[Writingworkshop] submission attempt

[Neale Morison]

Gutsy move, Adam. The editor sounds like he genuinely liked it, as did 
I. Thanks for letting us know about this.
Neale

Adam Holland wrote:
>
> Hey everyone,
>
> As you may know,  *Nature* opened up its "Futures" fiction feature to any
> submission.
>
> I sent them my "Sing-song of John-Q. Post-human"
> .
> Joe had actually suggested I do that when I wrote it a few years ago, but
> submissions were by invitation only at the time.
>
> It was rejected, sadly. (My guess is it wasn't "hard" enough, take a 
> look at
> their guidelines if you want details)
> but my correspondence with the editor was very friendly and real, and
> encouraging.  anyone have any ideas for pieces under 1000 words?
>
> I include the relevant pieces of it below, mostly because I imagine that
> anything surrounding submission for publication is the sort of thing 
> people
> are curious about.
>
>
> Best,
> Adam
> --
> When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
>
> Dear Mr. Gee,
>
> Attached please find a submission for *Futures, * my story ""The Sing-Song
> of John Q. Post-Human."
>
> I wrote this while taking a course entitled "Writing SF" with author Joe
> Haldeman.  He enjoyed it, and given its length, encouraged me to submit it
> to you for publication.
>
>  The story is a humorous bio-tech reimagining of Rudyard Kipling's "The
> Singsong of Old Man Kangaroo <http://www.boop.org/jan/justso/kanga.htm>",
> and I find that it has a narrative cadence that works best if it is read
> aloud.  I hope that you enjoy it.
>
> I also have an accompanying poem, in the same way that Kipling's original
> did, but have left it out based on the length constraints on your website.
> If you'd like to see it, please let me know.
>
>
> Best,
> Adam Holland
>
>
>
> Dear Adam
>
>
>
> Thanks very much for your interest in Futures, and for sending us your 
> story
> 'The Sing-Song of John Q Posthuman'. Unfortunately it's not for us.
>
>
>
> I have attached our guidelines, for your future reference.
>
>
>
> Thanks for reading it, Henry.
> I know you are busy, but may I ask if you personally enjoyed it, even 
> if it
> isn't right for Nature?
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Dear Adam
>
>
>
> Yes, I did, more for the quality of the writing than anything else. I 
> think
> this might work in a magazine that does SF and nothing else, as a kind of
> light-relief item. For a magazine that has one SF item a week, we must 
> steer
> fairly close to a conventional story format. As this is very hard to 
> achieve
> in a vigntette - and vigntettes do lend themselves to non-narrative 
> forms -
> I do stretch a point, as you have seen.
>
>
>
> Don't be discouraged. You write well.  More, please.
> -- 
> When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Writingworkshop mailing list
> Writingworkshop at nealemorison.org
> http://nealemorison.org/mailman/listinfo/writingworkshop_nealemorison.org
>