Acceptance Emails Which I, a Struggling Writer, Have Fantasized About Receiving

Surely someone will see my untapped potential.

We read your submission with joy & elation. We have never seen anything better in our lives. It is more moving than FedEx (The World On Time). We would be honored to publish it. Please take this honorarium of three point five million dollars, and look forward to seeing your work in next week’s edition.

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What a moving piece you have sent us! We wept over it. We laughed over it. We have requested that it be performed at our funerals. However, it is slightly too long for our parameters. Rather than ask you to cut even one perfect word from its paradisiacal length, we would humbly suggest that you split it into two pieces, for each of which we will of course pay the full remuneration.

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We have installed a tracker on our automated submissions email that analyzed how many times all our submitters refreshed their inbox to see whether they’d received an acceptance. The most tenacious page reloader gets accepted. You won, and it wasn’t even close.

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Unfortunately, last month we published a piece on a very similar topic. However, yours blew that stupid one out of the water, so we have retracted all copies of the other piece, burned them on a ceremonial pyre, and have sent a box of live bees to the writer’s house. Your piece will take their place both now and retroactively.

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We did not even read your piece– we merely saw your name in our inbox and tendered an immediate acceptance.

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We are honored to publish your submission in the upcoming edition of our magazine, and in every edition thereafter, as an example to all other aspiring creators. We have also brokered a deal with FedEx (The World On Time) and will be offering a complimentary bound copy of your piece with every package delivered on publication date.

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It would be our pleasure to feature this piece on our website, but are you sure you have spelled your name correctly? We feel certain that you are actually the resurrected corpse of C. S. Lewis, since your writing is imbued with a whimsy and precision unparalleled by any other loser who has ever submitted to our publication. You can trust us, Clive. We won’t tell anyone.

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We loved this piece, but it is not quite the right fit for our publication. We simply do not have the breadth of readership to do it justice. Instead, we wondered if you would be open to having it engraved on a gargantuan golden plaque and hung from a hovering helicopter in the center of Times Square?

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We are tired of saying no to you. Fine. We’ll print this one.

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This piece originally appeared in the humor publication Jane Austen’s Wastebasket.

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