The Art of Getting Rejected + 2 emerging writers to watch + my 12 November reads
When the stack of rejection letters tacked to my bulletin board fell, I knew I had a topic for this first December edition of HAVING WRITTEN. The two tacks I'd pushed into the top left and right corners could no longer bear the stack's weight.
Stephen King has a similar story—he would push his rejection letters into a nail on the wall, and when it was full, he swapped it out for a coffin spike. This swap occurred when he was fourteen, though. Also, he is Stephen King.
I just didn't think my rejection letter hanging implements would fail this fast. I only started submitting short fiction in May, poetry in October. This pile also includes a handful of writing conferences and artist's residencies, but still. I mean, a tack isn't so big but...it can hold a lot of paper!
When I sat down to write this post, I had all rejections and no publications. And then, of course, as fate would have it, late last week I received an acceptance for my short fiction story, USER ERROR, published now in streetcake magazine's latest issue. Please check it out!
They say (but who are 'they'? It's the mysterious 'they' again!) you get one acceptance for every 50 rejections. OOF. USER ERROR got close to meeting the baseline lol.
This all got me thinking about the whole "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" truism.
Was this eventual publication worth all the $20-$40 contest submission fees at extremely fancy lit mags with major pedigrees like Ploughshares, American Short Fiction, Electric Lit, and CRAFT? Absolutely 👏🏻 not 👏🏻.
But was it worth getting a whole lotta "thanks, but no thanks" letters in response to USER ERROR when I paid only a $0-$3 fee?
You know what: yes. I think it was.
STILL worth it even though every single time I opened up my email to find a rejection I—not exaggerating here, OK?—felt a tiny punch in the chest. My heart literally twinged. OOF, I would say.
Getting rejected over and over and over and over and over is mentally, emotionally, and even physically brutal. Especially when many non-lit mag editors enjoyed the writing (and that includes people who aren't my mom, for the record!)
Look, I get it, lit mags are inundated with submissions. Most of the people working for them do it for free. I understand and accept this. But this truth doesn't make the form rejection sting any less. 🤷🏻♀️
With this first publication adventure behind me, I can tell you this for certain: in the future, I will definitely go looking for outlets that don't charge submission fees...and nary a contest will I enter.
Two Emerging Writers You Should Keep Your Eye On
Let's end this on a VERY happy note!
I must take a moment to brag about two writer friends, who have talent to the max and are getting the recognition they very much deserve. Forget rejection purgatory (a rite of passage, I suppose), these two came out the other side to pretty spectacular outcomes!
-"Wound," by Sammy Stevens, was just published in Electric Literature on 11-24-25
Sammy is the weird writer's writer (so, he's top of my list!). You will never, ever guess where Sammy is going when you pick up his pages. He's also been published in Swamp Pink and the Colorado Review. Wound totally haunted me when I first read it in workshop, and so did a few of Sammy's other shorts. I sincerely hope they all end up published in a future (and deserved) collection. Electric Lit has a less than 3% acceptance rate, so. 🤯 You'll enjoy this piece! Read it!
-"Water Baby" by Amy Widmoyer Hanson won CRAFT's 2025 First Pages Contest
I had the pleasure of reading the opening chapters to Water Baby during the Aspen Summer Words conference in June this year. Amy is a gorgeous writer, and this multi-timeline, multi-POV tale is heart-rending and impossible to stop reading. CRAFT has big-time submissions numbers, a prestige outlet (that I've been rejected from multiple times) to be sure. I absolutely anticipate we'll see Amy's Water Baby hit a big national book club list in a year or two. You heard it here first! 😉
GO TEAM!
(P.S. If you and I are writing friends, please reach out to share your success! I'd love to make this "emerging writers" bit a recurring feature.)
Book Reviews!
I read 12 books in November (plus two that I DNF'ed, which I decided not to include), despite few "me time" hours . Not sure what got into me, honestly. I guess I hit a murderer's row of amazing books and couldn't be contained. So, we'll go with extra short reviews because I'm putting up a big ol' word count here today.
Come Closer, by Sara Gran
Rating: 4/5
Genre & Vibes: Horror/Possession (or is she just mad?)
