Katherine Fausett Asks for Partial of The Amnesia of Junebugs

Today, I received this email + it gave me hope:

Dear Jackson,

Thank you for contacting me regarding your manuscript BLANK, which I would be happy to consider. Can you please email me the first three chapters as an attachment?

I will read as soon as I'm able and will get back to you.

Best,

Katherine Fausett

So I sent her a 3 chapter teaser + prologue, that happened to be full of sex, but I told her the rest of the novel wasn't so Henry Miller. I can't get too excited about this, but I feel like I can make a few conclusions:


1. My Novel Queries are improving
2. There are some agents out there that are willing to give young, talented, committed, but also unknown, emerging writers a chance. I just met one today.

I Hope, Therefore I Write

I just sent query letters for my novel The Amnesia of Junebugs to Katherine Fausset and Jim Rutman and I'm wondering whether being in Argentina will positively or negatively prejudice my chances of getting a top-notch literary agents. Considering how many agents don't accept email queries, it seems like a bad move I admit. But I'm hopeful that Beth de Guzman will eventually help me out or that something else will work out eventually. I still hope because I'd stop writing otherwise.

The New Yorker Writes Back

I'm not sure what's more frightening, getting ignored by The New Yorker for two years, or getting a sudden and personal response on the same day that I sent out my email. Anyway, here is the response I got in its entirety:

Hi Jackson,

In the late summer of 2007 we had some server issues in the fiction department, during which your story was probably lost, in addition to hundreds of others. If you'd like to resend your story "Otra Chica" directly to me, I'll be glad to give it a read and get a response to you within the
next few weeks.

Best,

B******
The New Yorker
Fiction Department

Of course I'm flattered to get an email after two years of cold, impossible-to-ignore silence. But now it freaks me out--in a good way, of course--that an editor is actually going to read my story. As long as I can remember I've felt stilted by the fiction minions of TNY, knowing, fearing that only disgruntled, jaded and opinionated readers touch our unsolicited manuscripts. I dunno, maybe that's still the rule. But I have to say, this experience has taken the poison out of my bloodstream and the bite out of my bark. I'm not expecting any miracles, I don't expect them to pick up my story, but being accountable to someone at the Great Glossy is, in a word, exhilarating. I mean, this is one of the reasons I write--to have an audience, and to learn from people who know the industry.

My Civilized Letter of Frustration to the New Yorker

Here is an email I just sent the New Yorker:

Dear Hard-Working Fiction Editors at The New Yorker,

I know you get a gazillion manuscripts a year and I know the slush pile is a constant avalanche. But as an emerging fiction writer who is trying to make it in literary publishing in small steps, I have to admit, I'm getting kinda upset here. I haven't received a response from your magazine for the last two manuscripts I've sent you, a time-frame of over two years, and I'm not asking for much, except an editorial response. I know this email is gauche, I should probably delete it, sublimate it into my next cover letter, possibly abandon the delusion that I'd ever publish one of my short stories in your iconic glossy until I score a top-notch literary agent, or become Pinochle partners with the editors. But I want to believe--I need to believe--that your magazine isn't so stacked against the emerging writer, at least one without connections, that with the right intersection of editorial taste, aesthetic temperament, and a manuscript with fresh language and a strong voice, eventually things will work out.

So it's with this blowhard first paragraph that I ask you to please update me on the status of the short-story I submitted on 7 August 2007 entitled "Otra Chica," with a follow-up email sent in March 2008. Thank you in advance for your understanding and response.

Yours Truly,

--Jackson Bliss

2nd Story Accepted in 2008

Well, it's been a very slow trickle in the great year of 2008 so far for publications. But I got an email recently that really made my day and gave me some real hope in the world of literary fiction: "The Molesters," "Skinny Boys" + "The Symmetry of Tablespoons," three chapters from my debut novel The Amnesia of Junebuys were picked up in the African American Review, a journal out of St. Louis University that includes essays, art, scholarly essays on Black history, cultural diaspora, anthropology, literature as well as poetry and fiction.

