Dear Donny Thane

 

Last night I sat under a fan staring at the TV wondering if this might be the night I slept longer than four hours, then over the sound of the fan and TV I heard my son crying down the hall in his room.  He wanted me to hear him.

*

As a writer, rejection sometimes feels like someone telling me to shut up.

When I was a child, my father used to find a corner for me at neighborhood barbeque’s then tell me, “Sit there, don’t move, and don’t say anything.” 

Rejection sometimes feels like that. 

When I was in graduate school one of my mentors David Bradley told me, “After this, nobody gives a shit if you write again except you.”  

I used to date a poet who said, “Nobody wants to write into the ether.”

I write because I can’t shut up. This is my religion. My riot. Where I’m never silent.

*

Donny, I write in response to your interview at AbjectiBlog, which was in part a response to Roxane Gay’s letter to writers at PANK, which was in part a response to an angry note you wrote her after she rejected one of your submissions to PANK Magazine. I don’t know you.  Donny Thane, I guess, is your alias.

I used an alias a short time, years ago. A former professor shamed me into using a pen name because I’d just started publishing stories in anthologies like Best Bisexual Women’s Erotica and he said academia wouldn’t take me seriously if I wrote and published erotica. (Never mind the political and cultural implications of bisexuality.)

Oh my.

Despite plenty of people telling me I’d never get into an MFA program, I applied and got into an MFA Program at the University of Oregon.

Right after I arrived in Oregon, I ceased with the pen name. I’m proud of everything I write and won’t compartmentalize my work based on other people’s perceptions of what is literary or academic and what isn’t. Also, I’m tired of dividing myself in half.  This whole Madonna/Whore thing, this whole literary/fluff divide. I’m exhausted. Mainly, I’m pissed off. 

My first reaction to you was, you didn’t have any balls.

In fact, what I tweeted after reading your interview at AbjectiBlog was, “Donny Thane is a pretentious, self-inflated cry-baby.”

Everyone’s an asshole.

I care for and have great respect for several writers who use pen names, but I’m not sure that’s the same thing as using an alias for the sake of an interview regarding your dismay with an editor who rejected your work. 

It’s like you’re ashamed you’re making a stink.

I say riot.

The best revenge is to keep writing though. Your work, what you do, what you’re in love with, the stuff that gets you up everyday. Write that.

But also, you could use my Bullshit stamp if you want. My kid used used to hit every rejection I got with the Bullshit stamp. Awesome. Take that. Bullshit. I have a photo album full of rejection letters bearing the Bullshit stamp. I’ve also burned rejection letters before. But only the ones that made me really mad. Next time I get a rejection from Glimmer Train maybe I’ll piss on it. But that’s between me and the rejection letter. That’s me acting like a four-year-old. 

I wouldn’t write either of those editors at the Glimmer Train a letter rejecting their rejection of my work though. I guess because I want to publish in the Glimmer Train. And I believe at least some of my stories are pretty good, and because I believe I will one day accomplish my goal.

To date, Glimmer Train has rejected all twelve of my twelve submissions.  The Missouri Review has rejected my work almost as much. Obviously I’ve spent time wondering why editors reject my work and here are the reasons I came up with:

• I declared a story finished, when in fact, it was just getting started. (My usual gestation period, from rough draft to polished story, is seven months to five years.)
• I sent the wrong story to the wrong editor at the wrong time.
• I’ve no idea.

 

*

In a former life, I was a model. During that time, I participated in plenty of modeling contests and never expected to win a single one although I won a few. The first contest I entered was for Seventeen Magazine, and when I won a woman screamed from the audience, “You look like a fucking anorexic.”

Everyone’s a judge.

When I was twenty-four, I entered the Miss Black Velvet contest. Big contract opportunity. I really wanted it. Mid-way into the competition, and this was regionals which led to state which then led to nationals, the MC went down the line of contestants and asked each one of us what we liked most about ourselves.

