Rejections...\ " /

　　畢業典禮前幾天其實我心情還蠻糟的。Emily來信了，情況很不理想，才剛改好的二稿又被拒絕了，而且一次兩封。媽媽一直催促我再投稿詮達文教，『平白無辜就給妳兩千塊為什麼不賺？』但我真的有點累了。三年來，英文寫作是唯一給我一點點自信的領域，但最近的挫敗讓我很失望，很害怕，我怕Emily和我毀約、怕自己根本就沒有這個天份、怕這一輩子永遠也出不了書....

Subject: RE: Who's That Odd Guy?

Dear Emily,

With the picture book market being so slow and competitive, I'm afraid I have decided to pass on this as I don't think it would work. I hope I am wrong and that another editor snaps this up very soon.

Regrets and best wishes,
Janine

Janine O'Malley
Editor
Books for Young Readers
Farrar Straus Giroux
www.fsgkidsbooks.com

Hi Emily,

Nice to hear from you and congratulations on running your own agency!

Thanks for thinking of me for WHO'S THAT ODD GUY. It's sweet AND funny, but unfortunately I feel it has too much of a one-joke feel to it and I'm not confident it could withstand multiple re-readings. Given this, I'm going to pass.


While this particular project did not work out, I do hope you'll continue to send other promising projects my way. I'm currently looking for manuscripts (YA novel down to picture book age) set in South Asia, the Middle East, or Africa--or featuring characters linked to those regions.

Also, if you're free in the next month or so, perhaps we might meet for lunch some time? I could bring some of the books I work on to give you a sense of what I'm editing--and I'd of course love to hear about other children's book projects you represent.

Warm wishes,

Anne

Anne R. Gunton
Editor
Viking Children's Books
A Division of Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
(p) 212-414-3408 / (f) 212-414-3399
anne.gunton@us.penguingroup.com

　　每次大家問我書什麼時候出版我就很頭大，找到經紀人是個很不錯的進展沒錯，在還沒找到Emily前我也是這麼想的，以為找到經紀人就天下太平了，但我發現事實真的不是那樣，在國外出版－我再強調一次－真的很難....或許我該像作家論壇上的作家們建議我的一樣吧！先緩一緩，過一陣子再賣Who's That Odd Guy?....The wind might change, who knows?!