Rejection Roundup: December

Hey, I haven't seen you since last year!

A reminder before we begin - I have not one but two NYC presentations of new plays in January! I’m beginning 2026 with a reading of my Uncle Vanya adaptation on January 9th and a staged workshop in NYC of my metatheatrical autobiographical fever dream of a play lisa; a fantasia January 16th & 17th at Theater Row - more details are at the end of this post, along with how you can book a New Years’ tarot reading with me.

Photo by Roven Images on Unsplash

New Year’s Eve is my third favorite holiday¹. I love staying up to midnight (a time that moves further and further away from my waking moments every year), counting down to the ball dropping, and scream-singing New York, New York along with Frank Sinatra as I watch Times Square explode with confetti and marriage proposals from the comfort and warmth of my living room. As I mentioned in my last post, I don’t look at January 1^st as the month to Start it All. It feels more like a continuation than a new chapter opening. New chapters can open on a Wednesday in the middle of July; life doesn’t generally follow a calendar. And this January feels like a beautiful extension more than anything. A new chapter will be opening later this year – but more on that as we get closer to it.

I did ‘plant seeds’ of new intentions on the Winter Solstice. I breathed some hopes for the new year into the air and performed a small ritual. In addition to being a writer and a theater artist, I’m a tarot reader and have been practicing my craft for about 15 years, so I spent some time chatting with my cards, too.

I’m drafting this roundup on December 30^th and crossing my fingers that I don’t receive a New Year’s Eve rejection like I did that one year. I hope your evening was everything you wanted it to be, whether celebrating with friends and family, out freezing your butt off in the middle of Times Square or sleeping and waking up to the new year today. I hope this post does not find you too hung over or dehydrated, and that you treat yourself to something special today. May today be everything you need it to be, whether it be an opening of a new chapter, a continuation of an old, or something in between.

Happy 2026.

And now, let’s roll into some submission numbers.

December’s Rejection Roundup looked a little something like this:

Which means I received 44 Rejections in total this year.

This is how they broke down by month:

Of those 44 Rejections, 6 of them saw me ranked in some way:

• Finalist 4 times - twice for the Bushwick Starr Reading Series, Berkely Rep’s Ground Floor, and New Roots Residency.

• Semi-finalist 2 times - the O’Neill and Local Lab.

• Runner up once - the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation residency.

And I received 3 Yes’s this year – Boomerang Theater granted me the commission I pitched, Good Apples Collective accepted Terri and Lily into their reading series and there’s one that’s a secret now and will be announced – soon!

Of those 61 submissions, I have heard back from 33 and haven’t heard back from 28 – hopefully I’ll hear back from some of those opportunities this year, but looking at last year’s spreadsheet, I still haven’t heard from 19 opportunities that I submitted to in 2024. So who knows!

But that’s the thing about theater – until it’s a No, it might always be a Yes.

---

I hit 61 submissions this year.

Most of them were to opportunities I found listed on The Playwrights’ Center’s website, where I am a member, and some of them were general submissions/solicited requests from theaters/folks sending plays on my behalf (i.e. I count the Boomerang Theater pitch as a submission because I prepared materials and would have followed up to receive a response).

Here’s a breakdown of the plays/proposals/poems I submitted:

And as a graph chart:

My acceptance rate for the year was 4%. That’s not a huge number! But also, it is. 4% is about the average acceptance rate I’ve been managing for the past couple of years and I’m always shocked when it gets that ‘high.’

But 4% acceptance rate does not reflect the fullness of my year. It was still so full and that’s because at a certain point, when you put your art out into the world, it creates its own momentum.

Because so much of that fullness came from folks reaching out to produce readings or workshops of my plays on their own. My published plays saw a bunch of productions and a couple of readings. Folks that read plays off New Play Exchange two years ago reached out for a meeting. You just never know where your art is in the world at any given moment, or who is saying your name in a room.

As I’ve said many a time in this Substack, and will continue saying until my fingers shrivel up and fall off my hands, there are many, many reasons why our plays aren’t chosen, and most of those reasons have nothing to do with the quality of our work. Sharing your art with the world creates new advocates who are saying our names and reading your work and following your career. In a world dominated by social media sharing, know that a lot of your work is happening without your even knowing.

But trust that it is happening.

Happy new year, all.

A few announcements before you go -

• Very excited to be jumping into the new year with this staged workshop of lisa; a fantasia. It’s a metatheatrical absurdist autobiographical fever dream of a play - and I’m in it! Three performances only, January 16 & 17th at Theater Row. You can find out more information and reserve tickets here.

• Tickets are available for Boomerang Theater’s reading of The Evergreen Players Proudly Present a New Version of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. January 9th at 7:30pm! Also in NYC.

• If you’d like to book a virtual tarot reading with me, send me an e-mail at ginafemiasecondemail@gmail.com! My rates are $55 for an hour, $30 for a half hour. Come with a question or an open inquisitiveness for the year.

• I have very limited availability for one-on-one dramaturgy sessions this month, but am eager to read your work! If you’d like to start the new year with a fresh set of eyes on your play, reach out!

• MERCUTIO LOVES ROMEO LOVES JULIET LOVES and The Virtuous Fall of the Girls From Our Lady of Sorrows are available to be purchased and licensed from Original Works Production! Please consider licensing these plays as part of your upcoming theater season.

Thank you for reading this new year’s day edition of The Rejected Writer! I can’t wait to see what the year will bring. Join me a little later this month for a post about creating your own Yes’s. Paid subscribers will get a long overdue Progress Report at the end of the month. Until then, protect your art - and your heart.

1. the first two being Halloween and Christmas!