recent successes

I started my internship at Savannah Magazine. It's cool; I get my own cubicle/desk/computer/phone extension/email/official signature line. It's all very office-y and official. It's a good mix of fun and boring and I appreciate that Annabelle, the managing editor whom I'm interning for, wants me to get real experience, not just get coffee for people. 

I always submit stuff to The New Yorker, usually poetry because they accept it unsolicited and via e-mail. And I always get rejected a few weeks later. This cycle happens every few months. My logic is that the worst that can happen is they not publish me, which is what happens anyway. I always get the same rejection e-mail that's along of the lines of, "Thank you for submitting, unfortunately . . ." etc etc. But Wednesday I got a different e-mail. It caught my eye first because it was a Re: e-mail when usually it's a new e-mail with a subject something like "Your Recent New Yorker Submission." When I opened it, I re-read it about a million times. Not only did they use my name ("Elizabeth, . . ."), but it wasn't the standard rejection e-mail. It said that my poetry was accepted for the first tier of submissions, that they enjoyed reading my work, look forward to hearing from me in the future, and that they would let me know if my work would be accepted for publication. In my mind, The New Yorker is the tippy top of publication (mostly because David Sedaris is a frequent contributor), so the fact that they even typed my name nearly made me scream. 

There's a few reasons that this is awesome. There's the obvious reason: it's the goddamned New Yorker. Then there's the fact that I recently did not get into SCAD's student literary journal, Artemis. My professor assured me that it was because my work is too vulgar/funny/real/good, which I appreciate hearing, but when the New Yorker takes note of some of the same work I submitted to Artemis, it makes me feel a million times better (and also is a "fuck you" to Artemis).  Then there's also the fact that I personally have felt over the past few months my poetry has hit a new plane. That sounds pretty artsy, I know, but it's true. It's probably due in part to the overwhelming despair that has taken over my life the past few months, but I know it also has to do with my maturation as a writer. And finally, all of the work I submitted to the New Yorker is about (some more directly than others) my relationship/breakup with Robert. There's that idea that if those pieces get published it would be a sort of personal triumph, but even more than that it's comforting to know that through everything I was able to create these little pieces that people, from friends to classmates to professors to editors at the New Yorker, have been able to identify with, appreciate, and (on some level) enjoy.