This is a picture of when we all of us at the racism jail were taken out for a celebration excursion and we all turned black and white and into mans also. Why we are enjoying like anything means we are celebrating the fact that my story Everyone Does Integral Calculus is a sparkly shiny sparklysparkly in the sparkly pantheon of the sparkly Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2010 sparkly sparkly sparkly. The selecting editor was Brian Evenson. I don’t really know who he is but I know he wrote ‘Baby Leg’, which very many people love deeply with their pancreas. It is my deepest and most sincere hope that ‘Baby Leg’ is not a cookbook.
I also have a new story up at AGNI Online, which has a Canadian in it. In some cultures, this is incentive enough to read a piece of fiction.
I would also like to take this opportunity to shamelessly pimp my chapbook called Three Scenarios Leading to the Rape of a Teenage Girl in the Tropicool Icy-land Urban Indian Slum which is coming out from ml press. It costs two dollars, which means it costs about 100 rupees, which means I will not use the word ‘just’ here because ‘just two bucks’ and ‘just 100 bucks’ are two very different things. Anyway, this chapbook is the first piece written in the Tropicool Icy Land series and you can read these other pieces in the series and maybe it will convince you to buy the chapbook and maybe you won’t buy it either and that’s ok if you don’t, I won’t judge you.
Saving The Whales Through Modeling Department
The new Miss USA is a Muslim Arab-American. This has led to speculation that she won because people are really scared of Muslims now so they want to make them beauty queens, which will teach them how to be less terroristy. This is similar to the Draw Mohammed day, which was also an exercise in making Muslims less terroristy. Of course there has also been speculation that the crowning of a brown beauty queen (I don’t know, she looked more olive to me but whatever) means brown people are taking over the world and by world, I mean the USA. This of course is completely true. And if you think it’s not, think about how you are reading this on a brown blog written by a brown person who lives in a country that is bubbling over with brown people who were supposed to speak some kind of brown people language. And yet I am writing this in English! Think about that very carefully. We didn’t cross the border! The border crossed us! RAWR!
I Haz A Sad Department That Cries Cubicle Tears
I haz a sad that Pindeldyboz is calling it a day. The title of this post is taken from their sub guidelines.
We Sort Of Like You But Not Really And We Want You To Succeed We Just Don’t Want You To Succeed Here Department
Dear Contributor,
Thank you for your interest in The Literary Magazine That Rejected You and for the opportunity to read your work. Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that we are unable to use the fiction you submitted. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it and we wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere.
The Editors
This is the formest kind of form rejection. It is so form that not only have you been stripped of your identity, so have the editors, which is just really sad. It’s sad that your story can do that to editors. Let us look at the neat things you can do with a form rejection, not metaphorically or in terms of improving your writing but what you can do with the actual letter to make it funner and to raise the high quality of your daily life generally.
The ‘In My Pants’ Method
The ‘in my pants’ game is funny because you take the title of a song, stick ‘in my pants’ at the end and it’s just the most hilarious thing ever. Like ‘I am the girl you lost to cocaine in your pants’, and ‘nee oru kaathal sangeetham in my pants’. Adding these words in the right places can make the form rejection more funner. Like,
Dear Contributor In My Pants,
Thank you for your interest in my pants and in The Literary Magazine That Rejected You in my pants. Also thanks for the opportunity to read your work in my pants. Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that in my pants, we are unable to use the fiction you submitted. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it and we wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere in my pants.
The Editors In My Pants
This version makes the rejection sting a lot less because it makes the magazine seem pervy in a bad way. Also the overuse of ‘in my pants’ in such a small space kind of makes it lose its humor, which is sad but inevitable like many things in life.
The We Are Occupy Your Rejections While We Are Waiting For Godot Method
Running the form letter through different online generators like this one does this.
Editors Dear Contributor,
Thank you for you the fiction you that Rejected Your interest in placing it elsewhere.
Thank your work. Unform your Work and for your work. Unfortunately, we regret to infortunity to read you for the opportunity to use the fiction your interest in The Editors
Dear Contributor,
Thank you for you submitted. That we are unable to read your Work and for the opportunity to use the fiction you for you for the opportunity to use the fiction your work. Unform you submitted.