And not to brag or anything but the list of former fiction contributors includes impressive names like: Richard Wright, Clarence Major, Reginald McKnight, Rhodesia Jackson, Percival Everett, Rita Dove, Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson, and Gwendolyn Brooks. And damn, even if my piece doesn't come out until late 2009/2010, I have to say, it feels so good to know my writing matters to someone. It will keep me going for a while now to know that words matter, language is primordial reunion, and that I will have readers to connect with.

Maybe They Liked My Story. . .

I was checking up on the status of one manuscript I sent to FENCE Magazine 7 months ago. Of course, being a dumb ass, I hoped that this great lapse of time meant something. Maybe all the editors are sitting at a table, sipping espressi, discussing the merits and demerits of each piece, and one of the editors took a personal liking to my story and defended it with so much passion and intelligence that the other editors took a step back and were like, yo, let's do it! Let's give this Jackson Bliss a act in the Great Literary Show. . .

Reality Check: But when I woke up from my day-dream and tried to check my submission on their high-tech submissions manager, the fucking thing didn't even recognize my email address, even though I'd registered last year when I'd submitted my last story. It's as if I'd never submitted that piece. So, being a stubborn artist at the core, I did the SAME FUCKING THING OVER AGAIN AND REGISTERED AND SUBMITTED ALL OVER AGAIN. But this time I submitted a different story. Ah, signs! If only literary fiction writers would accept all the signs the universe is giving us, none of us would write.

::

On a good note, I recently finished another short story I'm very fond of, about a woman in Lima who drugs tourists and steals their shit. This actually happens. Oh, another thing, I think Erika and I are moving to Argentina. Fingers crossed.

Good Rejection from 42 Opus

Dear Jackson Bliss,

Thank you for submitting work to 42 Opus.

We're honored that you would consider it as an outlet for your creative work. 42opus cannot exist without your contributions. You should know that your submission was forwarded by the Assistant Editors to the genre Editors for further consideration; only about 10% of our submissions pass beyond this first round. Although we are unable to use your submission in the upcoming issues, we would love to hear from you again in the future.

Thank you once again.

Brian Leary
Managing Editor, 42opus

Writing = A Viral Delusion

Recent rejections from Missouri Review,which is my fave university-affiliated literary journal in the states, as well as from The Atlantic, Smokelong Quarterly, and from Elise Proulx, a lit agent out of San Fran, has made me pensive. Not snarly as I sometimes get, but pensive. My rejection from Missouri was a fantastic one, so good in fact that I didn't understand why it got rejected, but I can't help but wonder sometimes why any of us write. why we spend so much time creating something so few people get the chance to appreciate. It's funny, sometimes I feel like being a writer is just a viral delusion. We're infected with this idea that we have something important and interesting to tell the world, even if no one else sees it, not workshop morticians or journal editors, not lazy readers or family members, not consumers of glossies or random strangers. Really, so much of what we write never reaches anyone but we refuse to accept the blatant rejection of our art that is so universal and frequent, almost conspiratorial, but not that efficient. If you took away our stories, we would be, in a word, insane. We insist on a reality no one else sees or conforms to, we tell ourselves that we are writers even if we can't live by it, even if no one reads our stories, even if journals won't publish our fiction, we insist--correctly might I add, even necessarily--that everyone has it wrong, and someday, they'll get it right.

Being a writer is like playing make-believe, trying to get everyone else to play along. But even when they do, we think two things: what took you so long, and what's wrong with you?

What Is Art to Americans?

And why, oh, why can't I simply live as an artist? Why do all writers and poets and painters and sculptors and photographers have to schlep grocery bags and work in neglected shabby record stores and teach composition to lazy teenagers, just to survive? Why isn't art a self-sustaining profession? Why isn't it more valued in our culture? Is it the definition of social utility? Art = culture + critique. Art = politics + revolt. Art = unapologetic egocentricity + codified sexuality. What's more useful than that?

