Oh. You would have gotten an acceptance if your submission had leapt off the screen and strutted like a woman before the editors, with a kind of walking that made benches become men. Hair tumbling wild, a dress that caught and released light, laughter with iron under it. Eyes that skimmed and did not land, big in the way of women who never apologise to furniture.๐
I received a rejection from Granta today. What I felt was: not hate, not anger. Just the flat finality of a heart too tired to keep trying. The kind of tired that goes through bone and keeps going. As if Iโd put down a pan I had no business carrying.