There were many wonderful moments during last weekend’s Balticon, such as my reading, and the podcast I recorded with Brian Keene (about which more later), but the panel I enjoyed most was Saturday’s “Tales from the Slush Pile,” during which I shared a few intriguing letters I received while editing Science Fiction Age from 1992-2000. (I almost wrote “amusing” rather than “intriguing,” but I was not at all amused by the writer who threatened that if I didn’t do what he wanted, he’d behave like Carlos the Jackal.)

One of those letters, a response to one of the approximately 800 rejections I was forced to send out each month, was not only my favorite such response, but was so popular with the audience I thought it worth sharing here.

And so, in the video below, you can hear me read the only response to a Science Fiction Age rejection I ever liked … as well as offer a few words of advice.

I wish I could have shared the laughter and applause as well which attended my performance of this letter Saturday night, but as they say, you had to be there.