The biggest complaint I have about art is that only rich kidz and the bourgeoisie can afford to not work and make art all day, and strangely enough, only rich kidz and the bourgeosie have enough money and time to consume it too. For the rest of us, for almost all of us, we have to work at a bread factory, or teach world literature seminars, or sell used furniture, or give 50 somethings manicures, and each and every day, there is a work of art, another story, another photo we didn't take or write or make, and before you know it, we are haunted by the ghosts of our own creativity, we live in a world of shadows where the things we couldn't create because we're human and we need to survive, end up outnumbering the things we actually create. Only music and cinema are self-sustaining, but that proves it's not about the utility of art, because a movie is no more useful than a sonnet; a slick R&B song, is neither more nor less important than say, a still-life, or a short story. But we're willing to dish out 10 bucks for an album, or a flick. So what do artists have to do so that cultures are willing to invest in them everyday? Has art strayed too far from the mainstream for the public to relate with, identify with, and escape into it? Is this a question of entertainment? Emotion? If art could make people cry, or take them back to their childhood, the way a song does, would the human response be different? If art could hold someone's attention for 2 hours, and make them travel to new places, would they go on that journey? And why can't or won't artists engage people this way? Are we too indier-than-thou? Do we despise the public subconsciously? Are we alienating non-specialists, or trying to please critics and editors too much? How does art become a robust part of our evolving artistic mainstream culture again without selling out and compromising its ferociousness? Is this what we're afraid of, being consumed and understood by too many people? As artists, are we creating out own division of labor? Do we lose our special place in the world if a soccer mom from New Jersey is moved by our work? Was Andy Warhol wrong to make caricatures of rich people and then take their money afterwards?

1st Story Accepted in 2008

Yesterday, I just found out (officially) that a short lyrical essay I submitted to SOUTH LOOP REVIEW about my おばあさま(my grandmama) was accepted for its September issue. Holla!

The SLR is a rad (not to mention, pretty-looking) journal out of Columbia College Chicago offering creative non-fiction and photography. I'm so stoked. This is my first CNF piece to be accepted, and also, it will be nice that my peeps/family can buy something I've written at one of the Borders in Chicago.

My First Reading from The Amnesia of Junebugs (for The Sparks Prize Reading Series)





Today is the day I give my my first reading from my debut novel, The Amnesia of Junebugs, the first + only time I have to give a reading as the 2007 Sparks Prize winner + also the first (but not the last) time I'll be reading to people at Notre Dame all by myself. I'm crazy excited + also nervous as shit.

Bitch Session about Literary Fiction (Journals)

You know, i'm an incredibly patient man. i am. i've been told this many times and i'd like to think it's one of my unusual talents--like making up lame-ass jingles on the keyboard--it's just something i can do without putting any thought into it. the truth is, i rarely complain about the fickle and elitist nature of literary journals, but recently it's been pissing me off so i'm gonna bitch about it. i'll understand if you don't wanna read this.

Here are the reasons why american lit journals are a failure right now:

1. College MFA students shouldn't be the front line for lit journals.. i understand they make the editor's life a lot easier, and occasionally, some MFA readers have sharp eyes for sharp writing, but most of the time, they don't have a fucking clue. i mean, what do these little fuckers know about getting published? What did I know about publishing fiction when I was a reader for the Notre Dame Review? Absolutely nothing! Most fiction readers have never published a damn thing to save their fucking life, so the fact that they're simultaneously deciding what is basically publishable from the perspective of writers who are essentially opinionated amateurs, is fucking absurd.

2. The same 40 writers keep getting published over and over again and it has made this market dull indeed. i don't care if you're junot diaz, i don't want to read a story from you every time i shell out 5 bucks for a new yorker. what i don't understand about writers is why they don't understand their own saturation points. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. And there's def too much of a bad thing

3. My personal opinion is, it's better to write 4 amazing books than 14 very good ones, but writers feel pressured to pump out a novel every 2 years, even more if they're commercial writers

4. Until magazine start embracing short stories again, which creates an implicit message that the short story is not an intrinsic part of our culture, short stories are still going to be part of the domain of high-brow realist garbage literature, read almost exclusively by other writers. aspiring writers read them (the honorable ones, anyway), established writers publish them, and then other wannabe writers buy their journals to steal their tricks.

