Two things in the mail today. My story to the New Yorker came back as undeliverable--moved and unforwardable. I have heard some things about the New Yoker, such as they don't care about the slush and buy only agented manuscripts. But I've also heard (at least until now) that some writers have been getting responses with snail-mail. There have responses with e-mail lately too.

I may give the e-mail address a try. Or maybe I'm just wasting my time with The New Yorker.

I also got a quick, friendly, but stern reject from Patrick at TaleBones. He writes, "Ok--seems like all the Wordos are sending out their Christmas stories right now! :-)" (His smiley face was actually right side up.) It's true about the Wordos. Our Christmas read aloud each year crates a large amount of holiday tales that are released upon unsuspecting editors. Well, Patrick is wise to it, and I'm sure there are others. Patrick also told me in the rejection to "let 'em all know" that Talebones doesn't publish holiday fiction. He also said he's already told some Wordos.

I must admit, he has told me in the past, but that was a couple of years ago, AND the rejection then made it sound like he just hadn't found a holiday story worthy of buying yet. My mistake.

There aren't many places I can send a holiday story. Now where, oh where, can I send this thing?