Rejection/Acceptance

I’ve been working on a collection of non-genre short stories lately, so I’ve been submitting them to a different breed of magazine than I have in the past. Rejection is no longer a matter of “slips” nowadays. Has someone coined “e-slip” yet to cover these?

In any case, it’s all part of the Great Game, and I am philosophical rather than discouraged by rejection at this point in my life. I look back at my first science fiction sale for a perfect example of the random aspect of this enterprise. I had sent the story to Analog, one of the two biggies in the science fiction world. It was in due course rejected by them. Analog was considered the more hard-core science fictional of the two, and this story was more allegorical than high-tech. So I pulled out a new pair of 9×12 manila envelopes, because the second one was an SASE, of course, and sent it off to Asimov’s Science Fiction, which was known for having a broader range of stories. To my delight, it was accepted.

And then came the wonderful thing: The story won the magazine’s annual Readers’ Poll Award for Best Short Story. I was ecstatic, and not just because of the $250 cash prize, but because of the recognition this early in my career.

The ceremony was on a top floor of the Bertelsman Building, the company that owned the publisher of the magazine at the time. They also owned Analog, and the same reception honored the recipient of that magazine’s Readers’ Poll Award. While we were mingling, I was introduced to the writer of the Analog winning story. He pulled me aside.

“Just between you and me,” he said. “Did you by any chance submit your story to Analog?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” I replied. “They rejected it.”

He gave me a huge grin.

Asimov rejected mine,” he said.

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