5. New writers shouldn't have token cameos in lit journals just so they can say, look, we're not the enemy of the emerging writer. it's gotten so bad that journals like Ploughshares actually have a new writers issue, which only points out how rarely they publish new writers.

6. If it takes you a year to reject me, you need to send me your home address with the rejection letter so i drive to your stuffy apartment and smack you across the head for wasting my time and feeding my irrational dreamworld.

7. Safe sucks. The traditional writing programs like Iowa + Columbia are injecting this industry with writers that are very polished technically, and most of the time, don't have one ounce of soul, originality, rebellion, genius or ambition to save their lives. for every tc boyle there are a million writers gifted at creating beautifully empty fluff that sounds amazing + doesn't mean a thing + doesn't have any staying power whatsoever. it has become enough simply to write + to publish, not necessarily to matter, to provoke, to critique, to explore, to take readers to a high place of awareness, to depict social injustice, to explore complex social issues, to create a place of beauty, to render deeper insight into our own existence

8. If only lit fiction writers had some of the imagination and intelligence of experimental writers, and if experimental writers could match the strength of their ideas with the quality of their prose that many lit. fictionistas have, we would be a changed world indeed.

9. Lit fiction writers, stop stealing ideas from newspapers! use your fucking mind and come up with something original.

10. The dullness of the lit fiction market has made our art obscure. how many times have i told people different journals i've been published in, only to see their mouths hang wide open like dogs overheating in the backseat? it's not their fault. most writers are so sick of getting rejected that they've created their own journals and now we have more lit journals than at any point in history but we DON'T have more readers. Karmically, if you want to get published in a journal, then shell out 20 bucks that you'd use normally for a second pint + fucking subscribe to a journal instead. Just one.

11. As long as lit writers ignore their readers or write for their friends who are editors, this market and this profession is doomed. i'm not saying dumb the writing down, but i am saying the experimentalists and the literary fiction writers can, and need to, acknowledge the blatantly dialectical nature of writing/reading (roland barthes, eat your fucking heart out), which is why commercial fiction is so successful because the authors give readers exactly what they want, dreary and obsequious as that sounds. likewise, i think commercial fiction writers can elevate their craft, originality and level of ideas and basically expect more of their readers too.

12. I'm all for working my ass off but goddamit, i want to know who my agent is and which company is going to publish my first novel inshallah. and if not, please tell me so i can send my shit to someone else who will passionately stick up for the kind of art that i create.

13. Sadly, the more into my writing and my profession i become, the more time i spend in limbo not knowing what the hell is going on.

14. BDG, please please please help me. this isn't actually a point, but i wanted to say it anyway.

15. I've come to the conclusion that i've wasted way too much time submitting short stories to journals without almost nothing to show for it. i mean, the number of print journals i've published stories is prohibitively small, and sometimes i feel like only inertia, pride, ego and stubbornness keep me writing and submitting the way i do.

16. The sheer arbitrariness of lit journal acceptances has turned me off completely to submitting. i have friends who have worked in the editorial dep't of journals and readers/editors have picked stories (and rejected them) for the most ridiculous reasons you can imagine, from the fact that the reader likes butterflies and unicorns to the fact that he can't stand stories with hispanic voices or second person narratives.

17. I'm calibrating my submission technique. now i'm only gonna submit my stories to the best lit journals (defined in my own way), journals that accept online submissions, and journals that give me good rejections. enough of this flooding the market stuff. i tried giving the small, indie, obscure journal its fair share, and with some notable exceptions, it just feels like a small journal trying to be a big journal, not a small journal celebrating its smallness.

18. New Yorker: what the hell is wrong with you? does it really take you over 7 months to send me this as a rejection email:

Dear author,

We haven't read your story and never will because we don't know who you are and your name won't attract readers. So why don't you stop sending us stories until people know who you, then we'll make you (more) famous.

Okay, they don't say that, but they might as well. . .

19. I'm gonna get into journals through my the way most authors are doing it these days, so most of my attention is going towards getting BLANK and my (soon to be) 2 collections of short stories published.

