Rejection letter template

In my capacity as editor of extempore, and having just put out a call for fiction, I find myself in the unenviable position this weekend of having to create a template in Word, to be used for rejection letters.  Here it is…

Dear [First Name]

Thanks for sending the enclosed short story to us for consideration. We won’t be offering to publish it. In my opinion your story is well crafted. I have no doubt it would be accepted for publication if submitted to an appropriate journal.

extempore is not that appropriate journal. While I read your story, I had my eyes open for any hint that you had read our submission guidelines (readily available on our website at www.extempore.com.au and enclosed for your information) or that you were, in fact, familiar with extempore. It will come as no surprise to you that I found no such hints!

We are, like most literary journals in Australia, starved for funding and hungry for contributions of excellent writing. In our highly competitive world, these two factors are generally at the root of our successes and failures.

I wish you all the best in future submissions of your work and on behalf of all journal editors, exhort you to read the guidelines and purchase a copy of the journal before submitting your work.

Best wishes

Miriam Zolin
Managing Editor and Publisher

[sigh]

humans before doors!

The 109 at St Vincents Plaza, not far from the top end of Collins Street.

Another tram tale (there are millions).

At the top end of Collins Street, there is a tram super stop. It’s so super that it actually has a coin machine so you can change your lobster ($20 note) into coins to be used on the coin-only ticket machine supplied on all trams. Super Dooper!  Another thing that makes this tram stop super is the expediter. I don’t know if that’s what Yarra Trams calls this role, but what he does is hang around the stop during peak hour (and beyond) shepherding people on and off the tram. This tram stop can get messy because it’s not far from Parliament station so lots of people get off the train, walk to this tram stop and then catch a tram to another city destination. And people get off here too, to go to work. From about 8:00 am it can be disorganised, full of pre-coffee commuters completely fixated on their own destination and too deafened and dulled by the sounds emanating from their ear-buds to remember that there are other people trying to get on and off and (more to the point) other trams coming… any minute now…

So, Mr Expediter shouts at people to move away from the doors. He tells them to get on and off quickly. He exhorts them to think of others. I used to think that he was a good guy. He seems to care, and spouts aphorisms like ‘be good to each other’. He has a piercing voice and a slight accent. He wears a greatcoat, and on sunny days he also wears sunglasses. I think he loses the greatcoat in summer.

My view of him has changed.

Last week, I was on the tram at an unusual time of day (around 2:00 pm) I guess Mr Expediter’s shift had finished, because at the top end of Collins Street he got on the tram. What he didn’t notice as he got on, was the drama unfolding at the back of the tram, where an unfortunate woman had stepped off the little plinth that her seat was on, had somehow misjudged the distance (I think she was lost in a book or something). She fell. A young bloke went to help her and she said she wanted to get out of the tram so he held the door. Well if you know the C Class tram at all (almost exclusively used on route 109) you also know that the doors are just a teensy bit temperamental. It seems like sometimes if you hold your mouth wrong, the doors play up. The young man who had rushed to the rescue of the fallen woman held the doors open for her. How gallant!

Mr Expediter, standing near the door and blocking the fallen woman’s exit when she did manage to finally stand up and get herself going could only say. “Don’t hold the doors open. Big trouble.” The young man tried to explain but the man used to pushing anonymous commuters onto and away from trams every day simply spoke over him. “Don’t hold the doors open.” Meanwhile, fallen woman, helped by other passengers, had verified she was not hurt and was making her way shakily to the door. Out she popped, and was standing by the rail, trembling as she dialled her mobile phone.

Next thing, the driver’s door opens at the front of the tram and the driver strides angrily down to the door that had been held open “Who held the door open?!” he yelled, clearly quite cross. Mr Expediter (who it turns out is not only a bully but also a dobber) points straight at Sir Galahad and says, “It was him. I told him not to, but he wouldn’t listen. Nothing else I could do.” Not only a bully and a dobber but a stereotypical example of the institutionalised public servant-esque defensive aggresiveness that makes all our hearts glad…

So a few of us other commuters stood up for the knight in shining armour, who by this time had sat back down, next to a little old lady who smiled at him and patted his arm, no doubt thrilled to bits to find that there are still young men who will help a fallen woman. It could happen to anyone. “Hey,” we said. “A woman had fallen over and the guy was holding the door open for her. Look, she’s there” [we pointed] “She’s still shaking.”

