On May 19, 1983, I sent my short story “Namestealer’s Journey” to Dragon magazine. I only submitted a few stories to that magazine while it was alive, because I tended not to write its particular brand of fantasy.

Here’s what I received back on June 21.

“Namestealer’s Journey” was eventually published in Lari Davidson’s magazine, Potboiler.

Whispers was one of the most respected horror magazines of the ’70s and ’80s, and I always hoped I’d someday submit something that would be found acceptable by editor and publisher Stuart David Schiff. Unfortunately, as with so many other wonderful magazines, Whispers ran out of somedays.

The story Stu passed on, “The Man Who Would Be Vampire,” was eventually purchased by Crispin Burnham and published in a 1988 issue of Eldritch Tales.

In October of 1981, I sent a short story titled “In the Kingdom of Eros” to Elinor Mavor of Amazing Stories, who rejected it three months later with a brief note scribbled on the back of the form reject below. The story, written in 1980, ended up collecting a total of 34 rejections before I retired it in 1991.

However …

“Eros and Agape Among the Asteroids,” a science fictional version of what started out a fantasy tale, was published in the anthology Once Upon A Galaxy in 2002.

I wrote an awful lot of poetry when I was a teenager. (Or should that be, a lot of awful poetry?) And for some reason, I often submitted it to women’s magazines.

I guess I thought there was a market there for the kind of sappy love poems teenaged boys write. In any case, whatever I was selling, no one was buying (either on the page or in the flesh).

Here’s what I got back when I sent a few poems to New Woman, a U.S. magazine which may or may not have had anything to do with the UK magazine of the same name.

I don’t think I ever received another form reject requesting that I supply my fee requirements in future submissions.

On February 20, 1974 (four months before I started on staff at Marvel Comics), I sent a script for an eight-page comic book story to Creepy, one of the magazines put out by Warren Publishing. The script, titled “When the Old Gods Die,” thankfully no longer exists, so it won’t be necessary for you to suffer through it.

The form rejection slip I received in return, however, has survived.

Back in the ’70s, I submitted poetry to many literary magazines such as The Paris Review and, of course, Poetry, but my favorite of these was The Little Magazine, which I discovered while still in high school. It featured contributions from writers like Tom Disch and Chip Delany, and though it wasn’t a science fiction magazine, it seemed to me that in its sensibilities and DNA, it was.

I never received back anything more than a rejection slip in response to my many submissions, but at least they were always personally signed by one of the editors.

Note who signed this particular form reject.

Wonder whatever happened to that guy?

Mystery Monthly was a topnotch digest that published the likes of Ed McBain, Ron Goulart, and Harlan Ellison. But not me.

The first issue came out in 1976, and the last (or so I believe) in 1977, long before I figured out how to create a short story that would get an editor’s attention.

Or get me anything more than an impersonal rejection slip such as this.

Back on February 14, 1972, I sent two poems—one of which I later published in my high school yearbook—to the Poetry Editor of Ramparts. (Hey, I never said this series was going to be devoted only to genre magazines!) Ramparts was known mostly for its political content, but it published poetry, too, so I foolishly figured I’d give it a shot.

I never had a chance. And if you should ever happen to read those poems (which I hope you never will), you’d agree.

On August 30, 1971, I sent an early, clumsy, typo-riddled, poorly written short story (there should probably be further negative adjectives, but those are all I have energy for tonight) to editor Ted White at Amazing Science Fiction.

I received this rejection slip back. Even that was more than it deserved.

On June 27, 1972, I sent a short story (which thankfully no longer exists) to editor Ejler Jakobsson at Galaxy Science Fiction. Here, in what’s the first installment in a series of rejection slips received from magazines that no longer exist, is what I justifiably got back.

Welcome to the publishing graveyard.