Blake Butler—
Lee Klein’s Eyeshot’s REJECTION LETTERS FROM THE EYESHOT OUTBOX v.9, which for me have always been an instructive and hilarious example of internet tone, and ‘real talk.’ Hopefully it is not truly the last.
“1. There’s a reason that Eyeshot’s sub guidelines say no “write” or “writer” e-mail addresses unless you’re very young. It suggests an aesthetic, a “writer” type who owns a Moleskine journal, whose work mostly disrespects the maturity, patience, and literary knowledge/expectations of readers, and who refers to journals and sites as “markets.” These writers live for those glorious days when Duotrope posts “congratulations, writer name!” next to the silly name of some obscure lit site that’ll be abandoned by 2010. 2012 the latest. “
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Eyeshot’s Tentacled Rejecting Appendage
The best thing about internet-published fiction writing a few years back was getting a rejection letter from Lee Klein at Eyeshot.
The best. Seriously.
“At first I thought you took some pages from a Frank McCourt memoir, copied them, then added a dash of Pac Man.”
Lee was funny. Lee was direct. Lee was fucking merciless.
(Lee is still all these things, by the way. Eyeshot remains. Eyeshot continues to publish and, as far as I know, continues to reject. But, now, on the submissions page, you read: “PLEASE REALIZE we used to try to respond very quickly, often in mere minutes, generally within 48 hours. And that we used to tend to have some fun with our rejection letters. Now we might just send a link to a beautiful form letter. But occasionally we may still respond personally and performatively and whatever, depending on time and energy.”)
His rejections sometimes felt like a prolonged, broken narrative, a story being sent out to the world, one person at a time. Luckily, he collected them for us. READ MORE >
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October 3rd, 2008 / 4:43 pm
October 3rd, 2008 / 4:43 pm