"Since he was a graduate student in the early 1980's, Arthur Gonzalez, an American artist, saved his rejection letters after making them into cathartic art by retaliating with reactionary drawings. With tongue in cheek, the results are often humorous, ironic and cynical. The ability to stay upright once rejection hits, marks the longevity of a career. This book is a chronicling of such an endeavor"--P. 1.

Katherine Anne Porter and the Art of Rejection

The inspiring, relatable, and sometimes outrageous true story of how one man used 100 days of rejection therapy to overcome fear and dare to live more boldly “Rejection Proof smashes fear in the face with a one-two punch. You’ll laugh out loud at Jia’s crazy social experiments, but you’ll also go away thinking differently about what you can accomplish.”—Chris Guillebeau, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Pursuit Jia Jiang’s TEDx Talk, “What I learned from 100 days of rejection,” has amassed over ten million views! Jia Jiang came to the United States with the dream of being the next Bill Gates. But despite early success in the corporate world, his first attempt to pursue his entrepreneurial dream ended in rejection. Jia was crushed and spiraled into a period of deep self-doubt. Jia realized that his fear of rejection was a bigger obstacle than any single rejection would ever be; he needed to find a way to cope with being told “no” that wouldn’t destroy him. Inspired by rejection therapy, which uses similar modalities as exposure therapy to desensitize you to the effects of being rejected, he undertook the “100 days of rejection” experiment, during which he willfully sought out rejection on a daily basis—from requesting a lesson in sales from a car salesman (no) to asking a flight attendant if he could make an announcement on the loud speaker (yes) to his famous request to get Krispy Kreme donuts in the shape of Olympic rings (yes, with a viral video to prove it). Over the course of one hundred rejection attempts, Jia realized that even the most preposterous wish might be granted if you ask the right way. He learned the secrets to making successful requests, tactics for picking the right people to approach at the right time, and strategies for converting an initial no into something positive. More important, Jia discovered ways to steel himself against rejection and live more fearlessly—skills that can’t be derailed by a single setback. The changes Jia experienced from his rejection therapy experiment went far beyond becoming more successful in business; he realized that he could apply these techniques to get more out of his relationships with friends, family, and even casual encounters with strangers. Filled with great stories and valuable insight, Rejection Proof shares the secrets of Jia’s rejection journey, distilling each lesson into a strategy that can be used in any negotiation or pitch.

Who hasn’t felt the sting of rejection? It doesn’t take much for your feelings to get hurt—a look or a tone of voice or certain words can set you ruminating for hours on what that person meant. An unreturned phone call or a disappointing setback can really throw you off your center. It’s all too easy to take disappointment and rejection personally. You can learn to handle these feelings and create positive options for yourself. Don’t Take It Personally! explores all forms of rejection, where it comes from, and how to overcome the fear of it. Most of all, you’ll learn some terrific tools for stepping back from those overwhelming feelings. You’ll be able to allow space to make choices about how you respond. —Understand the effect that anxiety, frustration, hurt, and anger have on your interactions with others. —De-personalize your responses and establish safe personal boundaries that protect you from getting hurt. —Practice making choices about the thoughts you think and the ways you respond to stressful situations. —Understand and overcome fear of rejection in personal and work relationships. Elayne Savage explores with remarkable sensitivity the myriad of rejection experiences we experience with friends, co-workers, lovers, and family. Because her original ideas have inspired readers around the world, Don’t Take It Personally! has been published in six languages.

Inspired by Lowell's Life Studies, Teicher explores troubled spaces between loved ones as a son becomes a husband and father.

In Venus in Exile renowned cultural critic Wendy Steiner explores the twentieth century's troubled relationship with beauty. Disdained by avant-garde artists, feminists, and activists, beauty and its major symbols of art—the female subject and ornament—became modernist taboos. To this day it is hard to champion beauty in art without sounding aesthetically or politically retrograde. Steiner argues instead that the experience of beauty is a form of communication, a subject-object interchange in which finding someone or something beautiful is at the same time recognizing beauty in oneself. This idea has led artists and writers such as Marlene Dumas, Christopher Bram, and Cindy Sherman to focus on the long-ignored figure of the model, who function in art as both a subject and an object. Steiner concludes Venus in Exile on a decidedly optimistic note, demonstrating that beauty has created a new and intensely pleasurable direction for contemporary artistic practice.