Rejection

I’ve been sucking on the candy of bitter truths, and it’s left a bad taste in my mouth.

I tried washing it down with Greek Sangria, which gave me a bee stung face for two hours: numb from the buzz and puffy from the sting.

Between MCAS, a cornucopia of health issues, and a family history of alcoholism and addictions, I’m not much for substance abuse or other forms of escapism in the face of pain; but a little goes a long way as an emergency antiseptic when needed.

It was needed.

The hustle is endless and real for the independent entrepreneur, even the ones who embrace “slow living” and a life built around health, human connections, and more than just career success. Surviving as an artist means spending as much time figuring out how to fund your work as you do creating it. For women, who’ve given a significant portion of their lives to the unpaid labor of caregiving for family, friends, and community, it’s doubly so.

In our current social model, if we are not busy earning respect, we are busy losing it.

Generous grants, prestigious prizes, and benevolent benefactors have always been the weight-bearing beams of the working artist; because we, the foolishly courageous, are needed by those who are not. A life driven by fears and a need for security can create conformity and social obedience. When the assignment comes with a great risk, the best person for the job is the one with nothing to lose. Enter the poet, the comic, the sage, who can speak truth to power, through comedy and drama, create equity and justice, and lead those in the brave walk away from Omelas … with the prayer that community will provide food and shelter in exchange.

In February of 2026, we lost over half our incomes whilst our expenses doubled. We chose to leave America, not only to support our daughter who was accepted into a special Academy in England, but also in search of a more affordable cost of living for us, as we age and have fewer work opportunities.

In January of 2026, I prayed but moved my feet. I released my book FREEDOM on Audible. (Several people have told me they have listened to it, but I have yet to see a dime from it.)

In the year leading up to our move to Europe, I applied for several grants and prize money winnings related to my career. I received a few, lost most, and pinned my hopes on two—which I was a truly good fit for—that could have made a significant and immediate difference in my career and life in general. In addition to hardcover book sales, performances, and Substack subscriptions, this is how I make a living as a performing artist and writer.

In the grant proposals, I submitted four manuscripts I’d written that I’d like to have mainstream publishing for. I’ve also been working on concepts for a third one-woman show, designed to create social unity in a time of great political division. The big idea was to publish the manuscripts which were companions to the new show and tour with it across the EU to pay our expenses in a fashion that was aligned with our specific talents and purpose in life. My husband’s and daughter’s artistic contributions would also each have a stage of their own, as we work as an artist collective. In this way, we’d each be playing to our strengths, whilst maintaining creative autonomy in a joint venture that serves a greater good. The Unity Project, which uses our art as activism to follow in Finland’s successful footsteps to end homelessness, serves this role.

Pitching a piece for publication, in a literary magazine or mainstream newspaper, involves niche networking that’s often built on relationships and particular style models. Marketing is expensive. Prize money is highly competitive. Grant and application writing can take weeks, sometimes months, of work on proposals and researching projected budgets. It often requires very specific professional letters of recommendation, which have to be delicately sought, exhaustive essays or personal interviews, and an up-to-date portfolio of curated work in print, film, and other forms of media presentation. All of this is unpaid work (marketing is actually an expense) that most every career writer and artist will endure.

On Monday, I was notified that of the 4,600 applicants for The Guggenheim Fellowship who applied, I was not one of the 223 fellows nominated.

On Tuesday, I was informed that, along with the other 2,837 poets and roughly 50,000 poems submitted, none of the three manuscripts I presented to Rattle won publication.

I was crushed. This news flattened me like a cartoon character, and it took me a few days to figure out why it hit me so hard. It wasn’t a sucker punch to my worth. I’m very secure in knowing the inherent worth of every being on this planet. When it comes to rejection, I’m as resilient as a trampoline; I know how to bounce back from it.

I don’t take rejection personally nor believe in comparing myself to others. I’ve grown out of an exhausting, learned, Western, competitive nature, in favor of a practiced embrace of Eastern, spiritual nonattachment.

