interesting rejection

On June 30, 2011 I sent out a story -- here's my cover letter.

Dear Editors,

Attached is my short story The Windows of His Soul for your consideration. It is a steampunk-ish fantasy story that comes at ~3400 words.

A few of my stories have been published in small magizines, both print and ezines such as Expanded Horizons, 42Magazine, Sirr, and in the anthology Phase Time with Sonar4 publications.

The story I'm submitting was written at the Viable Paradise writer's workshop. Sitting in a lecture, I had a sudden image of a soul captured inside a crystal. The steampunk flowed from that and what could be a better fuel for a steampunk soul-sucking device than petrified pixies?

I hope that you enjoy it,

L. J. Geoffrion

This afternoon, I got a reply!

Hi, Lisa!

My apologies for not responding sooner to your submission. I'm afraid events in my personal life took me away from Untreed Reads for the second half of 2011, and I spent most of the first half of 2012 getting things back in order.

I've had the opportunity to read The Windows of His Soul and I must say I was conflicted. In the end, I did have to choose to pass on the story.

I think you've done an exceptional job with the actual use of language and literary expression, but I think it's almost TOO literary. As a result, I felt it loses something of the ability for the reader to relate to it, and my concern is that a reader would need to re-read the story several times to figure out exactly who is doing what and what's going on.

I'm sorry that this one is a no for me, but I must say that I'm hoping you'll consider sending more work to us in the future. We're currently closed to submissions, but hope to reopen later this fall. Be sure to keep an eye on our Submissions Page at our website for updates. Again, I'd REALLY like to read more from you. You have tremendous talent, and I'm sure the right project will appear for us to work on together.

Best,

Jay Hartman

Editor-in-Chief

Untreed Reads Publishing

Too literary! Even re-reading it makes me chuckle.... I dunno, I thought that it flowed pretty well, and nobody else said that they couldn't follow it. Huh.