How Do I Respond to a Rejection Email?
Virtual Office Hours #5
Note: This is one of a series of “ask me anything” posts I did for a group of writers I worked with in fall 2024.
Q: I received a form rejection letter from a literary journal for my [one-of-a-kind/ground-breaking/incredible] short story. I know my story is [good/great/fantastic], and I’m [surprised/disappointed/angry] it was rejected. How should I respond to the email?
A: Don’t.
Q: Okay, but what if I have some helpful feedback for the editor? So they don’t make this kind of mistake again?
A: Don’t.
Q: But what if—
A: Don’t.
Okay, I have a confession to make. This question wasn’t posed to me by a writer. This post was inspired by an email I received Saturday morning, from a writer whose short story had been rejected by a literary journal I’m helping out with.
I don’t imagine you’re surprised at my answer to this question. But I think hearing the reasons behind my answer may be helpful to you as a writer who hopes to be published one day.
For background, here’s the email the editor-in-chief sent out to submissions which were declined:
Dear [Writer]:
Thank you for sending us [Your Story]. Unfortunately, we do not have a place for it at this time. However, we appreciate the opportunity to read your writing and your interest in [Literary Journal].
We hope you find a good home for your work elsewhere, and we wish you the best.
Sincerely,
Editor-in-Chief
Because I’m helping out with the backend of the submission portal, if a reader responds to an email, I get a copy of the response. We received two responses.
Here’s the first response we received:
Hey [Editor],
Thanks for letting me know. Good luck with your journal.
All the best,
[Writer]
Generally, the unwritten rule is not to respond to rejections at all, but this was a very nice response to receive. It was kind. It was not defensive. It showed a level of professionalism. I appreciated it.
Here’s the second email we received:
It’s a great story. Doubt more than one reader even looked at it.
Not such a nice response to receive.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw another writer (one whose work I’ve published) post something on social media about a rejection they’d received. It was an angry post, basically accusing the editor who’d sent the rejection of being disengenuous in wishing them the best with placing the piece elsewhere.
I was disappointed to see the email. And I was disappointed to see the social media post from the writer I’d worked with, a person whose work I admire. They should know better. My MFA’s program director, Tod Goldberg, taught us the number one rule of being a writer: “Don’t be an asshole.”
Do I understand being disappointed when one’s work isn’t accepted? Hell yes, I do! I’ve got disappointment piling up in my email inbox each and every day. It’s a downright epidemic.
Do I understand being angry? A little, maybe. I think the only time a rejection made me angry was when the editor included feedback that was less about my writing and more an attack on me personally. The thing that’s more likely to annoy me is being ghosted by people who don’t take the time to send even a form rejection. I’d prefer a rejection over being ghosted any day, and as an editor, I make it a point to respond to every submission.
As someone who’s volunteered as an editor for literary journals for the past seven years, the email I received Saturday morning not only smacks of entitlement, it screams amateur. Only, as I mentioned, I happen to be acquainted with this writer, and they’re not an amateur. This writer’s behavior wasn’t just rude. It was overconfident and entitled. It was the kind of behavior that inspired writer Sarah Hagi to tweet, “Lord, grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man,” ten years ago.
Professional writers know a few things about submitting work to literary journals.
Here are some of the things professional writers know about editors:
Editors aren’t out to get you. As an editor, I want to say yes to you. I begin reading every piece hoping it’s a piece I’ll be able to accept. I have space to fill in our literary journal, so I want to say yes, every single time. Saying no makes me unhappy and also a little nervous about whether I’ll be able to fill the slots I need to fill.
That said, editors have limited space, so your work is going up against lots of other work, and there isn’t enough room to publish every story.
Editors are human, with their own tastes. If you read a literary journal, you can feel the editor’s aesthetic. I like certain kinds of stories more than I like others, and although I try to take that out of the equation and listen to my readers’ opinions, too, I’m human. I like what I like. This is one of the reasons it’s recommended you read a journal before submitting, to see if your work is a good fit.
Editors are volunteers. Almost all editors for literary journals are unpaid volunteers. We volunteer our time because we believe in literary citizenship. The journal I currently edit for encourages us to choose pieces that don’t require developmental work—we are volunteers, and they want us to choose work that is ready to publish, rather than add more unpaid labor to the huge amount of time we already spend on each issue. So if your piece has structural issues or lots of spelling, grammar, and punctuation issues, the odds of it being accepted go down.
