Dear Publisher again

Dear Publisher again:



I am sorry to bother you like this, but I just wanted to make sure you didn't inadvertently, by accident, publish my writing. Probably in a moment of unwarranted optimism I sent along a parcel of my work, thinking, how bad could it be if you published my writing.

Oh my god it would be terribly bad indeed!

I do not want the blood of your mighty publishing empire on my hands. And though I know that you, a respectable publisher, would not under any circumstances intentionally publish my essays, I also understand that Americans are absolutely crazy for, in a wild lather over, the written word right now. It is an unprecedented cultural moment, and in your desperate haste to provide enough product for their insatiable reading lust, someone, maybe an assistant editor who was under an onslaught of pressure to find more publishable writing, simply rushed out whatever manuscript they could lay a hand on in the office. What if my stack of brilliant but unpopular ravings, with a big red scrawl (in your own hand!) on the cover, reading "For immediate incineration only!" got rerouted by virtue of its heft or its accurate typing?  As bookstores across the nation clamor for new volumes of just about anything, what if your bleary eyed printing staff rolled off 100,000 copies of all six volumes of my collected works off your presses?

You've got to stop this before it's too late! You'll be bankrupted!

I'm so sorry. Sometimes I have these spells, and I'm certain that all that matters is my genius. I get so excited about it. And though I try to keep all stamps hidden from myself just in the event of these situations, my enthusiasm tears down barriers and before you know it, decent, respectable, god fearing publishers like yourself are faced with my excitable ravings introducing my work like it's the second coming. Ravings completely blind to the economic disaster of publishing work that no one will buy!

 I wake up the next morning thinking "What have I done?"

In the past I have relied upon the good sense of publishers like you, but how long can my luck hold? I don't know how many employees your esteemed publishing house employs, buy you have got to alert every last one of them. Their jobs are at stake. Find my manuscript! Burn it. Soak the ashes in acid. Hire a hypnotist to erase your memories of any stray bits you may have read. Seal the doors of your warehouse and quarantine it for at least a week. This is unsaleable material. It will bankrupt you and leave you a broken pauper. Your dog will starve. Your collection of rare first editions will be repossessed and you will never have the glorious privilege of providing reading material to the general public ever again, which is a fun thing to do, even if their taste if a bit iffy.

I have done what I can do. The ball's in your court now.


Praying fervently,



F. Calypso, unpopular genius author