Uh oh! another rejection.

"If the reason why was given it could be possible to rewrite and re-submit."

And you expect to get FREE writing advice from an overworked editor? Believe me, if they think it has promise, they will ask for a rewrite and tell you what to fix. If you ownder why you were rrejected, hire a "script doctor" or take a class.

"this story is either too long or too short." READ THE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES and submit articles of the length they want.

Well I guess that puts me in my place.

YIKES! I think there must have been a full moon recently. I just visited the design forum and it's getting intense over there too! I'm sorry. Keep posting.

Think I'll just take a peek at the design forum just to lurk and not to get involved. If I do post maybe I'll use someone elses name.

I think lazygardens gave a perfectly legitimate answer. Editors accept or reject, or edit...they do not mentor you, in most cases...get over it, and learn from it, and move on.
Ann

The worst "rejection slip" I ever recieved was a postcard saying the pub was going to keep my article on file for future use.

If I wasn't such a newbie at the time, I'd have written back and withdrawn my submission. After all, that meant I couldn't use that article anywhere else in the meantime. Or I could've at least told them that they could keep it, but I was going to keep marketing it.

It did get published, though, about two years later. I was so surprised to get that check. Since then I've sold it twice. :-)

The rejection slip that gave me the most fits was from Houghton-Mifflin, for my book manuscript "The Pinon Pine", later published by U. of Nevada Press. H-M said everyone in the reading room loved the ms and kept it untill they had finished reading it. But they agreed it was too Southwest-regional for their list. I often wondered how their own readerly behavior managed to elude them.

I have a fear of rejection.
Luckily it balances out my fear of success.

bj

I remember that when working for a Graphics department with many artist we would often have to submit ideas (mock ups) to a team of directors. We would submit individual renderings while sitting side by side along a long table -basically competing against each other in broad daylight. The head honcho would walk down the other side of the table and just point and say "No!" or "Yes!". No explanation, no interpretation, no mercy, no softness - you either had the idea portrayed the way they felt it should be or you didn't. A couple of those sessions and you got real used to being told NO bluntly. It didn't really teach you anything except to pick your battles - you would be available to work harder on the next project while the "winner" was busy on the last one.

I've long maintained that editors are ghouls (speaking from long years of experience); lately I have also noticed that they seem to be more ignorant (less educated) than they were in the past. I suspect that publisher hire anyone they can get at minimum wage -- whether they know how to spell or not.

It isn't that editors are becoming more ignorant or less educated--though there is some of that, as there is in every strata of society these days. It's that publishing decisions are increasingly made not by editors but by marketing folks, who are rarely well-read themselves and who want books that are easy to sell and can be explained to a harried book-chain buyer in a five-second spiel.

As for rejection slips as critiques... There simply isn't enough time in a work week these days to spend any of it on projects or authors that lack obvious potential.