A rejection done right

I mentioned on Sunday how I finally got a rejection from Crazyhorse magazine after 265 days. It truly was one of the best rejections that I had ever received (even better than the one I got ten years ago from Fantasy and Science Fiction that was personally noted and signed by Gordon Van Gelder, even though he called me Ms. Eyberg) I thought I would share it with everyone, because I don't know how many of you would submit a story to Crazyhorse although I know all of you are capable and probably more likely to succede in the market than me.

Here is the opening paragraph of the rejection and I do realize that it is a form letter, but a beautiful one at that.

Thank you for sending your manuscript "Wine For Two" to us here at Crazyhorse via the online submission manager. We are sorry this particular manuscript (with emphasis on "this particular") was not selected for publication in Crazyhorse. We hope you will send us another soon, though. We could not publish Crazyhorse without the fine writing we receive. And while we regret that the large number of submissions we receive makes it difficult for the editors to respond personally, we want to stress that an editor personally read your manuscript. Devoted reading is part of the Crazyhorse editorial mission; it is also our own personal one.

There was more to it but it was related to a contest that I did not enter and was not relevent to my situation.

It certainly made me feel welcome and like my efforts and time were not wasted and was a breath of less pungent air to suck in compared to many of them that I have gotten.

I went on to submit the story to The Ninth Letter, who kindly rejected one of my earlier stories.

Now, I am off to read one of Natalie Sin's stories.