Squick Factor: 2/5
Super Short Synopsis: A young wife starts to hear weird noises. She keeps having the same weird dream. Her husband is really getting on her nerves. Is she possessed?
Super Short Review: This book reads really fast, and it's very creepy, but not yucky. If you check out Come Closer, be prepared to question yourself if you hear scratching sounds with unclear origins.
The Possession of Alba Diaz, by Isabel Cañas
Rating: 4/5
Genre & Vibes: Soft Horror/Possession + Swoony
Squick Factor: 1/5
Super Short Synopsis: A young woman living in 18th-century Mexico moves to her fiancé's creepy mountain property to avoid that time's version of COVID. She's hearing voices after spending unaccompanied time in the mine (why'd you go in there tho girlie, come on now!). Shenanigans ensue.
Super Short Review: Obviously the possession theme is working for me. In addition to the creepy mine (meaning: great vibes), there is a very hot (and poor) dude helping our FMC. He is not the woman's fiancé. The slow-burn with that cutie...🥰.
She Didn't See It Coming, by Shari Lapena
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre & Vibes: Chick Noir
Super Short Synopsis: People realize a woman is missing after she fails to pick up her daughter up for daycare. Whodunit? Where is she? Options abound! There is a tough lady cop. Shenanigans ensue.
Super Short Review: While She Didn't See It Coming isn't here to challenge the genre or anything, this particular police procedural about a missing woman did not bore me. My mid-point guess on whodunnit was totally wrong (in fact: I also did not see it coming, har har). I think Sheri Lapena did a good job managing the bevy of characters, though the POV head-hopping had me scratching my chin at times.
Tell Me Everything, by Erika Krouse
Rating: 1,000,000/5
Genre & Vibes: Creative NonFic/Memoir/Female Rage
Super Short Synopsis: The real life story of a private investigator who worked the CU Boulder Football program r*pe scandal in the mid-2000s. In this memoir, Krouse also addresses her own abuse as a child, and we're granted access to some of her healing process while she helps other survivors with their own.
Super Short Review (oops, not really tho): It's giving "Good For Her" but in real life. Woooo, buddy, you will be engrossed and angry (I hope you're angry when you read this memoir. Um, if you're not, well...I'd keep that to yourself and seek help). When I finished Tell Me Everything, I literally had to go sit on a park bench and stare at the lake for a little while.
Erika Krouse is an absolutely phenomenal writer. Very much on par with the level of craft found in Chanel Miller's Know My Name; widely considered one of the best memoirs of the 21st century. Erika is a beloved instructor with Lighthouse Writers' (my favorite spot for workshops). I've not had the pleasure of taking one of her classes, but I'll be on the hunt for one now!
Monstrillio, by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
Rating: 4/5
Genre & Vibes: Speculative Literary Fiction
Super Short Synopsis: A young boy dies. His mother keeps a piece of his lung in a jar. Then she starts feeding it. It grows. Shenanigans ensue.
Super Short Review: Previously I DNF'ed Monstrillio because I struggled to feel the grief that is so beautifully rendered in this novel. It really hurt too much. But after reading a short story of Córdova's in American Short Fiction (A Self-Appointed Safekeeper of Beauty), I had to finish the novel. Monstrillio is gorgeous, wild, aching. Very readable, if not emotionally difficult; but worth the effort.
The Guest, by Emma Cline
Rating: 3.75/5
Genre & Vibes: Literary Fiction/Messy Girl
Super Short Synopsis: A woman ends up hustling for many days to keep herself housed and fed in the Hamptons so she can attend a Labor Day party. She is a mess. So are all the rich people. Shenanigans ensue.
Super Short Review: What a romp. That's it. I enjoyed this; I laughed, I cringed. Alex is a GREAT character. The unclear ending was...interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending, but it stuck with me.
Circe, by Madeline Miller
Rating: 3.75/5
Genre & Vibes: Historical Retelling/Witches
Super Short Synopsis: A deep dive into one of Odysseus' side quests (the best one, imho). Wherein the Goddess and Witch, Circe, has been turning men (cough r*pists cough) into pigs because they good and well deserve it. Plus a bunch of other stuff happens. Shenanigans ensue.
