Dear editor

I miss rejection slips.

Not that I enjoyed receiving those ignominious pre-printed slips of paper, but at least when my SASE came back, I was pretty sure an editor, or an assistant editor, or an assistant’s assistant, had put it in the envelope. There was a flesh-and-blood person at the other end of the line. And there was always the chance I might see a single handwritten sentence on the bottom, signed by the editor, indicating the piece almost made it or, joy of joys, she would like to see more