And all on the same day, too!

A while back, I reported on the snail-like speed with which Sheila Williams of Asimov’s SF had rejected “Diamond Sharks”. In fact, she was so slow to reject the story that I’d already resubmitted it, assuming it lost in the mail.

Apparently, the second copy bubbled up in her slush pile recently, and she felt so bad about all the delay and me resubmitting, that she sent me a second rejection, this time personalized:

Dear Floris,

I’m sorry about the delays you’ve experienced with this story. Hope this letter gets through. Thanks for letting me see “Diamond Sharks”. I thought the story was very well told, but I’m afraid it’s not right for me. Please let me see your next one when you have it, though.

Sincerely,

Sheila Williams
Editor

And while I was quietly gloating over this delicious request for more, I checked my email and found a response from The Leading Edge for… you guessed it… “Diamond Sharks”!

We have carefully reviewed your submission and we are interested in what we saw.

So far, so good, I say!

However, we feel that it is not yet ready for our publication.

Oh, bummer!

But I’d already seen that the email was way too long for a simple message of disappointment. And as it turned out, TLE wants to put an electronic copy of my story through their “Developmental Editing” process, after which they’ll ask me for a rewrite.

It’s not quite a sale, but of all things not a sale, this is by far the best I’ve had!