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From Danielle: Rejection letters are a healthy part of the process of writing. Stabilizing, even. Stephen King collected rejection letters for years, tacking them to the cork board in his bedroom, starting at the age of thirteen. With each No, he knew he was one step closer to that Yes. Embrace the idea of rejection, the inevitability of rejection, the power of rejection... As the old saying goes, "Rejection is God's protection." Got rejected? You're in good company. 11 famous authors who got rejected, and rejected, and rejected... till they were... 1. George Orwell: One publisher rejected Animal Farm by declaring "It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA." Time magazine went on to name the book one of the 100 best English-language novels of all time. 2. Jack Kerouac: One publisher had the following comments about On the Road: "Kerouac does have enormous talent of a very special kind. But this is not a well made novel, nor a saleable one nor even, I think, a good one. His frenetic and scrambling prose perfectly expresses the feverish travels, geographically and mentally, of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don't think so." Sterling Lord, Kerouac's literary agent, shopped the manuscript around for four years before finally securing a deal. 3. Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead was rejected 12 times, till an in-house editor threatened to leave the publisher unless it was pub'd. 4. J.K. Rowling: manuscript for Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone was rejected by 12 different publishers. All of whom probably feel very, very dumb. 5. Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 121 times. The publisher who finally approved the manuscript said, "It forced me to decide what I was in publishing for." 6. Judy Blume: nuthin' but rejections for two straight years... 7. Anne Frank: her diary was rejected by Alfred A. Knopf Inc. in 1950, after one reader called it "a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions" ... and was then rejected by 15 other publishers--one of whom said, "The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the 'curiosity' level."--before Doubleday pub'd it in 1952. 8. Margaret Mitchell: Gone With The Wind got 38 rejections. 9. Paulo Coehlo: The Alchemist sold around 800 copies in its first release and was dropped by its first publisher. It has now been translated into 60+ languages, and has sold 75+ million copies... and is one of the best selling books in history. 10. Oscar Wilde: upon reading his play, Lady Windermere's Fan, one publisher famously wrote back to Wilde with a rather polite, repressed NO: "My dear sir, I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir." 11. Stephanie Meyer: sent out fifteen agent queries about her girl-who-falls-in-love-with-a-vampire saga. All but one of the agents either rejected or ignored her. One rejection arrived after she'd received a three-book deal from Little, Brown. We're guessing this Twilight author no longer worries about queries. From Linda: I used to cringe when my agent sent me rejection letters from an editor at some swanky, big publishing house saying "No thanks," to my work... "The author seems great, but I'm afraid this title isn't for us." "Terrific concept, but we just signed on a similar book." "We'd love to see anything else by her, but this particular title seems as if it would be better as a magazine article." Okay. Live and learn. Lots of books have followed. Ideas, like email, never stop flooding in. And, mastery in any job requires compromise. But, these days, when I look at those letters of rejections, I smile. They're like old friends. The ones who taught me to love myself. Believe in my visions. And skip to the beat of my own inner boom box. Especially after these two rejections came in on the SAME DAY for my first book, Lives Charmed, a collection of interviews I did with seventeen very blessed and wise people... "The people in this anthology are too famous. Everyone already knows about them. We'd like to see stories of everyday people doing extraordinary things." And then this: "You need bigger names. The interviewees in this book aren't yet well-known enough." Crazymaking, right? While these rejections made me feel far away from my goals of authorship, I'm so glad they came in tandem--reminding me to keep my sense of humor and to listen to stellar advice. Stay in the game. Put your work out there. And keep your rejection letters! One day you'll be laughing about them with your buddies at your book party, reminiscing about the days of "no's." By Danielle LaPorte & Linda Sivertsen
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""""One of the most mortifying moments I experienced in my theatrical career was when I was asked to bring the entirely African-American cast of a new musical we were workshopping, a new piece by an African-American librettist and composer, across the street to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and up into the plush boardroom so they could perform a song or two for the board of directors. I wanted to say something, but I didn't. For one thing, it would take an invaluable 45 minutes to an hour out of the creative team's limited time together. But... every year we had to do the same old song and dance for the board to remind them that yes, we did do new plays and musicals, so yes, it was sometimes a good idea to expose the board to new voices, to the vibrancy of an exciting work in progress.
