Speaking of Rejection....
Friday, January 18, 2008 
One of my favorite rejections arrived a few months ago via email from Junot Diaz at Boston Review. It was funny. Supportive. Encouraging.
junot here at the boston review. got the story STEPS. really wonderful voice but i have to say no. the narrator is really cool and really present but lucy is almost invisible. she doesn't really exist as a character. i know this sucks but if you were ever interested in re-writing this i'd make her a pet.
honestly--there's not enough here for her to be a full person and you can get as much out of her as say, a dog, as you get out of her being a person.
as it stands i dont really feel as though this narrator is really taking care of a child. so forgive me for saying change your daughter into a dog. sounds cruel but i do think it would clear up the story to focus on what the story is really about: the narrator's heartbreak.... (He goes on to list several other ideas for revision....).
and yet despite these critiques i really think the story's got charm.
if you ever re-write this piece send it back to me at this email. (any other stories have to go through the main office. i only get stories over the wire if id checked them into the paper office first.)
hope this finds you well, seth
j
So here's the thing. The collection of short stories I'm working on is about fathers, not dog owners. I like dogs. I had two as a kid. But they're not what this story is about. So I took his point to be metaphorical. I could see that the girl's character needed more flesh and blood. Point taken. I rewrote the piece. Added a number of new scenes, cut a couple, restructured a bit, and ran it past my writing group to very positive feedback.
Shortly before I was ready to send Junot the revision, I got the chance to hear him read from his new novel at Book Passage in Marin. Junot's an excellent reader and turned out to be really approachable and a genuinely nice guy to boot. I mentioned in conversation after the reading that I'd be sending the revised piece to him and he said he looked forward to it.
But 14 hours after I emailed, his rejection appeared in my Inbox. Turns out he meant the stuff about the dog literally. He said the daughter just wasn't doing it for him personally, although he thinks the story is now ready for publication. Just somewhere else.
Here's the rub. I'd already begun work on another story with a dog. Total coincidence. There are other characters too, not just the dog. But there's definitive canine presence. As soon as I've finished revising, I plan to send it to Junot.
Reader Comments (2)
Junot is awesome! I hope you get to meet him in person someday if you haven't already.
Ugh I read your post too quickly. You had met him. :P