I was born with rejection as a companion in the womb. Neither parent wanted me, and my grandparents raised me by default. Then, I entered a career of being an artist, in which rejection is merely an occupational hazard. Rejection is the neighbor I don’t invite in but have learned to live a peaceful coexistence with.

I don’t even crave the platter of top five platitudes commonly served with rejection disappointment:

#5 “Rejection is protection.”

#4 “It’s only failure if you never try.”

#3 “If you don’t quit, you can’t lose.”

#2 “Right project, wrong time”

… And coming in at number one:

#1 “Everything happens for a reason.”

None of these expressions brought me any comfort or solace.

This rejection hit me hard because I’m in survival mode, and I saw each of these opportunities as a way out to support myself and my child with dignity and self-respect.

Since arriving in the UK, with the unforeseen complicated renter laws that are changing in May, we have lived with housing insecurity. We had to resort to living in an Airbnb since we only have permission to stay in England until August; and therefore, a proper rental lease has not yet been possible. We never know, from month to month, if we will be forced to leave the Airbnb we’re in and be homeless.

I was just notified that we will have to move in 10 days, and I have no idea where we are going to go.

It’s humiliating to be middle-aged and live this close to the edge. I really needed a win and hoped I’d receive it through the grants I’d applied for. Believe me, if there were anything else I could do to make a living, I would. My aptitude test in high school indicated that I’d make a fine brain surgeon, judge, or pilot. Instead, I became what I inherently was, a philosopher, a mystic, and the court jester. I entertain through enlightenment, creating social change by example. There is no job I am better suited for as a public servant than the one I already possess.

As Percy Shelley stated, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” My words helped to create safer gun laws whilst still protecting the Second Amendment. As a bold woman of courage who has suffered as the scapegoat for being the truth-teller, whistleblower, and defender of the underdog, I quote Jidda Krishnamuri, “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” I write about all the things we need to stand up to, the tables we need to flip, extend or shorten as need be, to create true equity.

My plays created awareness for the plight of women’s rights all around the globe. Many audience members have told me that it was my writing that taught them about bride burning in India, the female infanticide in China, the vital work by Dr. Catherine Hamlin in Africa to treat young girls with fistulas because they were forced to give birth before their small bodies were able to, the politics of children placed in foster care, and the reality of homelessness and how we contribute to it whether we realize it or not. I don’t just write about the problems, I write solution-based journalism in the form of poems, plays, and essays. I research how we can make the changes we need to create a more just world for us all to live in and share them with my readers and audiences.

As a writer, and performing artist, I have no pension, retirement fund, or even a savings account. Following my dreams in order to stay alive has been a path of successful feasts that paid for credit card famines. Managing my (and my family’s) medical conditions, aka staying alive, is my first full time job. My career as an artist is my second full time job. When you’re immunocompromised, there is no energy left for a third, standard “money job”—I know because I’ve had many. Those jobs taught me that my life wasn’t living if I had to give up expressing myself creatively just to make money in order to exist—that’s not a life, that’s a hamster wheel prison existence and it nearly killed me. “Balanced” is a word of privileged health. Disabilities take more time to navigate and negotiate than people realize. Art, by contrast isn’t a privilege, it’s a necessity. Art is my prajna. There is no work I could do that is more valuable and positively contributing to society than the work I already do as an artist. In fact, not doing this work would be a disservice.

Every business needs financial investors to survive. When they ask for money, no one accuses them of “mooching.” I believe that who I am as a person, and the work I create, is a worthy investment that benefits us all. I’m at the mercy of those who invest in me, who offer their financial support, so that I can provide for my family.

I know of no other way to live except by faith.

Let me live among the bohemians, artists, and free thinkers who challenge the status quo, who speak up and speak out, who remember the power of one and that they are the one with the power. Allow the poor to sit at the table—those who do not fear risking it all because they are unattached to status and possessions. We are not financially challenged because we have a “poverty mentality” but because we have a “oneness mentality.” They, we, I take to heart the prayer, “Give me this day my daily bread” and do not hoard but rather take what I need and give whatever is beyond that to someone else in need.