Also, LOLCATS!
OHAI!
WE WUZ IN UR STOREH, REEDIN UR WERDZ. TEH FICSHUN U SUBMITTD R NOT CHEEZBURGER. WE R NOT OCCUPY UR STOREH. MEBBE U CAN HAZ PRETTEH CHEEZBURGER SUMWER ELZ.
OKBAI! TEH EDITORS
The Shakespearean Method
If you want to make yourself feel worse about your form rejection, you can intersperse it with Shakespearean insults, which can be found here. So you get something like this
Dear Contributor, thou caluminous idle-headed gudgeon,
Thou art a man of wax. But stay, and let us bid thee thanks for your interest in The Literary Magazine That Just Rejected You and for the opportunity to read your work, which confusion now hath made his masterpiece. Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that we are unable to use the fiction you submitted. So go, prick thy face and over-red thy fear, thou lily-liver’d boy. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it though thou art essentially a natural coward without instinct. We wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere for thou art violently carried away from grace.
The Editors, who think you are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie.
The Fight Xenophobia! Method
The best way to fight xenophobia is to translate work into the xenophobic language and then back into English so we can see that all languages are just like English except some people talk it funny. I conquered Japanese xenophobia by translating the form rejection letter into Japanese and then back into English to get
The contribution person who becomes love, your interest of the literature magazine which refuses your work for the opportunity which reads your work thank you. Regrettable, as for us we you the embankment the fiction which is put out not being used regret the fact that it informs. Thank you in order to give the opportunity which considers that in us we that, the best of appropriate luck is desired at the other place. Editor
YAY JAPAN!
The Your Father Has Many Cows And Yours Was the First House In The Village To Get Electricity Method
OrientalSpeek is a bit of an art because you need to make the speaker sound ornate and archaic like the Wise and Holy Colored Person but they also need to sound ever-so-slightly brain-damaged like their brain is leaking onto the floor as they speak. It is worth practicing this art because it is tremendously convenient and can be used across a wide range of “orientals”, which include but are not limited to Chinese, Indians, Africans, Native Americans, homosexuals and differently-abled people. It does not apply to poor people because poor people can’t talk. Anyway, a good way to practice OrientalSpeek is to transform a form rejection letter into OrientalSpeek.
A thousand prostrations at the feet of your ancestors, without whom your esteemed and illustrious narrative may have never seen the tender light of day, verily, may their names remain evergreen in the pastures of our memory
Like the most auspicious bubbling over of boiling milk, like sweet, clear water joyfully tumbling over a waterfall, our hearts sang with the joy of a million most blessed and heavenly birds for the chance to read with our most unworthy eyes, this noble, esteemed and illustrious narrative. Alas! Our publication which we dare to call a magazine, this filth, this cursed map of letters, this empty vessel of words cannot be the ship on which your bejeweled narrative sets sail. Tirelessly we toiled, beseeched the Gods and all the saints to show us a way to bring these precious words into our publication. But it was not to be. Our saints have turned away. Our Gods have wilted and grown impotent. We rend our flesh, curse our mothers and whip our children in shame. We tear our eyes out and cry to the silent skies, why was this useless bag of flesh given life, why did it create a literary magazine when it cannot publish words such as these? Why? Our only solace in these dark times, where the monsoons hold back their sweet waters of succor, where the land lies parched, where no birds sing and where the Gods lie naked and dying, our only solace in all this is that your narrative will fly on the wings of a journal far worthier than ours and be kissed by the Sun, the Moon and sweet angels of mercy and love who have already forsaken us all.
We wish you abundant crops, much rain and many sons.
The Editors, who unendingly praise the womb of your mother, that was rich and blessed enough to bring forth one such as thee
And before I go, awesome dialogue from some of my favorite awesome people in my real life
Awesome Person 1- He had a vegetarian Great Dane called Pinky.
Awesome Person 2- What happened, did it die of shame?
okbai