Rejection Letter

“Survivor’s Guilt” is still available from Wicked East Press. More will be coming soon.

For tonight’s entry in the Sanguine Diary, I was originally going to review another short story. That’s the basic plan for the blog: review short stories until I complete another novel, and then review that. But yesterday I went to my mailbox and found a letter from Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. Here is what it said: 

Dear Mr. Greer,

Thank you for submitting "The Horse is in the House," but I'm going to pass on it. This story couldn't hold my interest, I'm afraid. Good luck to you with this one, and thanks again for sending it our way. 

Sincerely,

S------ M----

Assistant Editor

Here’s the sentence that sticks with me: “This story couldn’t hold my interest, I’m afraid.”

Hmmmm.

“Couldn't hold my interest, I’m afraid.” Let me meditate on that clause for a moment.
A variety of responses come to mind. So tonight’s topic will be my top 5 responses to the Assistant Editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction and his tart honesty.  

For Number Five, there’s the classic: “Yeah, well fuck you, pal!”

And Number Four, the lewd riposte: “That’s what your wife says when you drop your pants.”

Then there’s Number Three,. the horror cliché: “Oh, be afraid. Be very afraid!”

Number Two is the obligatory Yakov Smirnoff: “In Soviet Union, interest hold you!”

My favorite, Number One, is something I call ‘The Tin-foil Hat’: “You’re just afraid of the truth, man!”


For the record, “The Horse is in the House” is a bad-ass story about a vampire who gets mixed up with Richard Nixon’s henchmen after he’s abandoned by his lover. I will submit it to a different publisher soon, so this will not be the last you hear of it.