Dear Intern
Thank you very much for the printed ‘With Compliments’ slip you sent, along with my returned manuscript in my self-addressed stamped envelope. It fell through my letterbox at 11.15 this morning with a now familiar heavy thud. It’s a pecualiar thing, Honourable Intern, but I can hear that thud anywhere in my house.
I appreciate the sentiments of your standard rejection reply, that you are not confident you’d be able to find a publisher willing to publish my work. You’re the professional after all, but I have a question before I leave you to get on with your dream-slashing: did you actually read it? But properly read it?
I know it’s easier not to stick your neck out and actually recommend a manuscript to one of those big, scary agents, furthermore I know that you think you could write a book a million times better than anything you’re reading – you’re fresh out of university after all, we all thought that then. That arrogance will pass.
I have a request, sweet Topshop-clad Intern: next time you pick up a manuscript and glance at it for a total of 30 seconds before chucking it away, stop and look at it again. Because in that careless gesture of yours, you’re trashing four years of somebody’s life, you’re trashing somebody’s dreams, perhaps a stable mental state or a happy marriage.
Mine is a good book, worth reading. I don’t take it personally that you don’t agree, we are all entitled to our own opinions. But I ask you, in future, to be brave. Take a chance.
I wish you all the very best of luck elsewhere.
Yours unrepresented,
Rosie Rowell
Rosie Rowell 
Hear hear!