In the past few days I received two new litmags in the mail that I’d like to shamelessly promote:

Glimmer Trrain, issue 60, in which my short story “The Boulevard of Heroes” appears.

The Mississippi Review, Summer 2006, in which my short story “The Great Amphibian,” winner of the 2006 Mississippi Review Prize, appears.

Lest it seem as though all is smooth sailing, I should mention that in the same week that these magazines arrived in my mailbox, two rejection letters arrived as well…form rejections, no less. I say this because writing students often have the feeling that a slew of rejections marks them as bad writers, but I think most working writers, aside from the most famous of the famous, are frequent bedfellows with rejection. The little typed quarter-page slip in the mail that says, “We regret to inform you that this story is not quite right for us” should be considered merely an occupational hazard, not an indictment against one’s abilities. Writers must have a ridiculous amount of confidence to make a writing life day to day.

The exercise: Take a short story that’s been rejected several times, read it again to see how you might make it better, make another go at revision, then send it out to five literary journals.