We all know that Jane Austen’s first attempt at getting published [her book was First impressions, later to become Pride & Prejudice), was a humbling experience ~ an outright rejection from the publisher her father had approached; her second book, Susan (Northanger Abbey), sat on a publisher’s shelf for 10 years before she bought it back, and it was not actually published until after her death.  So Austen was familiar with rejection…but she went on revising and writing and we are all the better because she persisted.

Today I see a blog post from the Guardian.co.uk on the “Fine Art of Literary Rejection Letters”by Jean Hannah Edelstein on her own history as an editor writing more than 1000 rejection letters and her discovery of a book to be published by Bill Shapiro (author of Other People’s Love Letters) titled Other People’s Rejection Letters [click here for the author’s request for letters, and here for his letter outlining the book].  See Edelstein’s article for some excellent and humorous comments from rejectees, and this blog link to Literary Rejections on Display where you will find all manner of the polite and impolite “no thank you.”