The Rejection Dividend
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pitched to GQ and Esquire. I’ve emailed current and former editors, getting high off the rare instances when I’d receive a direct rejection. I’ve reached out to peers for advice. Hell, I’m one non-response away from tracking down the Condé Nast janitorial staff and bribing them to smuggle me inside (it’d be a tasteful, simple plan: a cleaning cart with a sheet draped over to cover me, then, I suppose, find an empty desk and play Catch Me If You Can until the wheels fall off). And don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. As an editor, I empathize with the steady stream of pitches flooding in an inbox (some good, many not). It’s overwhelming, and utterly impossible to expect every pitch to elicit a response, let alone an acceptance.
Still, there’s a uniquely painful sting that comes with putting yourself out into the world and having the world tell you, in no uncertain terms, that you’re just “not what it’s looking for right now” (at the risk of sounding petty, the first two articles I stumbled across this morning for both storied publications were “Christopher Nolan Banned Uggs on His Set, But You Should Still Get a Pair” and “The 6 Best Pimple Patches for Men” — and who said traditional media is washed?). But perhaps the most biting form of rejection is the one that follows initial acceptance. There’s a reason “Past performance is not indicative of future results” is mandated by the SEC for investment ads. Instinctively, many of us are fuelled by blinding optimism; a door opens ajar, and within that sliver of light, we see the sun. When I wrote my first piece for GQ last year, I thought, “So, this is it: the first and final step to becoming Anna Wintour’s successor, as it was prophesied.” I imagined the assigning editor wiping my name off a whiteboard under the column “Bad Writers” (alongside the other losers who Condé Nast had not yet recognized) and rewriting under the column “Good Writers,” where I now rightly resided.
The week after the piece went live, I sent in a new slate of pitches, expecting a reply along the lines of “Yes, please!” or “You’re hired, your VISA is in the mail!” And yet, once again, I received a polite response letting me know that they weren’t quite a fit. Coincidentally (and not in a false “Oh, what a coincidence!” sense that a stalker might say to their stalkee at a bus stop run-in), I happened to be in New York that same month to race the Brooklyn Half Marathon. I took a few days off after the race to stick around the city, hoping to cobble together some fresh inspiration. As I was walking by the New York Public Library, I saw enormous banners hanging outside advertising an exhibit on The New Yorker’s 100th anniversary. It felt like both a sign from the universe and the best way to kill a few hours before meeting up with friends, so I made my way through the enormous vaulted doors and into the sanctuary.
The exhibit itself was staggering, and it humbled me to see just how much painstaking work goes into creating a true institution. There were fact-checkers who were fact-checkers for 40 years, not desperately trying to scramble up the masthead but rather contentedly mastering a deeply necessary craft. There were writers radically capturing the pulse of the city, uninhibited by advertiser guidelines or SEO considerations. And, most notably to my fractured ego, there were documents showing some of the world’s greatest writers getting unceremoniously rejected for years, decades, and in the most tragic of cases, entire lifetimes.
As I research now, I can’t find the writer’s name, but housed in a simple glass frame was a rejection letter from William Shawn (The New Yorker’s second editor) sent to (as the caption read) one of Hollywood’s most established screenwriters throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s. Shawn wrote apologetically, telling him that he so appreciated him continuing to submit but that, once again, this latest pitch wasn’t quite a fit. The caption noted two other details:
The famed screenwriter had been submitting pieces for literal decades, since Harold Ross (the magazine’s founding editor) ran the publication.
This was the last rejection letter the screenwriter ever received. He died before ever making it into The New Yorker’s pages. This letter, now immortalized in an exhibit celebrating the very magazine that had so consistently denied him, was as close as he would get to a byline. My goodness, talk about salt in the wound.
Although I can’t find his name, there are many such stories, some of which end in less heartbreaking fashion. Cartoonist David Sipress spent 25 years pitching before getting his opportunity, Bob Mankoff faced over 500 rejections before becoming The New Yorker’s cartoon editor for 20 years, and Will Santino sold his first drawing after 400 attempts. But as I walked out of the library and back on the sunny Manhattan streets, the lesson didn’t feel as neatly satisfying as “good things take time.” That feels doubly entitled, as if both “good things” and “time” itself are guaranteed as birthrights (it also reads like something that’d be carved into a piece of driftwood, sold on Etsy for $150, and hung in a subpar Airbnb). But we are, in most practices, merely entitled to the pursuit. That’s about it.
It’s as true in writing as it is in any other craft. This week, the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) announced a new ruling designed to “reward” runners who achieve a Boston Marathon “qualifier” but whose time is not faster than the cut-off. Roughly 1,000 athletes will be selected at random for entry through this new pathway, with the total number of official race entrants remaining capped at 30,000.
