Coolest American Stories Anthology

Prose rejections

2022

Dear [first name]:

Thanks for submitting "[title]." We love the [compliment] (we're quite sure our audience--readers from all walks of life--would be into [story description]). We're saying no because this story is far too short compared with the stories we bought for inaugural volume, thus not even having a chance to match those stories with appreciated their amounts of twists and turns.

In short: We encourage you to submit a story with more developed and suspenseful synergy between plot and protagonist (remember: plot can *help develop character!*) and send it our way this year. If this means you'll write one from scratch, we encourage you to do that knowing we're here looking for your name in our queue.

If you'd like to know more about what we mean by "interesting storytelling," pls note that the stories in CAS 2022 are already being called extraordinarily interesting by blurbers, reviewers, &, as of today, the 55 readers who've posted customer reviews on Amazon: Coolest American Stories 2022: Mark Wish, Elizabeth Coffey: 9781737573906: Amazon.com: Books. We understand that some writers don't like to read stories for their inspiration--and that they get angry when a venue like us suggests they order and read a copy of a book--but we believe the best way to see what we mean by a COOLEST story is to read the first 13 that have been published. Not to mention we think you'll flat-out enjoy reading this book!

In any case, we hope to hear from you again!

All best,

Elizabeth and mark