You all know where this is going, don't you? I led the team in. The talent in that team! The writer/composer himself and the cast, lauded veterans of the stage and the most promising members of the next generation of acting giants. And there was our board. White, as white as can be, white white white white. And very comfortable. They'd just been served lunch, I believe. My theater spared no expense in pleasing our board and catering to their demands (oh my god, I'm feeling such rage right now! I'm pretty sure we had a staff member who was mostly dedicated to help our richest board members get house seats to shows on Broadway and the West End. But I digress...) The only black face in the audience seated at the conference table? The only person of color? The head of our education department, of course. My heart went out to her. The cast sang a song from the show. They did it. And they brought it. Because they were and are professionals. And the very pillars of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion reverberated down to the parking lot. It was breathtaking. And I had just been complicit in the remaking of a scene for the millionth time: black bodies and voices entertaining white audiences, an institution raising money on the backs and voices of black bodies. I was too mortified to apologize to our writer and to our cast, none of whom, I should add, expressed even an iota of discomfort. They were professionals, and they shone. And come to think of it, they'd probably all become accustomed to this scene. "It's just how theater works," they might have thought with a shrug of their shoulders. Or maybe they seethed inside, for the millionth time, when all they were trying to do is workshop a new musical. Well, I apologize sincerely now to our writer and those actors. I wish I had had the courage to put my foot down. It is not how theater should work. I quit the American theater on Valentine's Day 2016, so I've been out more than four years now. And honestly I don't plan to return, which is why I can write with such candor. The heart of the problem, my friends, is with the non-profit structure, which is capitalism on steroids. Who are the bosses ultimately in an American institutional theater? The board of directors. Who are the board of directors? For the most part, those members of the community not with the strongest attachment to the art form but those with the deepest pockets. Often they're really not members of the community. They often just drop in. They are sometimes mere tourists. It's no wonder that that board meeting was held in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The theater, like most American theaters, had built its board of directors on the old opera model: You get the richest folks together, offer them galas and house seats and receptions and private recitals and showings (for which artists often don't get paid extra, mind you), you pamper them and make them feel more special and entitled than they already do, and then they'll write you big checks to support the kind of art they like, the kind of art they can bring their kids and grandkids to. AND they--not the artists, not the community--get to hire the institution's leadership. It is a rotten model. Rotten to the core. How can any artistic institution claim to be working for and in the community with that model? It's got to be torn down. It's got to be reinvented. And I have no idea what the next model will be. I really don't. And no, honestly I don't think government is the solution frankly. Some of the most bloated, self-satisfied, decadent theater I've ever seen was in Germany, where it was almost fully government-funded. Lots of bells and whistles and provocations and completely soul-dead. I see amazing and galvanizing lists of demands recently being made and posted by theater artists of color. These are vital demands. But they don't address the central issue. As long as the ultimate bosses of an artistic institution remain the community's deepest pockets, nothing will change. Nothing. You'll be putting band-aids on a gaping wound. Sorry, but it's true. So please figure something else out. Maybe for a few years you just avoid the institutions. You've already started. In the pandemic, so many of you are making amazing art without an institution. Find those who truly adore your work and ask them to fund it. Screw non-profit. Form a corporation and value your art art-making as a resource that profits you, your viewers/audience and your community. I have no idea. But please don't return to a new version of the old. After the virus, after he's out of office, after police reform and nationwide conversations about race, after, after, after, begin something new. I can't wait to see what it is!” Words: Pier Carlo Talenti Video: Griffin Matthews April Yvette Thompson Categories
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