Aaron Elkins

Aaron Elkins writes:

If you can call a guy who gets his first novel published at 47 an overnight success, then I'm an overnight success.

I tend to be unloved at writers' conferences when the question of "how many rejections did you get" comes up, because the answer they want, of course, is "Seventeen," or "Forty-two," or some such.

As for me, when I finished my first novel, I sent out about fifteen query letters.  The first eleven resulted in no-thank-you's (I don't think you can call them rejections, because they hadn't seen the manuscript), but the twelfth -- to Ruth Cavin at Walker and Company -- received a response indicating interest.  I sent the MS in, and it was accepted.

Since then, I've "rejected" two of my own novels when I was about three-quarters through, but I've never had a submitted piece of work rejected.

Aaron Elkins is a former anthropologist and the author of the Gideon Oliver series. His book Old Bones won the Edgar Award for Best Novel.