Allyson, I'd love to read it in any case, and especially if I can be useful over it. I don't know that I actually count as a member of fandom, as the term would be perceived by, say, the nice agent who gave you the feedback.

And I'd do my best to get it back to you as soon as possible, with commentary.

Only caveat is that I seem to be burning down the house with the new WIP. Having begun it twelve days ago and taken a day off, I'm at 32K words and up over 150 manuscript pages.

Allyson, that has to be one of the best rejection letters I've ever read. Good, constructive criticism without beating you down.

I remember this great article I wrote in college. I interviewed this B'hai woman from Iran and wrote about how she got her kids out of the country before the revolution, how she went back to tend to her sick husband (who was subsequently arrested and executed) and her 7 year long struggle to get out of the country. She eventually got smuggled out through the mountains and got an injury that required surgery doing so. Fascinating interviews sitting drinking sweet tea while this woman tut-tutted over her grandkids in their living room.

I sent out a dozen queries and got form letter rejections. Nobody even asked to read the article itself. Broke my young, journalist heart. It may have been the beginning of the end for me as a journalist.

Rejection sucks.

What Allyson just got barely qualifies as a rejection letter, though. I mean, this particular agent - one opinion, but the opening salvo of submissions - thinks it's solid. She thinks the book has an audience. She likes the basic way Allyson writes.

There are first-time submission responses out there - man. I've got friends with horror stories.

This was closer to a rave than a rejection. It's fucking brilliant. The book is there; it needs a unifier to sell it, and something that qualifies the snark as snark, rather than criticism, and it's there.

Dayum.

edited for bad typing. I wrote nearly three thousand words on my WIP this morning, and my hands hurt like hell. It's a bad MS day.

Allyson, I would be more than willing to read whatever I haven't already. BtVS and the associated 'verses are the only fandom I've ever been part of, and even that's only this board and the Beta. No cons, no events, nothing but some spirited discussion, and a few Firefly postcard mailings.

Plus, I'd just love to read some more of your essays.

That was not a straight-up rejection, Deb's right. She liked it enough to take time with it...

Amy! You have some serious sex and romance in your inbox, lady.

I got it, Deb, but I'm behind -- freelance stuff and the book and the Big Life Stuff I mentioned before. I'm going to read it tomorrow definitely -- tonight I'm too wiped out to even enjoy it.

Yep - it's a Whenever You Think It Will Be A Calgon Moment read.

Allyson, have you thought about giving stuff to Joyce to read? She's not nearly as fannish as Graham is.

Hey, Allyson. That's fantastic. Of course we'd rather not have a rejection letter, but as everyone else said, a good letter with some important information.

Anyway, I checked with my decidedly-not-in-fandom SO and he says he would be willing to read for you. Let him know what sort of feedback you want, specifically, but he would probably be able to give you some outsider input.