Anyone, who has ever worked in publishing, will probably relate to this scene from Will Ferguson's Happiness. I know I can:

Edwin de Valu pulled the first manuscript out from the top of the pile. A stack of rejection letters was on hand, ready to go.

The first submission was from a writer in Vermont, and the cover letter began: "Hello, Mr. Jones!" (Jones was the fake name they gave out when writers phoned asking for the acquisitions editor. Having something arrive marked URGENT FOR MR. JONES! was a tipoff to reroute it to the slush pile.)

"Hello, Mr. Jones! I have written a fictional novel about—" and that was as far as Edwin got.

On behalf of Panderic Inc. I would like to thank you for your very interesting proposal. Unfortunately, after careful consideration...

Edwin took the next manuscript from the pile. "Dear Mr. Jones: Enclosed is my novel, The Moons of Thoxth-Aqogxnir. This is the first of a three-part trilogy that will—"

...and much editorial debate, we have regrettably concluded that your book does not meet our current editorial needs.

"Mr. Jones! My blockbuster book, Lawyer on the Lam, is a guaranteed bestseller, and is certainly much better than the kind of stuff Mr. Big Shot John Grisham writes and everyone thinks is so hot. P.S. I single-spaced the manuscript to save on paper. Hope you don’t mind. :-)"

...We wish you the best of luck placing your work with another publisher, and we are deeply sorry we weren’t able to offer you a contract at this time.

"Dear Sirs: How little we know about refrigerator repair maintenance, and yet what a long and fascinating history this field has."

...Have you considered submitting your manuscript instead to HarperCollins or perhaps Random House? (Panderic had been feuding with HarperCollins and Random House for years, and they kept redirecting their slush pile to each other on a regular basis.)

"Dear Mr. Jones: 'Watch out! Watch out! Watch out! Get down! Duck!' The red-hot bullets sprayed around Agent McDermit's head, trained to kill with his bear hands...That is the beginning of my action-packed adventure novel, To Kill a Killer! If you want to find out more, you'll have to ask me for the full manuscript and see for yourself." But Edwin inserted another standard "after careful consideration" letter, and that was the last he ever heard of Agent McDermit.

Mind you, Edwin did make note of the "bear hands" line to add to the bulletin board in the staff room, the one filled with odd clips and outrageously bad writing. The collection was known as The Wall of Bad Writing. Also known as, Gems from the Unsolicited and Unagented. Also known as, It Came from the Slush Pile!

Update: I have just caught up with last week's posts on Petrona, where the lovely Maxine points us to this real life tale of unsolicited woe: "The shocking truth about the slush pile." The comments—and there are a lot of them—reveal how little some "writers" know about publishing and how much bad writing assaults the unfortunate slush pile readers.