It was a plain rejection slip from Spanish Fly. On it was scrawled: Nice, try again. And some scribbled initials. What? Nice but not nice enough to publish? Nice enough to publish but you’ve got two years’ worth of stories already accepted? Explain yourself here. Somebody might be getting ready to hang himself over this shit. What about Breece D’J Pancake? What about John Kennedy Toole? Nice, try again might have driven them over the edge.

I was silently weeping. I had anger. I tore open the second envelope. I knew it would be more of the same. There was a long, neatly typed letter from the assistant editor of Ivory Towers that said (along with Dear Leon):

This story came so close to being accepted. Majority rules and many people who read it misinterpreted it. We have had an argument for two weeks here over it. “White Girls with Black Asses,” do you think you could tone that down a little bit, maybe change it to something else? Because the story doesn’t really fit the title. And although it works wonderfully, what is the reason that Cleve beats his wife? He is always remorseful after he does it, enough to where he lashes himself to the tree in the lightning storm. Some people were revulsed by it. I must say it’s one of the strongest things I’ve seen in a while. I would never tell you how to write. But maybe if you changed the title another magazine might be interested in it. We would love to see anything else you would care to send us.

Please keep writing. Don’t let this be disappointing to you. You have great talent, and with material like this you will need great stamina.

All warmest wishes,

Betti DeLoreo

The next question was, what did Betti DeLoreo, Betti Del Oreo, look like? Was she married? Was she seventy years old? Would she be willing to meet with me and give me some of her nooky on the strength of my work? They were uncertain questions, and my hands were shaking just to think that a letter might come back one day minus the story I’d sent off. I opened the third envelope. It contained a story that had been going around for two years. There was a rejection slip from Blue Lace attached to it. It seemed that my material was not right for them; however, it was no reflection on the work itself, and they were sorry they were unable to make individual comments on each story because of their small staff, et cetera.

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