Rejection from The Missouri Review

Rejection 1 on my journey to 50 submissions in 2017 came from The Missouri Review’s 2016 Fiction Contest. 100 day response time. 

The lack of personalization doesn’t feel great, but I see that more often with contests than open submissions. I appreciate them including all the winners and finalists in the email rather than making me click through or hunt them down on the web site.

Dear Writer,

Thank you for entering the 26th annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. We received over 3000 entries and were delighted with the high quality of the pieces submitted. We’re grateful to you for trusting us with your work.

On behalf of the Missouri Review’s editorial staff and our contest editor Jennifer McCauley, I’m pleased to announce the winner, three runners-up, and ten finalists in each category:

FICTION
Winner:
“Instructions to the Living from the Condition of the Dead” by Jason Brown of Eugene, OR

Runners-Up (alphabetically):
“The Witness” by May-lee Chai of Wilmington, NC
“A Small but Perfect Happiness” by Edward Hamlin of Boulder, CO
“And How Much of These Hills Is Gold” by C Pam Zhang of San Francisco, CA

Finalists (alphabetically):
“Anorak” by Ed Allen of Vermillion, SD
“A Parable of Fausto Bruzzesi” by Robert Dorjath of El Dorado Hills, CA
“Coupling Is Not an Art Form, Children Are Not Art Supplies” by Mira Dougherty-Johnson of Southold, NY
“Fat” by Cai Emmons of Eugene, OR
“False Cognates” by Ladee Hubbard of New Orleans, LA
“Up in the Air” by Lisa Lenzo of Holland, MI
“Walter Bombardier Tells a Big Fat Lie” by Beth Mayer of Lakeville, MN
“Many Happy Returns” by Maia Morgan of Jersey City, NJ
“16 Days of Glory” by Jill Rosenberg of Montclair, NJ
“Other People’s Stories” by Carol Smith of Kirkland, WA

POETRY
Winner:
Karen Skolfield of Amherst, MA

Runners-Up (alphabetically):
Nancy Takacs of Wellington, UT
Heather Treseler of Newton, MA
Marcus Wicker of Lansing, MI

Finalists (alphabetically):
John Blair of San Marcos, TX
Tiana Clark of Nashville, TN
Cassandra Cleghorn of Pownal, VT
Cristina Correa of Ithaca, NY
Max Freeman of Brooklyn, NY
Emma Hine of Brooklyn, NY
Carol Quinn of Reisterstown, MD
Alison Rollins of St. Louis, MO
Safiya Sinclair of Lenox, MA
Patti White of Tuscaloosa, AL

NONFICTION
Winner:
“Swarf” by Tyler Keevil of Abergavenny, UK

Runners-up (alphabetically):
“The Cataclysm of My Mother’s Spine” by Jamison Rankin of Ladson, SC
“The Magic Show” by Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers of Conway, AR
“Nemerov’s Door” by Robert Wrigley of Moscow, UT

Finalists (alphabetically):
“We Who Are About to Die Salute You” by Caroline Beimford of Fayetteville, AR
“Taking the Census in Rural Arizona” by Geraldine Birch of Cornville, AZ
“Y.O.L.O.” by Jacqueline Feldman of Brooklyn, NY
“Pork Stock, 2013” by Carly Fraysier of Laramie, WY
“Marriage Proposal for Bachcha Mashi” by Madhushree Ghosh of San Diego, CA
“The Epic Unnecessariness of #wejustneedtopee” by C. J. Janovy of Kansas City, MO
“Shine for Me” by Peter Lang-Stanton of Portland, ME
“Up Fox Mountain” by Sarah Neidhardt of Portland, OR
“Dim All the Lights” by Natasha Orlando of Mishawaka, IN
“Area Woman, or Netflix is the New Crack” by Maureen Stanton of Georgetown, ME

The winning entries and select finalists will appear in the Spring 2016 issue of the Missouri Review, which should be out in April. Other finalists’ pieces will appear in future issues. Thank you so much for sending us your work, and we hope to read more of your new writing in the coming year.

Please consider submitting to our 10th Annual Miller Audio Prize, which you can check out here. The deadline is March 15, 2017.

Best regards,

Speer Morgan
Editor, The Missouri Review