Wednesday, January 16, 2008

A Quick Note on Rejection...

An ever-popular topic. If you haven't seen it before (and even if you have, come to think of it), here is a letter from an editor rejecting Ursula K. LeGuin's bestselling Left Hand of Darkness, which went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. This is a good argument for always responding with a form letter.

Janet said...

For Left Hand of Darkness? Incredible. That book is a piece of genius.

It only goes to show that there are a lot of different tastes out there.

I personally dislike a lot of highly acclaimed things, even when I recognize the talent behind them. Sometimes because I don't recognize the talent behind them (yes, I'm looking at you, Dan Brown).

Tim Stretton said...

I could understand--just--if the book had been turned down as being too unusual/radical: for its time, TLOD was both. But to reject it because the narrative pacing didn't work was simply ludicrous.

It's an argument too for keeping all your rejection letters so that when you are famous you can display them with a disdainful flourish.