What the heck is ‘Collected Rejections’?

Here’s an unsexy metaphor: It’s a compost heap. 

A lot of people think that to be a writer, you have to write. Which is true. 

But writers don’t only write. They can’t. Henry Miller said it best in his Eleven Commandments: “Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.” 

Writers write, but they also go to the movies and read about psychology and do drugs and travel. Those experiences become the fertilizer for the stories they tell. 

I’m primarily a writer and historian. I write fiction and I write historical work about unruly people and the emergence of LGBTQIA identities. 

This is for everything else, all the ingredients in the compost. (There’s that unsexy metaphor again!) These essays are usually related to my research but aren’t my actual work. Here is where I tell stories about the time doing MDMA saved my life, about the art patron who saved the Impressionists from starvation, take deep dives into the historical accuracy of a show like Friends, and analyze what makes an acclaimed TV show fall apart at the end. The archive is full of rejected and recycled parts--the stories editors wouldn’t accept, the pieces that have nothing to do with my research today.

These essays are in some way rejected--they’re scrap, unusable parts. But they’re a crucial part of the whole writing process. 

Every other week, I interview another writer about experiencing rejection in my series called On Rejection. These interviews range from heartfelt to funny to inspiring. Each one speaks to the universality of rejection and how it can make us better.

So join in to watch in real-time as a writer digests the world and turns it into something else. 

Why subscribe?

Well, we’re pretty cool.

In June 2022, Collected Rejections was featured on Substack Reads, a weekly hand-picked collection of the best writing on Substack.

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