Fragile Update.

My short story, “Fragile,” FKA “Things You Don’t Want,” has been rejected again, but in the nicest possible way:

Thank you for submitting “Fragile” to ABYSS & APEX. As you know, we kept it for second round consideration but ultimately decided not to accept it for publication. The competition this month was strong and while we came up with an excellent table of contents for our next issue, we had to say no to many works (like this!) that we wish we could keep.

(I really hate rejecting this. Perhaps try a horror venue?)

I hope you’ll consider us again, and I wish you the best success in placing this story elsewhere.

This makes my twelfth rejection. (There was one acceptance, but the website, Parade of Phantoms, went out of business.)

The first time I submitted the story, back in 2002, it went to Weird Tales, and the guy who rejected it didn’t get it, thought it was too strange (I can’t find the rejection letter, unfortunately).

I quit reading the magazine a while ago – too many meh Lovecraft pastiches – but I picked up an issue recently, and it was all ooky and weird again.

So…for the thirteenth rejection, I’m sending the story back to Weird Tales.

I couldn’t resist.