#0001 This substack — 100 Rejections Club — is part of a larger project.
Just a sliver of a larger pie?
Sometime last summer, Cati Porter (executive director of the Inlandia Institute) came up with the idea to form a group of writers to pursue rejections together in a supportive community. She wanted to change up the concept of rejection from bad to good.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard about how creatives could upend our reaction to the necessary rejection process in pursuit of publishing glory. When I stumbled on a low-cost writing workshop at the start of 2023, I met (virtually, on zoom) Sage Turtle, who is a Canadian storyteller, writer, and collector of creatives. Sage founded the Crow Collective Workshops during the 2020 pandemic lockdown, and the workshops are still going strong. This year she decided to share her submission statistics weekly on social media.
I love Sage’s transparency. I admire her bravery. And I wonder how she goes it alone.
Here with 100 Rejections Club, I intend to document what happens when writers and artists get together to support each other while pursuing rejections.
Will this community grant us the grace to push past the pain of rejection — to in fact rejoice in the no — and acknowledge that the right place and the right time will bring the acceptance that our creative self-expressions deserve? Let’s find out!