That said, on more than one occasion, I’ve accepted a piece that isn’t ready because I see the potential in it, and I’ve worked with the author on my own time on developmental and line edits to help them get across the finish line. We do this work because we love writers, we want to support writers, and we want to discover and give a platform to emerging writers.
Professional writers know this, too: editors reject work for all kinds of reasons unrelated to the quality of the work. Here are some of the reasons editors might decline work, based on my experience:
Maybe there’s no space left.
Maybe the choice was between your story and another story that had cleaner copy and was going to require less editing.
Maybe your story doesn’t fit the journal’s vibe.
Maybe the editor published a similar story two issues ago and is looking for something different.
Maybe this is the third time you’ve submitted this submission period, despite guidelines asking that you only submit once per submission period. Or maybe you didn’t follow the submission guidelines at all and made the editor’s job more difficult.
Maybe the editor spotted some racist or misogynist stereotypes or tropes in your story—it happens more often than you might think.
Maybe the editor likes your story, very much, but they like another story more.
Maybe the editor likes your story, but one of their readers didn’t like your story, so they compromised and accepted one they both liked.
Maybe the editor initially liked your story, but one of their readers made some valid points as to why they shouldn’t accept it, and the editor was persuaded. (The reverse happens, too—I’ve been persuaded we should accept a story that I initially thought was a pass.)
Maybe the editor doesn’t like your story enough, so they’re passing, but they’d love to get something from you in the future. (I still remember the joy I felt when I was finally able to accept a story by a tenacious writer whose stories I’d declined several issues in a row—I actually cried.)
Maybe your piece needs more revision and/or polish. Consider this, especially if it’s been rejected more than 50 or so times.
Kudos on the confidence, but maybe it isn’t a great story? Maybe it’s cliché or overwrought? Maybe it’s missing narrative drive or a character arc? Maybe there are point-of-view issues? Maybe you didn’t kill enough of your darlings? But you’d know this, right? Because as a professional writer, you rewrote this story a dozen times, workshopped it with your critique group or partner, and at the very least ran spellcheck, right?
But the number one thing professional writers know about submitting to literary journals—the thing that sets them apart from amateurs—is that a rejection doesn’t mean their work isn’t any good. A professional writer has developed a bit of a thick skin about rejection. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting a little. Of course it does. Sometimes it stings a lot. But a professional writer has learned not to take it personally, to be briefly disappointed, and then to get back into the game. It’s just one person’s opinion—don’t let it be anything more than a speed bump on your road to success.
If a rejection makes you upset or angry, please don’t respond to the rejection email. It can’t do you any good. In fact, it can hurt you.
Let’s use the writer who emailed me last week as an example. It turns out, their piece was rejected by accident by a staff member who didn’t understand the technical backend of the submission portal.
The writer’s story is still under consideration by the fiction editor as I write this. The writer may yet get an email apologizing for the error and offering them publication. I’m not the fiction editor, but the fiction editor is aware of the email. The fiction editor is a volunteer, is tired and overwhelmed, and is human. I’ll be surprised if the writer’s story (which, contrary to the writer’s assumption, will have been read by at least three readers by the time a decision is made) is accepted.
It’s not my choice whether to publish this writer’s piece or not—I’m just handling technical stuff. But if it were my choice, I’d be nervous about accepting a story after an accidental rejection from someone with that kind of attitude. I don’t think they’d be understanding or forgiving or excited that their piece was being published. I kind of think they’d be a jerk about it and spread it around social media. And I don’t feel good about rewarding that kind of behavior. I mean, is that writer responding to every rejection that way? Don’t they know they’ll eventually run out of literary journals to submit their work to?
The social media post has since been deleted. The author thought better of it, which was a good call. I slept on this post, too, for several days. I wish the writer who emailed after their story was rejected had slept on that email, too. Once they’re sent, those emails can’t be taken back, and they can be damaging to your reputation as a writer and to your career.
So, if you’re thinking about responding to a rejection email, in general, don’t. Even if you want to send a nice thank-you email after a rejection, it may mark you as an amateur, depending on the editor.
Here’s the sole exception: if an editor takes the time to include helpful personalized feedback with their rejection email, a simple one- or two-line response may be in order: “Thank you for taking the time to provide such thoughtful feedback. It rang true, and I appreciate it.” Over and out.