87. Knockout Magazine: May 31: Form letter
88-89: A Cappella Zoo: May 31 & June 1: Form letters (They require you to submit your poems individually, which helped when I had to withdraw one from consideration due to its acceptance elsewhere)
90. Rattle: June 5: Form letter
91. Kill Author: June 10: Personal letter
92. The Paris Review: June 10: Form letter
93. The New Republic: June 12: Form letter
94. Foundling Review: June 12: Personal letter (This time they referred to me as BEJ! A nickname basis for rejecting me. I like it.)
95. Gargoyle: June 13: Personal letter (With some suggestions for other magazines to submit to; awesome!)
96. Threepenny Review: June 13: Form letter
97. The Orange Room Review: June 14: Personal letter
98. Blackbird: June 14: Form letter
99. Anderbo: June 15: Form letter
100: The Antioch Review: June 15: Form letter
101: Diode: June 18: Form letter
102: Catalonian Review: June 18: Personal letter
103: Used Furniture Review: June 20: Form letter
104: The Collagist: June 20: Form letter
105: Boxcar Poetry Review: June 22: Personal letter (“Some lovely work here – sorry to say no this time.”)
106: Bat City Review: June 25: Form letter
107: Linebreak: June 26: Form letter
108: Caketrain: June 30: Form letter
109: Wonderfort: July 2: Very short personal note
110: The American Scholar: July 7: Personal note (Strange, this one addressed me as “Mr. Jenkins” with a form letter but a personal P.S. after the signature: “I enjoyed them–really! Sorry, but we can accept very few poems.”)
111: Wake: Great Lakes Thought & Culture: July 9: Personal letter
112: The Pedestal Magazine: July 10: Form letter
113: AGNI: July 18: Form letter
114: Ruminate: July 22: Form letter
115: Black Warrior Review: July 25: Form letter
116: Tin House: July 25: Form letter
117: Dark Sky Magazine: July 26: Form letter
118: Slate: July 30: Form letter (At least they’re upfront about it! “The volume of submissions we receive makes it impossible for us to respond to each author personally.”)
119: The Raintown Review: August 4: Form letter (After a personal note on July 23 to tell me my submission had made it to the editor’s table)
120: Gigantic Sequins: August 4: Form letter
121: Cooper Dillon Books: August 6: Personal letter (A rejection of my full-length manuscript here. “the poems have a strong tone, and it’s sometimes very fun, but…”)
122: Artifice Magazine: August 6: Form letter
123: Pecan Grove Press: August 9: Form letter (A rejection of my full-length manuscript)
124: Weave: August 14: Form letter
125: PANK Little Books: August 17: Personal note
126: Harvard Review: August 23: Form letter
127: Ampersand: August 30: Personal letter (A rather long personal apology for the length of time it took to get back to me and unexpected reasons they had to reject my poems “Unfortunately, all of the poetry waiting in our queue got kiboshed when the poetry editor decided to go solicitation only.”)
Good lord, you have no idea how long that took to put all those tiny links in there. As you can see, a bunch of magazines have chosen to reject me multiple times throughout the year. Those ones are usually the ones that have a quick enough turnaround time to make this possible, coupled with no guidelines on how long one must wait to submit new work, or a very short wait period.
Many magazines seem to think I am a dude. Despite the fact that I include my middle name, Elizabeth, on each submission.
Also, some mags think my real name is Elizabeth, and Brett is just there to fill space up.
Anyway, I talked about what I saw as the benefits of 1Y100R in my initial post on the process, but another one of the benefits was that I racked up twenty-two acceptances this year! Unless there’s an outcry, I won’t be including that list here, as I pimp myself enough on Facebook and my personal blog.
Will you participate in the second annual One Year, One Hundred Rejections with me this year?
Thanks, you are living proof that writers have to have thick skin and take rejection in their stride (whilst secretly crying when hiding under the stairs). 🙂 I’m now wondering if this people on this list are worth sending work to, or whether I should learn from you. And don’t you just hate those rejections that tell you that they enjoyed your work but… ? I do, and I haven’t even had 127 of them (yet)! 🙂
I love this blog and the idea of 100 rejections in a year. Rejections can be difficult for some people to talk about, but then we all sigh with relief when someone else brings it up. It’s truly refreshing, and I think that this type of honesty (most specifically, illuminating the fact that it’s a “rejection business” with strange odds at time) is much needed. Thanks for sharing this.
The people on this list are DEFINITELY worth sending work to. All of the publications are wonderful, and many of them even take the time to give specific feedback. It would be a delight to be included in any of these magazines, and it’s always worth a shot! The worst that can happen is i’ll add another rejection to the bucket.
what an awesomely brave post. really inspiring, actually. i’m thinking really hard about the act, the process of writing all of that down so diligently. i very much wish i could participate. perhaps i’ll make it a new year’s resolution. that said, i really appreciate you posting this. thanks.
I love this. I’m inspired to start keeping better track. I hope to make it to 100 at some point. I think I can do it.
[…] Elizabeth Jenkins has a list of her 100 rejections for the year and I think it’s pretty fucking awesome. Starting today I’m going to keep […]
Awesome idea you had! sucks to be rejected but you shouldn’t give up, those acceptances show proof of that, keep up with the updates Brett 🙂
good luck, Shannon! i believe in you. it’s the submitting that’s the hard part. the easy part (as you can see) is getting rejected.
you’re welcome! it was really a lot of fun, which seems contrary to the whole “rejection” thing.
it really is a rejection business. kind of like the lottery. i know i have personally said no to things for very strange, personal reasons. i’m sure each editor is like that. and like my grandma always says (about the lottery), you can’t win if you don’t play!
Wow. How did you find the time to submit to that many places? That is awesome-ness in itself.
I will be the first outcry to want to know about the acceptances.
Making time is a huge obstacle. Once you learn shortcuts and how to write a quick cover letter, it’s a piece of cake from there. Usually I have to set aside a day to send out submissions to, say, ten magazines. Then a few weeks later I do it again. As soon as you know it, you’ve got thirty or so outstanding submissions and you wait for the rejection to roll in.
Submitting to ten places really only takes a few hours, but I hate doing it all in one go, so of course I play Bejeweled Blitz between every couple subs or so. Make it a game! Reward yourself for submitting. This is what we do. It should be fun.
inspiring! thanks for sharing this.
[…] for you, yes you) get rejected. A lot. Ask my colleague Brett, or, better yet, read about her year of rejection. And in this rejection, editors or readers can give you any numbers of reasons for deciding not to […]
[…] for you, yes you) get rejected. A lot. Ask my colleague Brett, or, better yet, read about her year of rejection. And in this rejection, editors or readers can give you any numbers of reasons for deciding not to […]
wow. It feels like I got so far50 + rejection from news papers and magazines alike.It just hard when you are trying to get your first piece published when no one knows who you are.
Great blog and surprisingly inspiring. I’ve been rejected by a lot of those places. Beloit consistently sends nice encouraging rejections.