Every girl said something like, “My smile” or “My eyes.”

I was last in line and wracking my brain for a response because a.) I didn’t want to sound repetitious and b.) I wanted to give an honest answer.

When the MC got to me I said, “I like that I’m a writer. It’s my way to communicate with the world.”

I spent the entire competition convinced I wasn’t going to win. I mean, you should have seen the other girls I was up against, Donny. After all, modeling is about how you look, specifically looking the way a particular client wants, and while that client may have an idea of what he or she wants going in, the client never knows for sure until he or she sees it. (Maybe this is how it is for an editor reading her way through a slush pile.)

The following is a photograph of me when the MC announced I’d won the regional competition.

I didn’t win state, which means I didn’t compete in the national competition, which means I didn’t get the big contract. But still . . . look at that picture, Donny.

*

Winning doesn’t always look they way we think. It’s not always as big and bright as we’d anticipated. It doesn’t go bang. It’s quiet. So small we miss the significance of it.

My father once said I was into Super Novas. He was referring to my taste in men.

But we could apply it elsewhere. A big bang. You know. Then what?

*

We are conditioned by our culture to feel inadequate. Life is one big contest.  When I was a model, I never felt beautiful enough.

In graduate school, I felt like a second class citizen among some of my peers. I was the state college porn writer who didn’t get T.S Elliott’s “The Wasteland.” The poem made no sense to me.  See, there is a conspiracy going on, Donny; unfortunately it’s in our own heads. Even though I’d done the work to get into graduate school, although my writing merited my being there I sort of gave into this conspiracy theory that no one believed I deserved to be there. 

First night I arrived for this meet-and-greet thing I’d introduce myself to one of my new peers and he or she would say, “Where’d you go to school?” so I’d say, “The Metropolitan State College of Denver,” and he or she would say, “Where?”

My inferiority complex in graduate school was my own problem. Which is to say I was motivated as hell and held my own (like for dear life) and wrote my ass off. I also began to self mutilate. I picked holes that became sores in my skin. I still have scars.

The other day, I tried to explain to my father how I’m a perfectionist, and my father said, “Honey, that’s not healthy.”

I wanted to say, “But Daddy I’m still trying to please you.”  When I was a toddler I used to throw myself against walls to get his attention. 

How we suffer, brother. 

Life is a contest.

How much did you write today? Where have you published?

Suck it up.

*

I’ve entered a lot of writing contests. I’ve won one (not counting contests I entered in college.) 

Every year I enter the Missouri Review’s Editor’s Prize for fiction. I pay my entry fee. I send my story. I never win. I don’t even place. Not so much as an honorable mention. I’m waiting for the big bang here, see, a big bang.

About six years ago, the Editor-In-Chief at Missouri Review, Speer Morgan, wrote me a handwritten rejection note after I’d sent the journal a story called “Born Again.” It was a story about a boy in a trailer park who didn’t have a father. It was about a boy who hated his mother’s boyfriend. I spent two years writing that story. And I don’t know, but I’m going to guess Mr. Morgan doesn’t see half of what goes into the slush pile over there, never mind him taking time to write a note. In that note, Mr. Morgan encouraged me to submit to the Missouri Review again. So in addition to entering their contest every year, I also send them regular submissions. 

And guess what? I’ve never heard from Speer Morgan again.  (I even sent him the thirty-seventh revision of “Born Again.”)

Still, I got close, Donny. Goosebumps. Shudder.

The fact Roxane Gay took the time to add an encouraging note each time she rejected your work is a gift, my brother. Why did you get pissed?

You say Roxane teased you, lead you on, something. If only Speer Morgan would lead me on again. I mean it. Lead me on, Mr. Morgan. Give me something. Anything.

Oh yeah. He accepted my friend request on Facebook.

 *

I  took my inferiority complex out on other people in graduate school, this one time on two specific people, and it was the biggest asshole move of my life.

