Saturday, November 3, 2007

A Cool Find, A Bummer, A Little Hope & A Little Cynicism

On this spot, I found a great review of my poetry collection (Like All We Love):

"Like All We Love" delivers refreshing poetry that reads like your childhood is right there with you again -- from the ice cream bars of childhood to the pop culture, tv icon-crazed days of the teen years, to facing parental mortality. Her use of imagery touches a universal cord -- to love and lose, to be loved and to revel in the intimacies of relationships.

but I can't find out who wrote it or how to get to the main page! Ah well, I'm just happy it's there.

*

I don't think I've yet mentioned this here, but Merge Press--the small press that accepted my novel For the May Queen--folded. A knife to the heart, that's what that was.

So now I have two completed unpublished novel manuscripts. I'm a little dispirited about the publishing thing. I've come so close so many times, with small and big presses.

At this time, I'm only sending out short pieces (poems, essays, stories) while working on writing two other books: an historical novel and a memoir about my father's death and my mother's subsequent Alzheimer's diagnosis.

The other day one of my colleagues told me that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected a crazy number of times before it finally found a publishing home.

Here are a bunch of other famous rejections, for what it's worth. Not to be cynical, but I'm feeling a little today: I bet for every multiply-rejected "find" there have been many gems never-found.

1 comment:

Joan McMillan said...

Kate, I'm sorry for this turn of events happening to you--and I have no doubt that something better is in store for your book! I think that it's just a turn of another corner on this journey.

I was just reading that Bill Watterson (creator of Calvin & Hobbes) had five years of literally nothing but rejections when he decided to become a full-time cartoonist. So we can add that to our consolation lists--I have one, too.