Super Short Review: I quite liked this, and I'm obviously a big fan of revenge in fiction, so this book scratched an itch. I found the end to be a little long, a touch dragging. Not that I didn't want those pages. Only there is a bit too much flowing around the fields and having terse but illustrative conversations and I longed for forward movement in the third act.
The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre & Vibes: Literary Whodunnit/Story-in-a-story
Super Short Synopsis: A guy with a fancy MFA sells his first book, then can't muster much after. He, uh, 'comes across', let's say, an interesting story. Shenanigans ensue.
Super Short Review: It's hard to describe this book without spoilers, but I'll tell you I don't know a single person who wouldn't enjoy reading it. You will extra enjoy if you're a writer, because Korelitz makes hilarious work of satirizing the writing profession (as an industry AND an artistic endeavor).
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, by Cho-Nam Woo
Rating: 4/5
Genre & Vibes: Feminist Literary Fiction/On motherhood
Super Short Synopsis: A woman begins to sporadically impersonate other women, such as her own mother; in those moments, Kim Jiyoung truly believes she is that other person. Our FMC goes to a psychiatrist, and he works to diagnose his patient's dissociative states, reviewing Kim Jiyoung's life back to her childhood. Shenanigans ensue.
Super Short Review: Ladies, do you want to have it all? The kids and the job? Welp, too bad lol. (No, but really...🙁). This book is kind of a bummer, but it's a well-written and apt bummer, I guess? It's certainly a bummer worth experiencing. Short and worth the read. You'll also laugh at times so you don't cry, especially if you actually do have both kid(s) and a career.
Motherthing, by Ainslie Hogarth
Rating: 4/5
Genre & Vibes: Girl Horror/Lovable unreliable narrator
Squick Factor: 4/5
Super Short Synopsis: We meet a couple after the husband's mother takes her own life. The husband, then wife, comes to believe the mother is haunting them. The wife is clearly struggling with very difficult mental health issues. Nonetheless she persists (for the most part). Shenanigans ensue.
(Not Super) Short Review: I'm just going to come out and say it: the writing is incredible, but Motherthing gets pretty gross. The squick is infrequent, though, nothing like a splatter-punk or slasher sort of situation. Motherthing is definitely "literary horror" or "arthouse horror". It's elevated in tone, and focuses on characterization to impressive effect. But...even I had a tough time stomaching some of it. So brace yourself and/or only read if such a thing is your jam.
Audition, by Katie Kitamura
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Literary Fiction (to the max)
Super Short Synopsis: A woman has a strange meeting. We really don't know what's going on with her, this guy she meets up with, and/or her husband. She's an actress. There is a part one and a distinct part two. Shenanigans ensue.
Super Short Review: A Booker Prize finalist, and a novel forged from New York's writing glitterati if there ever was one, Audition by Katie Kitamura is an impressive piece of work. I don't think you'll guess where the book is going when you start reading it. And, for me, unexpectedness makes a good book great. Audition has that in spades, yet is also very readable. Don't let its fancy book awards scare you away.
The Lion Women of Tehran, by Marjan Kamali
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Literary Historical Fiction/BFFs 😭
Super Short Synopsis: We meet a late-30-something Persian woman living in New York. She receives a letter from her childhood best friend, and we're whisked away, back to Tehran in 1950, on through 2022. Throughout we watch Ellie and Homa bloom in their gorgeous friendship, as well as endure their trials alongside the changing social landscape.
(Not Super) Short Review: I really just cried through this book, honestly. Only the best-rendered stories with heartbreaking relationships do this to me. The Lion Women of Tehran is just so effing beautiful. I am so grateful to Marjan Kamali for writing this book so I could meet these amazing women. Seeing Tehran through their eyes was also such a pleasure, and matched very much the stories I've been told by a close Persian friend (also a writer!), who's family escaped during the 1978-79 revolution by the skin of their teeth. GO BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT. Also: the audiobook is top-notch.
Woof, as always—thank you for sticking with me and getting this far! Lots to say this time around, it would seem. Always want to hear from you, so please, please reach out! My Linktree includes all my contact methods, plus also a link to USER ERROR as well.
Have a great week, and read banned books.
ILYSM,
Charlotte