Since a particularly nice rejection earlier in the week, I’ve been thinking about knock-backs a little and I remembered telling myself that I absolutely had to buy Rotten Rejections: The Letters that Publishers Wish They’d never Sent by Andre Bernard and then completely forgetting to do so. Now I’ve been reminded it at the top of my list again, and who could blame me with quips like these to brighten my day:

On Anais Nin:
‘There is no commercial advantage in acquiring her, and, in my opinion, no artistic.’

On Jack Kerouac:
‘His frenetic and scrambled prose perfectly express the feverish travels of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don’t think so.’

On Sylvia Plath:
‘There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice.’

It’s nice to be reminded that no one is infallible huh? On a side note, I accidentally popped the ‘g’ off my keyboard today. I managed to reattach it but it remains decidedly skew-whiff. Oh dear.