Welcome to the - Ministry of Rum
Under the Crossbones - The Pirate Podcast - The Pirate Podcast
It was the first story I ever mailed out. About three weeks later I got a rejection letter. This thrilled me so much that I framed it and hung it on my bedroom wall. Looking back, I may have been a little unclear as to how freelancing worked.
Shortly after graduating from college I sent an unsolicited story to Harper’s Magazine . It was also rejected, but the editor called me and said that if I was ever in New York I should stop in and say hello. A few weeks later, I did. We talked for 30 minutes. I pitched a profile of the guy who wrote the book How to Pick Up Girls . (He had just published a sequel called How to Pick Up Women .) The editor assigned me the story. I wrote it. He rejected it.
I kept writing. I sent a story to The Atlantic . The rejection letter that followed said my story was “thin and unoccasioned.” I still don’t know what that means. I kept sending pitches to The Atlantic . A lot of them. Twelve years later, they signalled defeat and assigned me a story. It was about an historic tiki bar in Ohio slated for demolition. They published it. I’ve done about fifty stories for The Atlantic since.
Welcome to the - Ministry of Rum
Under the Crossbones - The Pirate Podcast - The Pirate Podcast