Jamie and Gavin were brilliant writers, smart, fearless and beloved, and I was jealous, plain-and-simple, suffering the ravenous heat of my inferiority complex. By then, I’d picked a hole the size of a spider bite in my arm. Also, I was in love with these two people: they were a couple, see, and beautiful, the nucleus of the fiction workshop by then, and I just wanted to eat them, be them, and as result I lashed out because David Bradley said something mean about my story in workshop.

I wrote a passive-aggressive email that made the rounds. I referred to Jamie and Gavin as dogs. They weren’t dogs. They were beautiful. And I was, in that moment, a prick.

Look, I’ve cut off my nose to spite my face, Donny. I’ve shot myself in the foot, burned bridges. I don’t recommend it either. What I mean is, you’ll regret it.

You don’t have to do it. But I guess you already did. Pride is a fucking bitch. After I wrote that infernal email to Jamie and Gavin, I didn’t feel better. I felt worse.

I locked myself in a room on campus and cried.

I have this other memory, Donny. I’d just found out I didn’t win a particular writing contest and sat at my kitchen table with a bottle of wine blubbering.

What I mean is, I wept.

I cried and cried and cried. Not even an honorable mention. I scanned the list of winners and thought, Who are these people? Why did they win? Fuck them.

At the time, I was broke and the cash prize was substantial. I was so sure I’d win. I deserved to win. I’d spent seven months on that story. I couldn’t buy groceries. My story was good. I needed that fucking money. Why not me?

Donny, self pity is anti-productive. Pride will be the death of us. A sense of entitlement is our first mistake.

Sometimes I think I don’t deserve a fucking thing. 

*

Last night, my son was crying. I went down the hall to his room and laid on the bed with him and put my arm around his shoulder and said, “What’s wrong, Honey?”

He said, “I never want to go to math again.”

My son is an Honor Roll student, a member of the National Junior Honor Society. He got a D on his last math test. When my son feels he didn’t do as well as he wanted, he takes it hard. He beats himself up. He’s his mother’s child. Sure, failure builds character. We all have to survive life’s hard lumps. Still, I want to spare my son the pain and disappointment. I want to spare him making mistakes because he feels bad.  

How can I?   

I lied behind him on his bed last night and kept my arm around his shoulder and told him how I’d failed a test in tenth grade Algebra. I recalled for him Mr. Mottram, my tenth grade Algebra teacher, who stood at the blackboard with his back to the class and spoke fast and wrote equations on the board even faster. I always felt like the dumbest one in the room. In fact, Mr. Mottram made it a habit to announce our test scores to the class out loud and the day he announced my F I wanted to shoot myself.

“I always feel like the dumbest one in my class,” my son said.

“We both know you’re not dumb. It’s one test.”

“My teacher doesn’t like me.”

“Honey, your teacher wrote me an email last month telling me what a delightful young man you are.”

“She did?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“Baby, go talk to her. I bet you could bring up your test grade if you want to.”

*

I entered one of the PANK Magazine’s writing contests last year and didn’t place, not even an honorable mention. Guess what my reaction was? So glad I let my ass hang out like that. So glad they decided I’m butt ugly. Jesus. I’m still an asshole. My only redemption, maybe, is I felt that way three days opposed to three months.

Not long after, I heard Roxane Gay was soliciting columnists for the PANK blog. After an hour of deliberation, I sat at my computer and pitched a column. Soon as I hit the send button I thought, “Roxane Gay will say no.”  Next day, she said yes.

I couldn’t believe it. I wrote back. “Seriously?”  

“Seriously,” Roxane said.  

I don’t know who you are, Donny Thane. I don’t know how old you are or how good a writer you are. I just know you’re pissed. Some of my favorite writers are pissed. Writers are never satisfied. We’re on edge, uncomfortable. High emotion. Unrest.  The danger of course is how we can move from passionate to paranoid, angry to cruel.

I’m not sure how to wish you peace, my brother, and unrest too. I wish you both. Here’s to you.