Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Liars

Dear Charmi --

Thank you for your recent poetry submission to (Liars) Magazine, and for keeping us updated about your simultaneous submissions. We read each and every one of our submissions with great care, and we appreciate the opportunity to read your work.

While we regret that we are unable to place your poems at this time, we thank you for your efforts and for sending us your work.

As always, keep creating!

Our best,
The Editors


This rejection would have had a little more weight if I hadn't received the same response from the same place for the same poems (which I did only send once) a little less than a month ago. It appears they didn't read them once or twice. Scratch them from the list.

9 comments:

ctm said...

That's AWFUL. Ethically odious.

Charmi said...

Yes. As a matter of fact, I agree ;-)

Talia Reed said...

Do you tell them that you have submitted your stuff elsewhere? I never do.

Charmi said...

If the guidelines specify that, I do. Some places want to know up front.

Rachel said...

I detest getting impersonal form rejections, but I think a fake personal rejection is even worse. What jerks!

naoko fujimoto said...

I own tons of collections of those rejection slips… I just got two of them today as usual!

Charmi said...

I am compiling quite a few of them myself. I guess I shouldn't say compiling. I record the responses then throw them away. I don't obsess too much on the trash. Although I've heard of doing some really creative things with them, wallpapering, for instance.

Calder said...

I like your new Mag title for them, big smiles here reading that!

It kind of bugs me sometimes when you get a personal rejection where they tell you how much they enjoyed your poem... blah blah, "but it's not a right fit for us"... so they really didn't like it but are trying to be nice? On the other hand, being an editor of a mag is probably sort of a no win situation in a way sometimes... you can't please everyone, or anyone maybe.

Well, I try not to get to high or low with the acceptances and rejections, just keep at it and let the cycles, cycle. Rejections are good in a way sometimes as they can make you dig deeper and try to learn more to write better and improve. No responses are worse I think.

Simultanious subs stress me out so I try not to do it very often.

Take care! Hope you get some acceptances next one.

Ann said...

Honestly, is there really any such thing as credibility anymore? And..."As always, keep creating!" just sounds condescending. Definitely scratch them from the list and send to more worthy publications. Your work is too good for this.