Somewhere in the afterlife, William Shawn and that nameless, byline-less screenwriter are rolling violently in their graves. If you couldn’t tell from my pointed quotation marks, I see the new rule as an affront not only to the legacy of the Boston Marathon but to the concept of excellence itself. Before I explain my disdain, I should note that I haven’t actually run the Boston Marathon, which is precisely why I’m qualified to hold the opinion.
As a runner (and a fairly competitive one, if I might be so bold), I, too, have dreams of one day running the iconic course. But the truth is, every year, that dream gets a little less possible for not just myself, but for all athletes. Runners are getting faster, races receive more applicants than ever before, and yet the streets of Boston haven’t hit a miraculous growth spurt. There can only be so many entrants. Naturally, as people qualify with faster times, the bar gets raised. What was once a surefire qualifying time 20 years ago simply doesn’t cut it anymore. Some runners are adapting. Others aren’t. That’s evolution, not regression. For years, the running world accepted and embraced the cold reality that not all dreams come to fruition. That is, in essence, what defines a pursuit: aspiration without certainty. But this announcement shifts the conversation entirely.
When faced with pitches from the world’s greatest writers, the B.A.A. would urge The New Yorker to begin by publishing the best 300 pieces. And for the remaining 10 articles? Go into the “Meh, Good Enough” pile, grab 10 at random, and call this growth.
Anecdotally, I’m sure many of us know seasoned runners who trained a lifetime to one day qualify for Boston and never quite made the cut. For a long time, that was okay. They were still a runner. The pursuit still had value. Now, those who might have missed the cut by a single second could be shoved aside in place of 1,000 runners who ran dramatically slower times. If I were the Running Czar, my solution would have been simpler: if there are 1,000 extra bibs, give them to the next-fastest runners (divided evenly between gender and age group categories).
I think what sent a pang of disappointment surging through my veins when I read the announcement was the manipulation of language. In the B.A.A.’s words, “Athletes whose qualifying times were not faster than the cut-off for their age group and gender will automatically be eligible for the Boston Qualifier Selection.” If there is some philosophical or linguistic difference between a “cut-off” time and a “qualifying” time, then it eludes me (perhaps a full-time Condé Nast writer would be able to parse it). As I posted on Instagram the day it was announced, “I’m not trying to be a dick but if you ‘miss the cut,’ then you inherently did not ‘qualify.’ There are truly one trillion other races that runners have access to — this one is iconic primarily because it’s very hard to get into. It’s getting harder to get into because people are getting faster. That feels like something we don’t have to diminish, apologize for, or placate.”
A few days later, I still stand by every word, especially the first handful: I’m really, truly not trying to be a dick. When it comes to conversations of accessibility, there is much to be critiqued in the running world, whether it's gender (or genderless) equality, the economics of the sport, the safety of athletes, support for disabled runners; the list goes on. But what the B.A.A. is introducing is not an issue of accessibility, but aspiration.
I worry that when we start to negotiate our definitions of “excellence,” the pursuit itself becomes endangered. One of my favourite quotes comes from former boxer and middleweight champion, “Marvelous” Martin Hagler: “It's tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at 5:00 AM when you've been sleeping in silk pyjamas.” I’m sure the 1,000 runners who get randomly selected will tell friends, family, and most destructively, themselves that they qualified for the Boston Marathon. I understand why. I would too. But in the years that follow, what happens to the aspiration that once fuelled them? Has their thirst for success been quenched, even if the ingredients are compromised, like a forlorn sailor desperately drinking seawater, not because it’s hydrating but because it mimics hydration?
If I may paraphrase “Marvelous” Martin Hagler: “It’s tough to chase faster times with a heavy medal already hanging off your neck.” And for those who might be rolling their eyes: it is indeed that deep. Excellence is potent and dangerously delicate, almost binary; once it’s saturated or compromised, it becomes something else entirely. It’s fine to fall short — that’s the nature of taking great leaps. But to fall short and believe this, in and of itself, is a form of excellence, is the mirage that keeps us from continuing to leap altogether.
To tell you (and myself) the truth, I have yet to write an excellent GQ pitch. Sure, I’ve come up with fun concepts and pieces I believe worthy of GQ.com in 2026 (“6 of the Best Scarves That Go Around Your Neck” is just one of countless ideas). But to tell myself that, in a just world, I’d find groundbreaking success if only they were to open up a lottery system for 1,000 “pretty good” pitches a year is a surefire way to die an average writer.
We’re entitled to the act of writing, entitled to run freely, entitled to put ourselves in the arena and attempt the work. But to trivialize excellence and rebrand it as equal opportunity is a disservice to everyone in pursuit, regardless of their success or failure. An excellent story breaks through a cluttered inbox, just as an excellent race leaves no room for error. It’s the very fact that good work does not guarantee excellence that makes it worth chasing in the first place.
