Roxane Gay sent me an extra copy of the new PANK cause she’s cool like that and I’ve decided to give it away to the person who posts the worst rejection they ever got in the comments below. Doesn’t have to be a rejection from a lit mag either. Girls, boys, colleges, artificial hearts. Whatever rejection hit you hardest, share it below and get a free copy of the latest issue of PANK. Contest ends at midnight tonight!
If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your …
“What if you are part of the problem? What do you do when you realize that your history is …
Rumpus: Is this interview being monitored right now? Potter: Maybe. The more important question: Is that going to stop …
“(C)ourage is vital piece of any well-lived life.” – Sugar on body image at The Rumpus.…
Copyright Annalemma 2009
Camp Kennybrook. Third grade. A cookout near the mess hall after trip day at Six Flags Great Adventure. I had purchased a jawbreaker the size of a baseball that day. Sucking on it the entire way home my mouth turned the many colors of the jawbreaker, into what I imagine was a bright blue-red-brown. I was in the hot dog line, where a pale teenage counselor I didn’t know was dispensing hot dogs. I was very hungry. I held my plate out and he said:
No way. You are the ugliest fucking kid I have ever seen.
My request for a hot dog rejected, I ran crying to my bunk. I can’t remember if anyone followed me.
I once had a boot of beer poured on my head in a Mexican border town.
5th grade I ask a girl if we could “go steady.”
At lunch I sat with her and she told me, nicely, that we wouldn’t make a good couple. And then she goes “But you’re pretty.”
I thought it odd to be called pretty but I remembering thinking it was still nice of her to say so I replied. “Thank…”
and she interrupted, “Pretty pathetic.” And the entire lunch table erupted in laughter.
I took my lunch and embarrassment to another table.
Rejections, oh rejections.
If I could only count the number of times I was rejected because I was “too short” or the girl “liked taller guys.”
My favorite was the douchebag who broke up with me over the phone after we had dated for like a month–because he was afraid we might fall “too much in love.” Looking back, he actually did me a favor by taking off, but he could have at least had the cajones to do the deed in person.