31 December 2005

Happy New Year

later tonight i will be so blitzed on beer, tequila, wine and champagne that i will probably be unable to function, let alone post on this blog, for a few days. therefore, i am posting now (before everything begins) and wishing everyone a happy new year!

as i said before, May 2006 be everything 2005 wasn't.

be safe, guys. there are always a lot of psychos and drunks and lunatics out on this night. if you happen to be one of these people, please leave everyone else alone and wallow in your lunacy alone!

28 December 2005

indirect rejection?

i received a copy of a journal out of Utah State University called isotope. it bills itself as "A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing". i figured why not, since i fancy myself a writer and am a scientist, and often merge the two.

a few days after my submission, i received an email that said:

Thank you for your submission to Isotope! I'm writing in case you don’t know about the contest we are holding during our current reading period (Aug 1-Nov 15). You can find contest guidelines on our website (http://isotope.usu.edu/). You do not need to enter the contest in order for us to consider your work for publication, but there is prize money as well as publication for the winners and all contest entries will be considered for publication. After reading the contest guidelines, if you'd like to enter your submitted work in the contest, you can send along the entry fee (which also gets you a discounted subscription to Isotope) and a cover sheet, otherwise we will process your work as a regular submission.

Thank you for your interest in Isotope!


after reading this, i thought they really liked what i submitted and were being kind enough to let me know of the contest. dumbass me, i sent them the $15. i hadn't heard a thing until today. i received a copy of isotope. i'm not sure if it's the contest issue or not. probably not since there's no mention of it in the pages, but i still haven't heard a thing about my submission. am i to assume this issue is a rejection? or is it just part of my discounted subscription? i never heard about what the discout on the subscription was, nor did i send any extra monies.
i am assuming that this issue is a subtle rejection: sorry, mr. barrett, but your poetry isn't good enough to grace our pages. nor is it good enough to even warrant a real rejection. instead, here is a copy of our journal. peruse it. study it. learn.

the journal features mostly fiction and essays, but there are quite a few poems. most are horrible. truly horrible. a few were good, and one was just amazing. but, my stuff definitely isn't in the genre and style that they like. my poetry is a little too unlyrical and is far too narrative in nature.

anyway, i'm hoping this wasn't meant as a rejection. if so, that's horrible.