Below is a scan of my first rejection letter from 1989 (seven years before receiving my Ph.D.). An avid crossword puzzler, I decided to try my hand at creating acrostics (those puzzles where you answer the word clues and transfer the letters into a grid to reveal a quote). Anyway, I sent the puzzle to the NY Times Sunday Magazine, but the puzzle editor, Eugene Maleska, sent me the hand-written rejection that you see below. I immediately knew that I wanted to make a living of being rejected, so I became and academic economist....