Mr Expediter spoke up too, just so we could all be sure about what part he played in all of this. “I told him not to hold the door, but if he doesn’t listen, what am I supposed to do?”

At this point I found my fist in the air and I was saying “Humans are more important than doors! He did the right thing! Let it go!” I was on my way to a job interview and this was just what I needed to be sure I performed my best.

I think the driver sensed that if he shouted any more he’d have an angry mob on his hands. Maybe he also saw Mr Expediter as being a questionable ally… so he turned his little key in the door mechanism (this is how they fix these things) and marched haughtily back to behind his sliding glass door, closing it forcefully and keeping us out. He tested the doors and we were off, headed down Collins Street. The woman remained on the platform of the super stop, resting heavily against the railing and speaking into her mobile phone…

Tags: Trams

Joan and George have something to say…

The horse-riding statues outside the State Library of Victoria have had notes slung over them overnight. Joan: Skiing causes more deaths than swine flu. George: More people have died from rocking vending machines (interesting thought) than from swine flu.

What masked (or unmasked, only the security cameras can tell) bandits have perpetrated this heinous act of truth-telling? I have taken a photo but in life’s ongoing struggle for interconnectivity between boxes of chips, now need to find a cable to transfer photo from phone to pc to blog…

pee ess: Joan is Jean D’Arc and George is he of the dragon fame. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.

Tags: SLV, State Library of Victoria, swine flu, technology

Two men on a tram

We are so vulnerable in the mornings, when we get on the tram. Our hearts are open even if our minds are sleepy. And speaking for myself, I just want to be left alone… I don’t want tinny little iPod noises from people who let their own need to remove themselves from their realities leak into my own peaceful morning. I don’t want to overhear this end of endless pointless telephone conversations.

Worse than iPods and mobile telephone calls, I have discovered this week, is the angry chewer. I haven’t been terribly consistent with my tram times so it’s not like he’s on the same tram every morning. Somehow his inconsistencies and mine have put us on the same tram twice now. And our consistencies have us both sitting up the back of the tram. He is so effing LOUD that I can hear him over everybody’s iPod and mobile phone conversation! Chewing with his mouth open, yes but with a bit more than that. He chews angrily. With is eyes sort of glazey. He’s a machine. Wet chewing sounds from a machine. Uggh. Double Uggh.

The other funny thing that’s happened is that both times I’ve had the angry chewer on the tram, we’ve had to change trams at Kew depot. “Er, ladies and gentlemen, we have a defective tram and I’ll have to ask you to get off this tram and take the one in front.”

Okey dokey.

During the tram changes, I’ve managed to move away from him - but not so far away that I couldn’t fix him with a baleful stare from wherever it was. Because of course, that will help, won’t it. A baleful stare can really create change for good in the world on a Wednesday morning! What I really want to do is go up to him and tell him to shut his mouth while he’s chewing. I resist the urge.

And then a funny thing happens. An old man gets on the tram at St Vincents Plaza.  He’s making a noise. It’s almost like Buddhist throat singing. A motorcycle goes past and it seems like they are at the same frequency. For a moment the man’s throat noise is the same as the motorcycle engine. I’m sitting right behind him and I feel like through the seats I can feel that he is scared and that this noise he makes is a way to keep things at bay. Then I’m standing, at Spring Street, ready to get off at 101 Collins.  I’m standing behind his seat. A clear thought comes into my mind, and I follow the impulse, putting my hand on his shoulder before I get off. As the tram slows he looks up and I smile at him. His eyes are watery and faded and this weird thank you thing happens. He’s thanking me and I’m telling him it’s alright. And this is all on a tram on a Wednesday morning, with angry chewing man frantically exercising his jaw at the other end of the tram.

There’s no really purpose to this story; it’s just a short description of two little encounters. I only mention them here because they have stuck in my mind and I’m carrying those two blokes around with me everywhere at the moment.