Yesterday I received the best rejection to date.  On the printed post card Conjunctions sends for rejection was the handwritten note, "A pleasure to read."

I sent them the "The Card Game."  (After sending them "Portugal," which they also rejected.)

The card game players don't play with the standard 52 card deck, they play with monte decks fabricated by the Apache.  (You can read more about them at Red Ink or Eleven Eleven).

I will send another submission to Conjunctions today.

Last week I finished the sixth chapter of Bought and Sold and began work on two nonfiction pieces I will submit for review (one went out on Wednesday, the next I hope to have finished by Monday).  I also posted more of the novel Urban Nizhóní.

A pleasure to read.

Even the smallest affirmation is monumental. 

Recently I've lost some readers; their absence is profound and painful.  Writing with no comments is more than challenging, it's unsustainable.  I trust the journals and agents to read my work.  They are professionals; it is their job.  I understand they need to print stacks of rejection slips.  The addition of a handwritten note is a gracious gesture that makes a day, a week, even a month more than tolerable—providing nourishment for the ailment of writing without feedback. 

A few months ago an interviewer asked Joan if she kept a diary.  She replied, she has never written for herself.  She writes to be read.