You're at your computer writing a story, even though you already have half a dozen out looking for a home. You're composing a sentence and hoping that before you get to the end of it there will come a message from an editor, a publisher, an anthologist, your agent. You're wondering why you became a travel writer.
Then in the evening you go out for a bite after your travel writing class. One of your students says that she lived in Mexico City, in Coyoacan, the neighborhood where Frida Kahlo lived. You mention that there is a wonderful restaurant there, San Angel. Then she says that before Mexico she lived in Spain, in Oviedo, the capital of Asturias. "Isn't that the city," you ask, "that has a statue of Woody Allen?"
The social advantage of being a travel writer. But it only works with other travelers.
Last night's class: Eight people sitting in a circle and reading their travel stories from typewritten pages. No screens, no cords, no batteries, no earbuds. We had more in common with pioneers sharing stories around a fire than we did with our wired contemporaries. At least for two hours.
The other day I received the most irritating rejection letter in my career as a writer. (And that's saying something.)
It came not from a high-end magazine - which is why it was not the most disappointing - but from a respected Midwestern quarterly. In a familiar form letter, "The Editors" thanked me for my submission, adding that, though it did not meet their current needs, they appreciated having "the opportunity to consider it for publication." (Though nothing in this impersonal note indicated that my submission had actually been read.) Continuing in the conventional tone of feigned editorial bonhomie, they wished me "luck in placing it elsewhere."
Then, in closing, they wrote: "Keep up the good work."
This was something new, and puzzling. Why would they encourage me to continue writing works that they deem unacceptable? Were they sadists? Or were they simply trying to soften the blow for writers raised in an era of self-esteem? We don't want you, but you're terrific.
Accompanying the rejection letter was another piece of paper, and unfolding it I read "CALL for ENTRIES." The review was inviting me to participate in its "4th Annual Audio Competition." All I needed, they wrote, was "a computer, microphone, software such as GarageBand or Audacity and a great script!"
Reading this I realized what I had originally suspected, that they didn't really mean it when they told me to "keep up the good work." No, they believed that I should take up a whole new line of work. The written word is passe.
That's a lot to take away from a form rejection. Especially one sent by a literary magazine.
Snow - just another reason for editors not to get back to you.
Yesterday morning I received an e-mail from a librarian in Cleveland who said that my article in the Smithsonian inspired her to find my book. She added that one of her favorite chapters, "Cows in Normandy," had in turn inspired her to get a copy of Liebling Abroad.
As delightfully unexpected as the e-mail was the news that an article about Japan in 2010 had led someone to a writer on France in the 1940s.
I've sent holiday e-mails to negligent editors, with the wish that I'll hear from them in 2011.