20. Watch: the instant after i post this rant, i'm gonna get an acceptance from one of the journals i just excoriated (or not). but that's fine. my tastes change, my sentiments and my critiques change over time. i may even feel differently tomorrow morning, but right now, this is exactly how i feel. I make no apologies.

What Universe Am I In?

These past two nights, i've been doing strange shit RIGHT before i go to bed. Why do I do this? For example:

Last night, i was just about to close my little polar white Macbook when i suddenly decided to write three novel query letters to literary agents and try to pitch my novel to them, even THOUGH i'm waiting to hear from Mcsweeney's, Simon & Schuster, and my friend, BDG at Hachette promised she would read The Amnesia of Junebugs and talk to two of the greatest agents in the history of literary representation on my behalf, after a gentle push email, that is, and the strange thing is it just happened, just like that.

And tonight, i was about to go to bed, Erika was badgering me to fall asleep with her like she always does, and i was just about to follow her into the bedroom, and then the next thing i know, i uploaded a short story to Crazyhorse's 2007 fiction prize contest, wrote up a quick cover letter, and signed a check that's ready to be mailed off tomorrow. sometimes, i can be so random.

Strange thing happened in the course of 10 hours: one of the queries i sent at 2 in the morning was to Miriam Goderich at the illustrious Gystel & Goderich, and i got this rejection email from her ed assistant later this morning that began with "Dear Author". that's a rejection in less than TWELVE HOURS. that has GOT to be a record in some time zones. the strange thing is, this lit agency hates generic queries but they sent me a generic rejection. there's a word for that.

There's a word for that. It's lame. L-A-M-E, lame.

I also discovered last night that the Writers Post Journal, the small indie magazine out of pittsburgh that was about to publish "Hula Dancing in the Bronx" suddenly shut down for good, without any real explanation. They didn't even email me to let me know. In fact, all of my follow-up emails got bounced back. Somehow this is worse than getting rejected. Putos.

Anyway, onward then.

Lastly: I sent out 19 more submissions for my last push of 2007 to journals like playboy, the virginia quaterly, the atlantic monthly, fiction international, iowa review, fugue, tin house, and many more. i think i have sent out close to a 120 manuscripts in the past 7 months. it's gotten so bad that the clerk recently asked me if i wanted to open up my own private account with the post office, complete with a free post office box and complimentary USPS cap. okay, that's not true. but it might as well be.

Hearing Michael Martone Read from His Book, Michael Martone, Doublewide +

Fort Wayne is 7th on Hitler's List, The Blue Guide to Indiana, Alive + Dead in Indiana, Pensées of Dan Quayle, + others.

Today LB and i drove down to hear Michael Martone read at Notre Dame, and as usual, he was funny, entertaining, clever, the whole 4-movement symphony. i sent him a text (he asked all of us in the audience to) that said:

This is your mother.
Drink your water.

Which he did, though, not because he'd read my text.

While i was there, i chatted with Steve about science fiction, who i still call tom sometimes, i talked with William about his pile of slush from last year that he is only now sending rejection letters for, i talked about binary translation fallacies with Joyelle, being a mom, her 2 books coming out with fence and tarpaulin sky press, then i ran into Valerie, and i gave her a short update, later i ran into Megan the ndlf organizer extraordinaire, and Laura Fox, who is probably one of the most impressive, put together (and cute) undergrads i've met in years--we talked about Simon + Schuster and i think she knows Ginny Smith. que pequeño es el mundo, cabrón.

::

I have to say, it felt so good running into these people. they reminded me of what i love the most about my experience at notre dame, and it filled a small void in me to be able to talk books for a few hours, something i complained about ad nauseum last year, but that i can appreciate in bursts like today.

I hope i get to have coffee with Valerie, Steve, and William in chicago in the near future, and as Michael Martone requested, i'm definitely going to email him and pick his brain about writing. maybe, just maybe inshallah, if i'm really lucky, Michael Martone will actually read defiance of objects, the manuscript i submitted for the FC2 innovative fiction prize, but that's probably wishful thinking. on verra. . .

Another :: Entry

Fulbright & macdowell colony: fuck nancy regan, just say yes!

Other voices: i feel like we're breaking up cuz you don't call or write, and you aren't telling me what's on your mind.

