I'm unpublished and tried entering some short story contests via pw.org last year. I was rejected from all five contests I entered but this is what the Missouri Review had to say: Sincere thanks for sending us "Frederick's Quest For Venlafaxine" for consideration. Your work impressed the editorial staff with the piece's unique and humorous plot. The letters acting as introduction as well as resolution to the piece made for an interesting format. Though not selected for publication, the piece makes us hope we'll see more of your writing in the near future. I was just looking at old stuff -- this is from six months ago. Pretty cool! This was my first ever rejection letter. The rest of the publications either said nothing or had a sort of robot rejection response sent to all rejectees. Just wanted to share this.
It may seems silly and perhaps a little self-serving, but I would instead call this an Encouragement Letter rather than a Rejection Letter.
Decided to re-submit! Only three bucks while there's no contest going on. And suddenly thinking I should have edited it some more. Oh well! Thanks for the encouragement!!
I have a question on this subject: if your manuscript is 'rejected' by publishers, can you re-submit it at a later date to the same publishers (only this time, you have polished/revised it more)? Or will they only accept the manuscript for the same book once? Or perhaps once every X months, etc, etc.?
@United It depends on the publishers. I know some that specifically state to not resubmit the same work or wait X time. Always read the guidelines and use your best judgment.
Merh. I didn't read into that, hopefully my re-submission (unedited, too) didn't reduce my chances of future publication.
