Dear Seamus,
Thanks for sending us “Ear Worms.” We’re sorry to say that it’s not right for The Sun.
This isn’t a reflection on your writing. The selection process is highly subjective, something of a mystery even to us. There’s no telling what we’ll fall in love with, what we’ll let get away.
Writing is hard work, and writers merit some acknowledgment. This note doesn’t speak to that need. Please know, however, that we’ve read your work and appreciate your interest in the magazine.
We wish you the best in placing your writing elsewhere.
The Editors
The Sun
Dear Fuck Face,
Thanks for crushing my dreams. I read the milquetoast slop that, apparently, is right for The Sun. Jesus Christ. Stories about the “war on swallows?” That’s what you fall in love with? I gave you something with zip-with balls. I gave you incest and switchblades and large women with gastrointestinal prowess.
I would rather you just told me that I suck and to eat shit than soft pedal your rejection with its ‘aw shucks’ and ‘keep up the good work’ patina. I don’t need you to rub your ass on my ego or jerk me off with diplomacy. Tell me to die, or get fucked. Tell me you hated my stuff. But don’t condescend with faux sympathy and lay some kind of, ‘writing is hard work’ line on me. Writing is easy work-unless you’re an asshole. The hard work is trying to get it on with pinheads like you. You, the gatekeepers of culture and arbiters of who does and does not make the grade. You geeks perpetuate a system that keeps rubbing its own balls, puts barbed wire around meadows, and gives the nuclear codes to greasy plutocratic sub-creatures.
In closing, fuck you. You germs are what is wrong with the arts. And what’s wrong with the arts is wrong with the world. Maybe I’ll send you another story. One day, when I’m on my period, I’ll send you a humdinger about birds and despair. Yeah-something about a war vet who goes off his meds then fucks pelicans and eats them raw in front of the horrified tourists. Maybe then I can cleave through your “mystery” and you and I can find some common ground?
Yours in Christ,
Seamus