Letter to the Editor: Please Don't Be Mean

Letter to the Editor: Please Don’t Be Mean to Me

Written by Isabella Castello

Photographed by Emilie Dumas

I hope this letter finds you well. I know I’m not supposed to respond to your “reply all” rejection emails, but your tip-toed letter meant a lot to me. If you must know, you’re my first. I was too shy to mention that in my 200-character bio I sent on Submittable, but it’s true. You’re my first rejection—a literary deflowering of sorts. I’m not expecting a response, you probably run through rejection virgins like me every day; I just wanted to reach out to show you what your rejection means to me: 

The first time I read an essay out loud I almost cried. In 5th grade, my entire English class was forced to submit to a local Elks Lodge writing competition with the prompt, “If you could have lunch with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?” My answer was Jesus; not because I was particularly Godly, but because I thought it was funny. I worked hard on the essay and considered it a masterpiece. I felt I found my voice. So, when my teacher asked who wanted to read their essay aloud, my arm shot up before my mind could second-guess the quality of my work. 

My confidence quickly faded. I stumbled over my words and sped through my funniest jokes. My delivery was all wrong. My classmates stared at me silently as my teacher thanked me for my slapdash reading. The Elks Lodge liked my piece just as much as you liked my pitch—I didn’t win anything from the Elks Lodge. 

Ten years later, in a college workshop class, I was again forced to read personal essays in front of my peers. After a decade—and two years of a writing degree under my belt—I thought it’d be easier to own my work. However, as I started to read, I felt the tears well behind my eyes. My teeth chattered with each new paragraph and my cheeks got redder every sentence. I thought the essay was good, just as I thought my Elks Lodge piece was, but when other people had to make that judgment my stomach flipped and my heart raced. 

Despite going to school to write, I didn’t consider myself a writer until I was forced to call myself one—over and over again. That same workshop teacher made us go in a circle and announce, “My name is ____, and I am a writer.” A simple affirmation, but if Isabella Castelo was a writer, then what the hell was my name? I couldn’t claim the title because if I wasn’t the best writer, then I wasn’t a writer at all. I didn’t eat, sleep, breathe, write—so I wasn’t a writer at all.

You could smell this doubt in my writing; it reeked of self-loathing and shame. I was timid, pleading for forgiveness with every fourth word. I wanted to be a great writer, but not enough to work at it the way I thought I needed to. I thought I had to write a page when I woke up and three before I went to sleep. I thought I had to fill a notebook every month with profound accounts of my youth that someone would find posthumously and publish. I thought I had to analyze the techniques of all the greats. I thought I had to do all this and more before my work could be considered valuable. Then I thought I was too lazy to be a writer. 

With time and forceful repetition, I grew more comfortable with reading aloud. I even flirted with the idea of pitching my essays to magazines like yours. I was all talk, no pitch—baby steps. But I liked the conversation that came with reading aloud. It never went as I imagined it would when I was shaking at my desk in 5th grade or as my hands stuck to my pants with sweat in a college workshop. No one threw crumpled notes with hateful words scribbled on them at me as I hung my head in shame. No one told me to give up my hopes of being a writer and try trade school instead—I have always wanted to be a masseuse, though. Instead, we sat in a circle and talked about imagery and feelings and how I could “put more of myself in the piece.” All things I should have considered more before I sent my essay to you. Maybe then I wouldn’t be writing this at all.  

These conversations not only improved the pieces they addressed, but also gave me the confidence to feel like all of my writing was worth something—at least during those two hours I was stuck under the fluorescent bulbs of that college classroom. Talking about my writing is what made me feel like a writer. It wasn’t filling a notebook a month, or getting published in a magazine, or actually finishing my Goodreads reading goal. It was telling other writers, whom I admire, how I felt about my writing and hearing whatever they felt too—good or bad. 

So, this is why I appreciate your “...we wanted you to know that our readers considered your essay closely.” Whether that’s true or not, I know tons of girls are throwing themselves at your email inbox daily. Getting rejected is a whole new part of the process for me. You're my first, and most definitely not my last—hate to break it to you. You’ll be hearing from me again, and maybe I’ll have more success next time, but if not, the 10 minutes you take to skim my “flash non-fiction prose” is an honor in itself. If I’m worth 10 minutes now, maybe next time I’ll be worth 12—what more could a girl want?

With love, 

I am Isabella Castelo, and I am a writer.

P.S. If you made it this far and liked it, I’d love to be considered for your “Craft” blog. Thank you.