Dear Writer, Congratulations! We found your essay, “Better Late Than Ever,” perfect for Blurb Magazine’s December Special Issue focused on Essential Procrastination and the Creative Process. Please look for a forthcoming e-mail to detail edits and suggested changes to your work.

The Editors

HOPEFULLY you’ve experienced the heady feeling of acceptance at some point in your life. For a writer, the finest version is an e-mail from the literary periodical in which you’ve longed to see your name and sullen black-and-white author photo. And now you’ve done it. You’ve spilled urgency and vulnerability all over the page. You’ve written beautifully about ugly things. You’re one step closer to that Pulitzer, or some genius grant. The acceptance e-mail fairly shimmers on the screen.

And then you receive the first set of editor’s comments.

Your bright and shining world dims at the efficient electronic marks that pierce your literary being to its heart. They didn’t like the title? Can’t they see