Good Rejection from AGNI

Dear Jackson,

We admired this and circulated it. but finally couldn't get to yes. Many thanks.

Eds.

________________________________

AGNI Magazine
Sven Birkerts, Editor
William Pierce, Senior Editor

Good Rejection from N+1

Hey, Jackson.

I'm not sure if one of our higher-ups ever got back to you about your submission. We really enjoyed reading. . . . , particularly the Beepers story (!) but unfortunately we've decided not to publish. As a biannual, n+1 is only able to select such a small amount of content. We really appreciate your submission though, and do think of us in the future with your work. Sorry for the delay, and best with all your endeavors --

The Editors

Georges Borchardt Reads Half of the Ninjas of My Greater Self + Outline

I will not read into this whatsoever. I won't expect anything to come from it. I won't let myself indulge in daydreaming (well, not any more than usual). I won't let this fuck with my mind or raise my hopes because the fall will be too precipitous, the ground is too rugged + bony, + while my backbone is really strong, stronger than it's ever been, my skin is still soft. I'm hoppa after all.

Even so, even so, I wrote Georges Borchardt after TC Boyle sent him an email telling him about me (+ mentioning some of my publications--I only know that because Tom asked me in his office to repeat some of my pubs to him so he could tell his agent). I wrote Georges + asked him what he wanted from me + this was his reply:

Dear Jackson,

Yes, three chapters would be fine, or better still all the finished portions; and an outline of the as yet unwritten or unfinished portions would be helpful.

Best,


Georges

So, for the past three days, I've been polishing chapters, figuring out which ones were too rough to be sent + which ones showed promise. Then I wrote an outline of the entire novel (both the finished + unfinished chapters), which has helped me a lot in figuring out the endgame of this novel, how characters will intersect, shit like that. The exact same thing happened to me with Lynn Nesbit, who asked for the same thing, giving me the perfect excuse to work on + work out the plot of BLANK. And while obviously, she didn't pick up BLANK (her daughter, Priscilla Gilman, did seem to respect it though), Lynn Nesbit's request became the perfect excuse to figure out what the fuck was going on with my novel. This time, I have some pubs, I have the support of a famous writer, I have a small but direct contact inside the publishing world with someone who actually publishes authors with whom I share some aesthetic, literary, intellectual, socially-conscious + creative kinship. More than anything, I've got a--miniscule, but nevertheless tiny little--chance now.

I have no fucking idea, on the other hand, what's going to happen. But at least I've got hope. At least something's happening.

Anyway, stay tuned for more details.