Good news about what happened to that short story collection I started writing over two years ago
And other things it’s hard for people to understand about writing and publishing
So if you’ve been here for a while, as in you’ve been a subscriber to this newsletter, you might remember a year or so ago when I talked about the short story collection I was working on. Or maybe you remember even farther back than that, when I talked about the short story I got to workshop with Elizabeth Strout. Or even two years ago, when I was trying to remember what a note I’d written down meant and that note was related to what became one of the short stories in this collection.
Maybe if you’ve been around that long, you’ve asked yourself, “Well, what happened to those stories? It’s been over two year? Did she just give up on them? Does the woman never finish what she started? Where’s the closure? Where’s the ending?”
Probably you have had none of those thoughts because you have your own life and I am not a very big part of that wondrous splendid life you’re leading which is awesome. Good for you. You’re doing it right.
Nonetheless, these are the conversations I have with imaginary people in my head and so here I am, assuring those imaginary people that I did, in fact, finish the short stories and that they have at last found their forever home with the wonderful women at Galiot Press.
SEX OF THE MIDWEST is short story cycle or linked short stories or if you feel like it, whatever, call it a novel-lite. The story starts when a mysterious sex survey arrives in the inboxes of the residents of the small town of Lanier, Indiana, setting off a chain reaction in the lives of its residents.
Way back when I was writing the stories in early 2022, I posted on social media that I thought I was doing the best writing of my life but none of it would probably ever be published. I still think I was right about the first part—these stories are probably the best fiction I’ve ever written. Luckily, I was wrong about the second part. They will be published and by an awesome new press that I’m so excited to a be a part of (much more about Galiot Press later, but you can read more about their story here on Substack at
).By my best estimate, I started the first story in this collection—“Don Blankman Saves the Youth of America”—in May of 2022. I wasn’t really sure at that point what I was writing. Was it a multiple-point-of-view novel? Or a linked short story collection? At any rate, in June of 2022, I entered it in a novel first chapters contest and it got honorable mention, which was, well, awesome. That honorable mention was also a tiny bit of outside confirmation that perhaps it might really be good writing.
This bright spot was followed by approximately two years of steady rejection. That same first short story did get me into Writers in Paradise, where I somehow found myself in a workshop led by Elizabeth Strout. But beyond that, that story and then other stories and eventually the entire collection got rejected over and over and over again. Including queries to agents, the collection wracked up at least 60 rejections. If you include all the rejections for individual stories in the collection, that number probably climbs to 100.
One hundred rejections. A drop in the bucket. Not a particularly impressive number to those who have really slugged it out in the publishing trenches. This is the life of a writer. As Steve Almond said (and as passed along by
), “A writer’s job is to outlast doubt.” This time, I did. Sometimes I don’t. Witness the half a dozen or so novels I wrote and then shelved.A writer’s job is to outlast doubt.
Steve Almond
This is not a story about how hard work and persistence always wins out in the end. It does not. That’s not how the world works. This time, I got lucky and found people who loved the vision of these stories enough to take a risk on them. This is how it goes in publishing. You win some and you lose some. You spend a lot of time figuring out exactly which are the wins and which are the losses.
I could probably write a post at least once a week for the rest of my life on the topic of the losses. If I’m doing well as a writer, I get rejected a lot. Weekly. Daily. That means I’m doing well because I’m sending things out into the world. That is what doing well as a writer means if that’s the path you’re on.
But I don’t write endlessly about rejection. Maybe because there’s only so much to say. Also because most people don’t really want to read about it over and over again. It begins to sound like whining. Or complaining. You begin to sound ungrateful. Also, it’s mostly boring. One form e-mail after another and also e-mails that do a very good job sounding like they’re not form e-mails when they really are. Yes, this is a writer’s life. Trying to figure out if that was a form rejection or not.
Still, if you do ever ask yourself, What happened to that novel/short story collection/memoir/essay collection/nonfiction book Robyn said she was working on [insert random number] years ago, the answer is pretty simple. What happened is that it’s probably in a very long and boring process of being rejected over and over again. Still, you might ask? It’s still getting rejected? Yes, still. Until, one day, maybe, it isn’t.
SEX OF THE MIDWEST is scheduled for publication in Fall of 2025, so, no, it is not yet available for pre-order. But when it is, you’ll be able to order it here, as well as other amazing titles from Galiot Press. Obviously, stay tuned here for updates.
In the meantime, check out this post, which includes a discussion of the title of SEX OF THE MIDWEST (behind the paywall).
We are thrilled you found us, Robyn! Here's to great things as we work on this project together.
Yaaayyyyy!!!!!