Interview Posted at THUNK!

I am honored to have been interviewed by the charming and brilliant Ryan Manning at Thunk.  You can read about how I once wanted to be a prostitute and how my mom tried to talk to me about spermicidal foam.  Warning: the best parts of the movie are in the trailer.

Rejection 162

Stirring rejected 2 of my 3 poems a few months ago, but let me know they were still considering one of them.  Yesterday, she let me know that the editors were split down the middle about my piece, and so they wouldn't be taking it.

Her very earnest suggestion was to try them again with different work.  Apparently they are a small magazine with a sizable admissions pool which doesn't allow them to take all of the work they get.  Now I know.

I should stop being a jerk.  Thanks for holding onto my poem for as long as you did, Ms. Smith.  Mwah!

Send Your Work to Little White Poetry Journal!

Here's the deal:  I have the honor of guest-editing the 7th issue of Little White Poetry. If you don't know it, check it out here. Duh, where have you been?

Anyways, I'd like to read your work, like, ASAP, so send me some poems, please.  It's beautiful out and I want to read some poetry before I go on a bike ride, so now is even better than later.  Probably this very moment is the best time to send them, because I'm in a good mood and I will probably be delighted/ crushed-in-a-really-great-way by your poems because i am in said awesome mood, and then I will ruminate on your poems on my bike ride and think, 'Wow, that was really the best poem I've read since the sun last shined this brightly.  I should make sure other people get to read this poem."

Here's the rules, people:  send me any number of poems: jacjemc@gmail.com.  If you have a little bio, give me that, too.  If it's sunny where you are today, tell me what you're going to do about it.  Simultaneous submissions are fine fine fine. Previously unpublished though, please.  Payment is two contributor copies.

This is a project of Henry Chalise & disproductions, and will be designed by the lovely and talented Jennifer Patel.

Let's call it a two-week submission period.  Get your work in (well this afternoon, obviously) but by April 30th.

Rejection 161

Look out, Matt DiGangi.  I have a new editor crush: Randall Brown.

Smokelong has rejected me again, but this time with this charming note:

"We appreciate your continuing to think of us for your work, Jac. This one felt as if there weren't quite enough things happening. Great title and, of course, the poetics and prosody of your writing are marvelous. If you post this on your website, be sure to mention the compassionate, caring tone of the editor, whom you imagine as a very handsome and muscular outdoorsy type of guy."

Randall Brown, based on your Facebook page, I believe you are married.  Unless this is like the time I listed myself as married to my hedgehog, Werner.  Don't get me in trouble. 

Also, outdoorsy is not really my type.  The extent of my outdoorsiness is riding my bike to a bar with a patio.

OMG - Novella Compendium Up at Hitherandthithering Waters.

I don't even know what to say or how delve into the lists that just went up on John Madera's site, Hitherandthithering Waters.  At the very least, I can say that I am excited and eager to write something that's a weird middle-length all of a sudden. All of the following writ ers provided their lists, some with reasons, some not.  John broke it down by writers' lists and then listed all of the novellas alphabetically so you can easily see where there are overlaps.  You can read list by list, and see why these people love these little books, or you can see which ones were chosen most often and start there. 

I read the combined list and kicked myself for forgetting about certain stories and for having thought of others, but decided they were not novellas.  Classification is so loose.  I love this project. 

Okay, back to the list of writers, because god knows my rambling isn't gonna get you over to this site, but this list will:  Steve Almond, J.R. Angella, Nick Antosca, Ken Baumann, Matt Bell, Crispin Best, Daniel Borzutsky, K. Kvashay-Boyle, Blake Butler, Tobias Carroll, Jimmy Chen, Jackie Corley, Matt DeBenedictis, Nicole Elizabeth, Scott Esposito, Brian Evenson, Timothy Gager, Molly Gaudry, Renee Gladman,  Brandon Scott Gorrell, Amelia Gray, Jim Hana, John Haskell, Christopher Higgs, Lily Hoang, Jamie Iredell, Jac Jemc, Shane Jones, Michael Joyce, Sean Kilpatrick, Michael Kimball, Paul Kincaid, Lee Klein, Catherine Lacey, Reb Livingston, Sean Lovelace, Gary Lutz, Lorette C. Luzajic, Josh Maday, John Madera, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Michael Martone, Carole Maso (!), Ben Myers, Clayton Moore, Kimberly King Parsons, Ben Pester, Kathryn Regina, Cooper Renner, Adam Robinson,  Tim Russell, Bradley Sand,Christine Schutt, Peter Selgin, David Shields, Matthew Simmons, Joe Stracci, Justin Taylor, William Walsh, Kevin Wilson, John Dermot Woods, and Leni Zumas.      

That's 62 writers by my count.  Take a Xanax and try to relax into it.

Rejection 160

There is a trend currently evidencing itself within my responses from editors.  I have lately been receiving very encouraging rejections, but no acceptances.

Here is the latest rejection from Quarterly West:  "Unfortunately this particular submission was not a right fit for Quarterly West, but we were very impressed by your writing. We hope that you will feel encouraged by this short note and send us something else."

This was the final submission of that fairy tale I rewrote and have griped about people not being open to ad nauseum. At least the last response it received before its hibernation period was an encouraging letter.

"Fair Trade" will sleep for a little while now in its comfy file folder, and perhaps emerge again if the literary groundhog sees his shadow some day.

Can you tell I have spring fever?

Rejection 159

Randall at Smokelong said there was much to admire about my piece, 'especially those images. Wow!'

Are we noticing a pattern?  Maybe I should give up on writing stories and write poems.  Would that make it better or worse, or would I just encounter a similar problem?

Oh, boy.

Rejection 158

I got a super-nice note from Emily at Lit saying that while they found some of the images in my piece compelling, but that the story as a whole was not tight enough.  This is useful criticism.

Apparently this image vs. story-as-a-whole issue is problem I am now facing with some consistency.  I am going to go to my room and think about what I want to do.

Rejection 157

Sad face.  Abjective doesn't want my story-poem about staying alive during that old war.  It also only took them 12 hours to decide that.  So, you know, submit to Abjective if what you're looking for is instant pleasure or instant dismissal, or for those of you with complex psychologies, both.

Poetry Contest Rejection

I, sadly, was not the winner of the The Madison Review's Phyllis Smart-Young Prize.  Michael Derrick Hudson was for his poems, "Dreaming About Jozefa After Too Much Eggnog," "Why I Mostly Had Trouble With Girls in High School," "Drunk in Bed With a Book About Great Masterpieces of Western Art."  Those are not poems I could have written, so congratulations to him.

My comparable poems would have been titled, "Drunk Texting Patrick When I Should Have Just Gone to Sleep After Too Much Maker's," "Why I Mostly Asked Boys Who'd Already Graduated to High School Dances," and "Drinking the Cooking Brandy While Trying to Finish The Alphabet Versus the Goddess Once and For All."