Oh good lord almighty, Author-friends, we knew you were clever and talented BUT REALLY THIS IS TOO MUCH, and, thanks to you, we have spent our ENTIRE WEEKEND IN AN AGONY OF INDECISION. But it was a deliciously happy agony, all the same. We laughed so hard we cried, ladies and gentlemen. We are so proud of you. For reals. EVERY ONE OF YOU deserves a pat on the back and a nice pastry (except for maybe one or two persons who mistook "incorporates foxy assistants" for "please pen a totally delusional and fairly creepy fantasy about the office help," AHEM).

We were expecting awesome, but we were not expecting quite so much awesome, and thus have revised our contest slightly by incorporating a small quantity of Additional Prizewinning Categories, as is our Prerogative. Because YOU have inspired US to be a little more amazing, ALL of the following longlist of persons may feel free to email us at rejectionistandyourmom [at] gmail.com with your mailing address and, as promised, either your query letter or the first five pages of your manuscript, and we will presently a. mail you a treatlike item and b. provide you with insightful critique of said query letter/pages BECAUSE THAT IS THE SORT OF GENEROUS, SELFLESS PERSON WE ARE.

And now! THE WINNERS!

HONORABLE MENTIONS; Or, The Longlist of True and Total Amazement

Best Musical Number: Jess Haines

Best Zombie/Best Insinuation That Reading Young Adult Literature Is More Fun Than Our Actual Job, Which is Definitely True: Rachel Menard

Best Usage of the Acrostic From Someone Who Probably Does Not Need Our Help With a Query Letter: Janet Reid

Most Pleasing Haiku: Hiero

Most Delightfully Succinct and Deliciously Subtle: scott g.f.bailey

Most Severely Mindblowing Misappropriation of Canonical Text To Create A Narrative That Cannot Exactly Be Described As a Form Rejection But Is So Amazing We Had To Make Up A Special Category For It: A TIE between Ink ("OMFG MY HEAD JUST MELTED," says Chérie L'Ecrivain) and Ulysses ("ULYSSES WINS, although he seems to be laboring under the misapprehension that you have cleavage," says Chérie L'Ecrivain)

AND NOW... DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!

The Right Honorable Compositor of THE MOST AMAZING Form Rejection in the History of the Universe is...

BRIAN BUCKLEY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Sir or Madam:
Please don't be offended.
Your query's horrendous.
We can't understand why you'd bother to send us a missive so deeply in need of an edit
we wanted to vomit as soon as we read it.
Its hook was insipid, its grammar revolting,
its font microscopic, its manner insulting,
its lies unconvincing, its structure confusing,
its efforts at comedy less than amusing.
We think that on average the writing is better
in comments on YouTube than inside your letter.
"No matter," we said to ourselves after retching,
"The novel itself may be perfectly fetching.
"On reading your pages we promptly were greeted
with something a wallaby might have excreted:
a plot so moronic, a premise so weary,
and characters so unrelentingly dreary,
descriptions so lifeless, a setting so boring
that only our nausea kept us from snoring.
In short: if your book was a vaccine for cancer,
its margins inscribed with Life's Ultimate Answer,
and all other novels on Earth were rejected,
we're still pretty sure we would not have selected
this terrible, awful, impossibly hated,
unspeakably horrible thing you've created.
But thanks for submitting! We hope you'll consider
alternative ways to get published (like Twitter)!

DEAR GOD, sir, YOU HAVE AMAZED US.

Thank you so much, Author-friends, for making our week. We adore you. ONWARD!