The Losing Game: Writing Rejections 83-84/100

Well, I did ask for more responses before the year ended. Nobody can say this isn't on me. And of course two came within minutes of each other, like a hard "no thank you" pulsed out over the internet, striking fear into the hearts of editors. That said, these are nice rejections, so it's not too bad a note to go out on. Of course, this might not be the end. Perhaps a swarm of "No"s will descend like locusts upon me on December 31. It's not impossible. Soon comes my favourite part of keeping the blog. I'm going to present the metrics for 2019. It's been kind of a wild year, so I'm going to include a new category: number of publications who lost my submissions. I don't know if this is happening to everybody at the same rate but it felt like a record high to me, and was its own unique challenge, so I'm going to give it its own category. I'm also going to include a longest rejection streak, which I'd wanted to include last year, but hadn't created a good enough tracking system to do so. I did this year, so get ready for that. In case you've forgotten what I typically track: Total submissions: Number of individual pieces submitted: Highest # of times a single piece has been rejected this year: Highest # of pieces accepted in a single submission: Total Rejections: Total Acceptances: Total Pieces Accepted: Pieces of Fiction Accepted: Pieces of Poetry Accepted: Have not heard back from and will roll over into the 2019 rejection/acceptance count: Ratio:

You excited? Great. I'm a big old metrics nerd. And Metric nerd. Long live Emily Haines.

[WRITING REJECTION 83/100] *after following up on submission because the issue I submitted for came out and I hadn't received a response* Erin, Thank you for reaching out. So sorry, but it looks like something went awry with the email we sent in response to your submission. We'd decided to pass on this batch, but encourage you to submit again in the future. Thanks for your patience and support.

[WRITING REJECTION 84/100] Dear Erin, Thank you for submitting to Kissing Dynamite and trusting us with your writing. Please know that we have read your work with care. We have decided to pass on this particular poem; our decision reflects the curatorial nature of the journal, and thus we are limited in our selection. We do want you to know, however, that your poem was on our long-list, and we would like to see more of your work in our next submission period, which will be January 5-15. We look forward to the potential of working with you in a future issue. Kind regards, The Kissing Dynamite Team

So there you go, friends and rivals. See you in the new year, or maybe sooner? And if there's any stat you'd like me to report on that if I haven't mentioned, shoot me a message. Until next time, - E.B. Kirsh