This is community.

I know there are those who might be thinking, “Yeah, but The Guggenheim Fellowship and a published chapbook by Rattle, they are so competitive; maybe they are just out of your league.” I get that, and maybe is right. While I may not have some of the impressive credentials many of the winners have, I’ve been doing this a long time. I didn’t start my publishing journey by first submitting my work to The New Yorker, I started with the local paper, worked my way up through various publications, had some success under my belt before that first submission.

I’ve paid my dues.

I completed my first manuscript in 1985, my first critically acclaimed play was produced in 1993, and my first award-winning play and performance was in 2003. Since then, I’ve written numerous scripts, books, songs, and given many performances. You may not know my name, because for many years I had a stalker who threatened my life and my child. I needed the world to not know my name. I don’t need that anymore.

In 2005, my husband laminated a note he wrote me and turned it into a bookmark to remind me of the power my words have had on those who’ve read them:

“You take people out of their comfort zone…

And then you provide them with a comfort they’ve never known.”

I know my work is worthy and has value because I see other people profiting from my words all the time. I’d just like to get a piece of the pie I made, in addition to those who pilfer and plagiarize—and that’s the bitter truth I referred to that I’ve been sucking on. Saying aloud that celebrities and other social media creators profit from my words makes me sound bitter, yet saying aloud that they have profited from my words when I have not is also the truth.

Last year, my work on plagiarism and AI was quoted in the Guardian, The Cut, Vox, theSkimm’, BestLife Magazine, as well as on various social media outlets, popular podcasts, and by successful content creators.

I never saw a penny.

This year, a major publication, known for paying their writers a salary upwards of $300,000, reached out to interview me on a story I broke last year that went viral. I asked for a byline. They said no. I asked for financial compensation as a consultant, as I was providing all the facts and source material their piece was to be built upon. They said, no. The publication has 1.5 million subscribers. My payment is that my name will be shared. Can someone please let my grocery store know?

Newbies in the arts are the beachcombers of the shoreline, getting their feet wet. The successful artists are the ships on the horizon where everyone points their sails. The overlooked majority of artists are the seasoned surfers in the depths of the sea who ride the waves indefinitely. We’re no longer green, but evergreen. We may never be famous, but we spend our entire lives working as writers and artists who often become educators, guiding the future generations who follow in our finned footsteps.

There is no retirement for the talented who express themselves creatively. This leaves those who have yet to find financial success sometimes feeling like a has-been who never was but still longs to be. For the artist and the writer, it’s not a pursuit, it’s who we are; it’s not a hobby, it’s a career; it’s not a dream, it’s our reality; and just like everyone else in the world, we have to find a way to pay the bills in the process.

Thank you for reading, recommending, and rating my work with your wonderful five-star reviews.

Thank you for your sliding scale paid subscriptions, from the $11 needed bread and butter crew to the $222 angel benefactors and all those in between and beyond. You make such a significant difference in our lives.

To those who have successful book deals (I see your names on my subscriber list), who are able to give me a hand up, please do. Your sister needs a lift; and where I ride, you ride too.

P.S. In writing this and noticing the publishing date… Happy Birthday to my beautiful, strong, and talented niece, Krystal. Auntie loves you.

Thanks!

BUY the audiobook FREEDOM

Read ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reviews

Buy a coffee (subscription is better)

Read the book FREEDOM ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Watch Sage perform - please subscribe

After I witnessed an unknown poet have her work usurped, I was given the legal advice to place the following © date and statement on all my work: This concept/theory/poem is original to Sage Justice © April 2026. If you use it, please give credit and link to original work. Thank you. www.SageWords.org

My book, FREEDOM, is now available as an audiobook on multiple global platforms for your convenience. When I receive heartfelt feedback, like that from Tara Christina it makes all the hard work worth it. Connection and making people feel held through the experience of being human is one of the most rewarding aspects of being an author.