Best Rejection Letter Ever

Hey, I'm an artist. I apply for a lot of stuff, and I get rejected a lot. I don't like getting rejected, and sometimes it makes me cry, but it's part of the game. That said, if you have to tell people their entries were not chosen for something, there are good and bad ways to do it. We've all seen examples of what not to do, but today I received a great example of a kind, supportive and personal rejection. This letter *actually made me feel good*, so I am reprinting an excerpt here:

Dear Michele

Many thanks for taking part again in our Cover Contest. We had another great time here at [redacted], looking through more than 1,500 submitted images. The quality of the submissions was as high as ever, and the jury had the wonderfully difficult duty of pre-screening and evaluating all submissions. Only the 500 most promising pictures were included in the final round of scoring, which means that many good-quality submissions could not be considered in full detail.

I am glad to let you know that the jury decided to include all of your submissions in the final round:

“Blue Mitosis” (m-m-banks-33445.tif) reached place 102 in the non-scientific section of the contest (a perfect 10 in my book); “Petri Dishes 1” (m-m-banks-23765.tif) reached place 134 in the non-scientific part of the contest; “Blue and Green Petri Dishes” (m-m-banks44662.tif) was ranked 174th (another one of my personal favourites, actually).

Congratulations!

Like in previous years, the jury and the editors will also select a small number of images for future covers of [redacted]. Would you like us to keep your pictures under consideration for this selection, or would you rather have us delete the corresponding files from our records?

Thank you very much again for participating in our little contest. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Kind regards and best wishes

[Really nice guy]

Now everybody else do this.