On Rejection: Lauren C. Johnson
gothic fairytales, sci-fi performances, and meteoric inspiration
Hi everyone,
After a short (accidental!) break, I’m excited to bring back the On Rejection series. This week we have Lauren C. Johnson joining us. Not only is she a writer, but she started the awesome Club Chicxulub, which brings together publication and performance of sci-fi and fantasy stories and writers. If you’re in San Francisco, check them out!
If you’re just discovering Collected Rejections, welcome! In this world, writing is still fun, rejection is not a bad word, and we’re all here to grow as writers. If you’re into that, subscribe to this newsletter here:
Hi Lauren! Tell us about a time you experienced rejection.
I wrote a short story during my MFA program called “Sandhill Crane.” I structured this story as a braided narrative told from the close perspectives of a sandhill crane and a public high school math teacher living in Tampa, Florida. The crane is trying to survive in an ecosystem threatened by development. The math teacher is a Millennial grappling with isolation, heartache, and ennui. It was probably the strongest piece I completed during my MFA program, and once it felt “done,” I was eager to start submitting.
I sent it to Tin House (hey, I was shooting for the stars!) back in 2015; of course, they rejected it. So, I sent it to several other journals and watched those “Declined” notifications light up my Submittable account.
A lot of journals had a problem with the crane POV. Some told me I was anthropomorphizing the crane; others said it was a too-heavy-handed metaphor for climate change. I also received conflicting feedback! Some journals (and workshop readers) told me the crane narrative was more dynamic than the math teacher’s. For other readers, it was the reverse.
Over five years, “Sandhill Crane” got rejected over 50 times. Finally, Swamp Ape Review accepted it at the end of 2020. I was thrilled because this story really belonged in a Florida-based journal.
How did you get over it?
Definitely, with the encouragement of the writing groups I’ve been part of over the years, especially my cohort from my MFA program at American University. The people I met at AU are still some of my closest friends to this day, even though we’re scattered across the country now. And wow, they are such good writers. I knew they were also getting rejected and thought, ‘Well, if this journal is going to reject this amazing story my friend wrote, I can’t take my rejections too personally.’ So, community has been essential (shoutout to the Blood Library—you know who you are!)
I also know now that my sandhill crane story wasn’t ready when I first started submitting it, so, it’s for the best that it didn’t get published in its earlier iterations. I grew as a writer during and especially after the MFA.
When I first started writing fiction seriously, I absorbed a lot of other writers’ voices. I knew I could write and wanted to write more than anything else, but I wasn’t as confident in my literary aesthetics or storytelling skills. Now I’m more interested in staying true to my voice and the perspectives I have to offer. Developing that confidence took time and experience.
If you could go back and tell yourself anything right before that experience, what would you say?
I really wanted someone to publish that story because I was hungry for publishing creds. Which, in a way, means I was hungry for external validation. I could call myself a “real writer” if someone else gave my work their stamp of approval.
If I could go back in time, I would remind myself to be patient. There will be time for publications; focus more on craft. Read more beautiful books. Study the writing you love.
You started Club Chicxulub about a year ago, is that right? What inspired you to create a performance series and lit mag? How does it impact your writing?
Club Chicxulub was born from the infamous ‘Orange Sky Day’ in San Francisco on September 9, 2020. That day, the Bay Area woke up to a dramatic orange sky due to multiple wildfires burning through the region. We were all going online and posting things like, ‘Wow! This looks like the day the asteroid killed the dinosaurs!’
My now-husband, Matt Carney, and I had been talking about creating a reading series for emerging speculative fiction writers in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is SO rich in literary events, but we hadn’t come across many opportunities for writers who play with sci-fi and fantasy. Especially writers who haven’t been widely published. The orange sky and climate change—combined with all the other pandemic-era terrors—inspired us to name our reading series after the Chicxulub impactor. That is indeed the name of the asteroid that ended the non-avian dinosaurs.
Matt and I came up with the idea in fall 2020, but we didn’t host our first reading until November 2021, when literary organizers were beginning to hold in-person events again. We envisioned readers performing their pieces accompanied by a live synthwave score. Radio play vibes. We reached out to our friend Dev Bhat who is a very talented musician who goes by the moniker, Shipwreck Detective. Dev composes and plays all the music for the live readings. Matt produces the audio recordings, which are available on our website: clubchicxulub.com
We’ve been having so much fun with the shows that we wanted to dive into the world of lit journals. Whereas the performances are limited to Bay Area participation, anyone in the world can submit to the Club Chicxulub Journal. And again, we wanted to create another space for emerging speculative fiction writers. Spec fic is becoming more popular, but there still don’t seem to be many homes for the truly weird stories.
As for how the show and journal affects my writing? Well, I see it as another part of community building and engaging and supporting other writers inspires me and fuels my work. That said, producing shows is timing consuming, especially when balancing a full-time day job during the week. When I block out time for my own writing, I have to guard it fiercely. Most of my time outside of work is accounted for with writing related activities.
What are you working on now?
I’m currently workshopping my novel, The West Façade, in Lidia Yuknavitch’s Body of the Book workshop through Corporeal Writing. My novel is a gothic fairytale that takes place in Paris during the Bubonic Plague. The protagonist is a statue who becomes human and has to grapple with mortality. I’ve been working on this book for nearly ten years and for the sake of holding myself accountable/broadcasting my goals, I plan to query in earnest this year.