Hi!

I’m Amelia.

It’s been my goal for about a hundred years to get a piece published in The New Yorker’s Shouts & Murmurs section. I’ve only been brave enough to submit something on spec once, back in 2020. I’d just handed in the final edits on Body Talk, Katie Sturino’s book about trying to stop shit-talking your body, which I had the absolute joy of co-writing. I had also just floated a new novel idea to my agent, who is very patient and used to me floating ideas that I then leave suspended in the ether and never finish. I was feeling very “I can do this,” is what I’m trying to tell you. So I did it!

The piece I submitted was rejected, which is a part of the writing process. Then I stopped writing, which is also a part of the writing process. Then I started writing and not-writing again, and I got a full-time job after four years of freelancing because freelancing was giving me a hernia, and I missed working in a team setting (HR answer!), and I wanted to take paid vacations.

Now that I am, once again, trying desperately to get to the end of at least one stupid book that I’ve started writing over the past ten years, I have begun to procrastinate by writing up these equally stupid little wannabe New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs pieces. You can only submit one piece at a time, and I am sure most will be rejected. I also have a recent handful of rejections from Vogue and The New York Times! So I thought I’d make a little sanctuary for them and turn out my rejected stories in a Substack pasture.

Thank you for being here! I missed this.

My rejected stories and pitches will come straight your inbox. You can also log in to Substack to read everything.

You’ve probably never even heard of a newsletter before!

If you can’t find it, check your spam folder. And please mark this address as “not spam.” Also not Pam. If the newsletter isn’t in your spam folder, check your Promotions tab.

You can always see everything here.

It’s free for now!

I don’t have a website set up (has been on my to-do list for seven years?) and needed somewhere easy to store stuff. I plan on eventually using this newsletter as a place to talk about/workshop the edits on the book I’m finishing up. That may go behind a paywall?? Anyway, for now, this is Facebook before Justin Timberlake took away the “the.”

Thanks again. I’ve missed this!!

And please tell a few friends or foes if you feel like it.

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