Journals that don't even both to send rejection emails: as the brits say, piss off wankers! translated: you don't deserve my shit, bitch!

Simon & Schuster, BDG & Mcsweeney's: this is lame autosuggestion, but you really wanna give this kid a chance. he'll write his ass off for you.

Bee: how's the deep south?

Knowing what it is that you love in your life, and even better, learning how to do it justice: amazing.

Life: t'es si bien equilibrée à présent.

New yorker: i'm aging over here.

Jackson Bliss: so far this year has been awesome, but don't forget the vibration of your name

Blessings: work hard so that you always feel like you deserve them.

The Link between Domestic Chores + Manuscript Submissions

Yesterday i was in this crazy mood so i:

1. changed the lightbulbs in the bathroom
2. re-organized the strange pile of recycling bags
3. recharged LB's iPod so she'd have tunes for our run
4. washed all the dishes
5. prepped 13 new manuscripts (e.g. fiction and CNF)
6. made the bed
7. sent off my 13 new manuscripts to 13 journals, including Elle, Esquire, The Yale Review, Indiana Review, 4th Genre, Michigan Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Epoch & Black Warrior Review, among others

At the post office, the clerk and i started chatting and she wanted to read some of my fiction, which was really flattering, so i told her to look up my STAND piece and my WRITERS POST JOURNAL piece, even though they won't be ready forever. it was so nice.

Today, par contre, i finally did something i've wanted to do since graduation in may. i submitted my novel BLANK to mcsweeney's press. i'm sure it will take them forever to get back to me, but as long as they read the whole thing--as if, kid--i'm cool with that. so now my novel is under editorial and agent consideration at simon & schuster, grand central and mcsweeney's, and yo, i couldn't be happier!

Sidenote: sometimes i can be random. i was just about to shave and take a shower, and then, the next thing i know, i'm composing a cover letter to the book submissions editor at mcsweeney's and writing this blog in my boxer shorts. what is going on with my mind?

Finishing My Collection of Flash Fiction about Glass

I finally fished my novella/collection of flash fiction a few days ago and i'm really happy about this. it's 52 pages and centers around people looking through windows, which includes:

12 small blurbs about the molecular composition of glass, the history of glass blowing
and 12 short shorts ranging from 2 to 5 pages each, that include the stories of:

1. a girl looking from the backseat of her car.
2. an alcoholic who pawns her grandmother's jewelry to buy a gold beretta
3. a japanese woman who stays in tokyo hotels to see her city for the first time
4. a father on the amtrak who is visiting his daughter with the creepy militia husband for the 1st time in 15 years
5. a man who walks through portland late at night to see his life inside the window display of stores
6. a woman who watches her schizophrenic neighbor through the peep hole of her door
7. a boy who turns his father in for stealing his collector's edition hans solo action figures
8. a girl who watches the city from juvie detention for ripping the gun out of a cholo's hands
9. a guy who gives his brother advice on how to sleep with smart chicks by wearing fake glasses
10. a woman who falls in love with a man working in a window office
11. a man who deliberately boards crowded el's in chicago to be touched by passengers
12. a man who tries to live his whole life with open windows

I'm going to include this novella in my second collection of short stories. i've already submitted many of these stories to journals like the santa monica review, sentence, boulevard, flyway, and others too. now it's up to lit journals to get their shit straight and publish them!

Now if i can just think of a name. . .

4 Things to Inspire Hope

1. I recently submitted defiance of objects, my first collection of short stories that i've been working on for years now (and this summer, revising) to 2 more first book contests at:

FC2's innovative fiction prize
The bakeless prize at middlebury college

2. Brick Magazine sent me a nice rejection letter that said "piano lessons" was engaging and stylistically beautiful. right then.

3. I'm still working on my short novella/flash fiction collection about people looking through windows. i'm almost halfway done. i'm planning on including this in my second collection of short stories once it's finished. Maybe.

4. If i don't get an agent or a publisher in the next 6 months, i'm gonna start submitting to some of the excellent small/indie presses: greywolf, soft skull, red hen, granta, stuff like that.