About Me — Alison McBain

Hello! Is this thing on? *tap tap*

Photo by author, of author. Used with author’s permission.

Prologue

Honestly, I never know what to say on these things. It’s like going to a party where you don’t know anyone, and you pretend you’re really cool so that people will talk to you when, in your head, you’re composing your next poem in Elvish to post on your D&D group’s message board.

Chapter 1: Being rejected for the write reasons

I’ve been writing nearly my whole life (there were the first three years, where I didn’t seem to get much writing done, but I’ve been making up for it ever since). However, I didn’t start writing seriously for publication until about 2013.

That was my goal: publication. And I was willing to take any amount of rejection in order to make it there.

And I did it — I got published! I have short stories, poems, book reviews, and essays at several magazines and journals. Even a couple of books to my name. (You can find links to all of them at my website.)

But here’s the thing: it didn’t come cheap. I can number my rejections in the thousands… yep, you read that right. Thousands. Part of the gig, unfortunately.

I’d love to be at the level of a Neil Gaiman or Stephen King, where people just have to see my name…