In Praise of Snail Mail

Through twenty-three years and five moves across two states, I’ve kept a manila file folder containing the first acceptance letter I ever received. The letter is typed on cream-colored stationery, glossy and substantial, and is embossed with the letterhead of the magazine that accepted that long-ago first story. Looking at it now, I still remember the sense of hope I felt standing there in the dusty foyer of the rowhouse apartment where I lived in Philadelphia. I remember thinking the envelope was too fat to be a letter of acceptance, but too slim to be the story I’d sent them, only to be returned to me now with regrets.

The other day I uploaded five poems into an online submission manager and hit “Submit.” Seconds later I received a form e-mail from the journal thanking me for my submission. It cost me nothing but a moment of my time and spared me a slog to the post office on a crummy day, the way I’d done so long ago in Philadelphia. I remember how I’d hiked that short story down to the post office not far from City Hall and kissed the clasp envelope before handing it to the amused clerk. I was a graduate student at the time, living on student loans and a part-time job as a proofreader; the money that I spent on postage to send that story and others out into the world would have been considerable—part of the dues I thought I needed to pay become a writer.

Recently, a friend shared a story on his blog about a journal that accepted four of his poems nearly two years ago, only to send him an e-mail months later rejecting those same four poems. After many back and forth e-mails, the editor (the same one who’d accepted the poems) attributed the rejection to “budget cuts.” And so my friend did what most poets do when they receive rejection: Moved on and resubmitted those poems to other magazines. Several of the poems were subsequently accepted, suggesting a happily-ever-after ending –-until recently, when he received a print copy of the journal that had rejected him containing (you guessed it) the four poems the magazine had declined.

As writers we’re well advised not to take rejection personally, to treat it not as an event—as Carolyn See writes—but as a process. To be sure, e-mailed rejections can be easily dismissed as blips, the briefest of interruptions on an otherwise okay day. But acceptance – whether the first or the hundred and first – should be an event, a worthy-of-fireworks ceremony marking the final mile in a creative journey that started with a handful of words whispering this way.  And a letter dropped through a mail slot or tucked into a box next to the front door affirms this in a way that an e-mail is simply unable to.

The day I received that first letter of acceptance I called all of my friends. I toasted myself with a bottle of beer and when I finally fell asleep, the letter was next to me on the pillow.

It smelled like hope. It still does.