50 iconic writers who were repeatedly rejected

This was posted on the Internet earlier this week and I planned to comment on it here on my blog but decided to pretty much let it speak for itself. I may never write a Great American Novel, let alone ever get one published. But here are 50 reasons I don't feel like a nincompoop.

Have a good weekend. Thanks for reading and don't give up writing.
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From Onlinecollege.org on May 17, 2010.

50 Iconic writers who were repeatedly rejected.

Here are 50 well-respected writers who were told no several times, but didn't give up.

1.Dr. Seuss: Here you'll find a list of all the books that Dr. Seuss' publisher rejected.
2.William Golding: William Golding's Lord of the Flies was rejected 20 times before becoming published.
3.James Joyce: James Joyce's Ulysses was judged obscene and rejected by several publishers.
4.Isaac Asimov: Several of Asimov's stories were rejected, never sold, or eventually lost.
5.John le Carre: John le Carre's first novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, was passed along because le Carre "hasn't got any future."
6.Jasper Fforde: Jasper Fforde racked up 76 rejections before getting The Eyre Affair published.
7.William Saroyan: William Saroyan received an astonishing 7,000 rejection slips before selling his first short story.
8.Jack Kerouac: Some of Kerouac's work was rejected as pornographic.
9.Joseph Heller: Joseph Heller wrote a story as a teenager that was rejected by the New York Daily News.
10.Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows was not intended to be published, and was rejected in America before appearing in England.
11.James Baldwin: James Baldwin’s Giovanni's Room was called "hopelessly bad."
12.Ursula K. Le Guin: An editor told Ursula K. Le Guin that The Left Hand of Darkness was "endlessly complicated."
13.Pearl S. Buck: Pearl Buck's first novel, East Wind: West Wind received rejections from all but one publisher in New York.
14.Louisa May Alcott: Louisa May Alcott was told to stick to teaching.
15.Isaac Bashevis Singer: Before winning the Nobel Prize, Isaac Bashevis Singer was rejected by publishers.
16.Agatha Christie: Agatha Christie had to wait four years for her first book to be published.
17.Tony Hillerman: Tony Hillerman was told to "get rid of the Indian stuff."
18.Zane Grey: Zane Grey self-published his first book after dozens of rejections.
19.Marcel Proust: Marcel Proust was rejected so much he decided to pay for publication himself.
20.Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen: Chicken Soup for the Soul received 134 rejections.
21.William Faulkner: William Faulkner's book, Sanctuary, was called unpublishable.
22.Patrick Dennis: Auntie Mame got 17 rejections.
23.Meg Cabot: The bestselling author of The Princess Diaries keeps a mail bag of rejection letters.
24.Richard Bach: 18 publishers thought a book about a seagull was ridiculous before Jonathan Livingston Seagull was picked up.
25.Beatrix Potter: The Tale of Peter Rabbit had to be published by Potter herself.
26.John Grisham: John Grisham's A Time to Kill was rejected by 16 publishers before finding an agent who eventually rejected him as well.
27.Shannon Hale: Shannon Hale was rejected and revised a number of times before Bloomsbury published The Goose Girl.
28.Richard Hooker: The book that inspired the film and TV show M*A*S*H* was denied by 21 publishers.
29.Jorge Luis Borges: It's a good thing not everyone thought Mr. Borges' work was "utterly untranslatable."
30.Thor Heyerdahl: Several publishers thought Kon-Tiki was not interesting enough.
31.Vladmir Nabokov: Lolita was rejected by 5 publishers in fear of prosecution for obscenity before being published in Paris.
32.Laurence Peter: Laurence Peter had 22 rejections before finding success with The Peter Principles.
33.D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers faced rejection, and D.H. Lawrence didn't take it easily.
34.Richard Doddridge Blackmore: This much-repeated story was turned down 18 times before getting published.
35.Sylvia Plath: Sylvia Plath had several rejected poem titles.
36.Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance faced an amazing 121 rejections before becoming beloved by millions of readers.
37.James Patterson: Patterson was rejected by more than a dozen publishers before an agent he found in a newspaper article sold it.
38.Gertrude Stein: Gertrude Stein submitted poems for 22 years before having one accepted.
39.E.E. Cummings: E.E. Cummings named the 14 publishers who rejected No Thanks in the book itself.
40.Judy Blume: Judy Blum received nothing but rejections for two years and can't look at Highlights without wincing.
41.Irving Stone: Irving Stone's Lust for Life was rejected by 16 different editors.
42.Madeline L'Engle: Madeline L'Engle's masterpiece A Wrinkle in Time faced rejection 26 times before willing the Newberry Medal.
43.Rudyard Kipling: In one rejection letter, Mr. Kipling was told he doesn't know how to use the English language.
44.J.K. Rowling: J.K. Rowling submitted Harry Potter to 12 publishing houses, all of which rejected it.
45.Frank Herbert: Before reaching print, Frank Herbert's Dune was rejected 20 times.
46.Stephen King: Stephen King filed away his first full length novel The Long Walk after it was rejected.
47.Richard Adams: Richard Adams's two daughters encouraged him to publish Watership Down as a book, but 13 publishers didn't agree.
48.Anne Frank: One of the most famous people to live in an attic, Anne Frank's diary had 15 rejections.
49.Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind was faced rejection 38 times.
50.Alex Haley: The Roots author wrote every day for 8 years before finding success.