Hurray for Edmund Schubert, editor of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! He may have rejected ‘Queen of Diamonds’, but he’s kind enough to devote three paragraphs to the why. Also, it’s the pacing of the story that doesn’t work for him, and the way I withhold crucial information from the reader; he likes the writing and the ‘good, strong characterization‘, and would appreciate a new submission – soon. Therefore, another request for more is on my to-do-list, after Hitchcock’s, The Town Drunk, and Interzone.
Come to think of it, of all four cases of editors requesting more of my writing while rejecting one of my stories, in three cases the story rejected was ‘Queen of diamonds’…
And just because I can, here’s the stats on getting rejected:
| Story | Rejections | Status |
| Conversation with a mechanical horse | 0 | Sold |
| Meeting the Sculptor | 0 | Sold |
| Prisoner of war | 1 | Submitted (Dark Wisdom) |
| Beans and marbles | 1 | Sold |
| Deep red | 2 | Sold (twice!) |
| Diamond sharks | 3 | Submitted (The Leading Edge) |
| Queen of diamonds | 8 | On a rejection streak… 😀 |
