Would You Have Panned Hemingway?

When Ernest Hemingway was a young man, he took a course in creative writing. His instructor, who was deeply unimpressed, told Hemingway that he lacked talent and urged him to let go of his dreams of becoming a writer. Fortunately, Hemingway paid no attention.

Many years ago, I wrote a short-short story that made fun of the space-aliens-invade-Earth theme. I sent it to one of the two leading science fiction magazines of the time. The editor wrote back the following note: “Why are you wasting my time—and your own—with this crap?” I immediately sent the story to the magazine’s competitor, which published it and paid me well.

Now that Julie and Julia is in theaters, we writers would do well to remember what one editor told Julia Child when he rejected Mastering the Art of French Cooking: “It…might well prove formidable to the American housewife. She might easily clip one of these recipes out of a magazine but be frightened by the book as a whole.” The book did indeed prove formidable—according to the French, not the English, definition of the word.

Have you ever written a piece that was panned by an editor, writing instructor, or critic—and then published (or performed) and praised? Would you tell us about it?

Comments

One Response to “Would You Have Panned Hemingway?”

1. Sonya Thompson says:

   September 11, 2009 at 2:16 pm

   What a great blog post! It is so encouraging to hear that not everything we write will be appreciated by every editor out there.

   While I do not yet have any stories like this one to share, it was encouraging and I will remember to re-submit when a rejection letter comes in.

   Thanks,
   Sonya