And now, a word in defense of literary journals.
This might seem like the most unlikely of places to defend these magazines, given my splendid history with them (also, see here). They reject me pretty much at every turn, do not send tenderly written notes of praise, and often leave me insane with anger wondering how, just how, some pieces of inferior quality get happy acceptance but not mine.
The literary journal is one of our favorite targets, though such animals are often weak, defenseless creatures, usually with a reader base of less than 500, at least half of which are libraries. They serve as a platform for emerging voices and unrecognized brilliance, and more often than not, are a labor of love. You don’t get wealthy by publishing a lit magazine. You can’t make much of a living at it, either.
We love to hate them, of course, because in our minds, they love to hate us. Any writer who has spent ages crafting a story, sent it to something along the lines of Pigathon, The Literary Journal of the University of North Plattsville State Community College, and receives a form rejection letter knows the feeling. We page through Pigathon and say, “I can write better than this shit,” and when our stories are not accepted, it serves a double rejection – no publishing, but also no validation that our writing is any good.
Oh, yeah?
Worse are those journals—you fucks know who you are—who have the chutzpah to send a subscription card with the form rejection letter.
You’re not good enough to make it into Pigathon, your hours of toil mean nothing to us, and in fact, we’re having a good laugh right now at your expense. To think you had any talent!
Also, send us $10 for two issues of Pigathon, the literary journal that the online magazine Bloody Hell Snot called “interesting.”
For some of us, an encouraging word is all we ask for, a molecule of kindness, and the indignity of rejection along with a request to take my money…hell, it’s like being turned down for Senior Prom and then having the girl demand you to pay for her dress. (She’s going with the quarterback instead.)
But in the spirit of fairness, as well as my sanity, I will say that even those magazines that send you the mimeographed note are not necessarily evil by force of their actions. It’s a numbers game: some literary journals get hundreds of submissions a month; others get that many in a week. It’s amazing that anything gets read at all.
Many of these submissions are actually pretty good, I am told. Probably 1 percent are extraordinary, 10 percent excellent, 50 percent are good or very good, and the rest are fair, poor, or wretchedly, pathetically awful. (The top-tier have this thing called “agented fiction,” and while it is possible to get published over the transom at The New Yorker or The Paris Review, it’s more likely that a literary unknown will run into a famous writer on the street, start up a conversation, and suddenly have a new mentor named John Updike.)
In addition, most lit mags are staffed by unpaid volunteers, some who are actually quite intelligent and are above 19 years of age, and who take their work very seriously. They don’t reject you out of spite.
Why, you ask, am I doing this? Heaping tender praise upon what has been a Bookfraud bogeyman, a beast characterized as more evil than the hypothetical spawn of George W. Bush and Ann Coulter (an offspring so scary that young Damien the 666th would hide under the covers at the mere mention of its name?).
My “conversion” began when I ran into an acquaintance at a party about a week ago. This person also happens to be an editor of a pretty well-known lit magazine. The editor (who has rejected one of my stories) told me that the pub was getting about 100 to 200 manuscripts a week. Surprisingly, most of them aren’t total garbage–half or more were average or not bad, a much smaller percentage were merely good, and very good, yet fewer still are truly excellent.
Not this year
The editor also related a story of working with a writer for weeks on a story, giving the writer detailed help on rewrites, only to have him pull the story at the end. Bad behavior works both ways.
In a way, that conversation crystallized a thought buried deep inside the soul, something I knew to be true but didn’t want to admit. The competition for many of these literary journals is extraordinarily high, and sometimes, the numbers just don’t work. You just have to take your rejections, drink a Scotch, and move on.
If you’re the editor of Pigathon, however, remember this. You have one of my stories, but I have your Social Security number. So if your credit rating suddenly tanks, you have no one but yourself to blame.
I’d like to say that I now understand both sides of this sick, sad little dance of submit & reject, but the truth is, I’ve had to solicit about 99% of the pieces that have appeared in my journal. It’s been kind of nice, but I do dread having to send out my first rejection.
I read an article in Poets & Writers a while back (I think it was P&W) about the recent trend of some contests not picking winners because the submissions are so awful. My first thought was “I wish I’d known they were having trouble finding good submissions, I would have sent something in.” That was immediately followed by “my god, what if they still wouldn’t have picked a winner? That would mean I DO suck.”
I think I should try to publish in France. I don’t have a link to the article anymore, but the quote from Olivier Nora with the publisher Grasset went “if there’s even a hint of talent, we jump on it.” — Ah, to be desired – and to find out if I even have a hint of talent.
France, eh? I’ll have to remember that.
Thanks for shedding some light on this. I hate impersonal rejections. They’re all, “it’s not you, it’s me” but that doesn’t tell me anything. I’d rather they just said straight out “You suck”. That, at least, I could deal with.
Would it take so long to say “You don’t suck much, but there were 25 others better than you, so at least you have a number to obsess about”?
Probably.
Really, the only way to do this is to start a literary magazine of your own. That way, you can publish yourself under any name you wish in every issue. Or would that be too much like cheating?
I’d like to say that I now understand both sides of this sick, sad little dance of submit & reject, but the truth is, I’ve had to solicit about 99% of the pieces that have appeared in my journal. It’s been kind of nice, but I do dread having to send out my first rejection.
I read an article in Poets & Writers a while back (I think it was P&W) about the recent trend of some contests not picking winners because the submissions are so awful. My first thought was “I wish I’d known they were having trouble finding good submissions, I would have sent something in.” That was immediately followed by “my god, what if they still wouldn’t have picked a winner? That would mean I DO suck.”
I think I should try to publish in France. I don’t have a link to the article anymore, but the quote from Olivier Nora with the publisher Grasset went “if there’s even a hint of talent, we jump on it.” — Ah, to be desired – and to find out if I even have a hint of talent.
I’d like to say that I now understand both sides of this sick, sad little dance of submit & reject, but the truth is, I’ve had to solicit about 99% of the pieces that have appeared in my journal. It’s been kind of nice, but I do dread having to send out my first rejection.
I read an article in Poets & Writers a while back (I think it was P&W) about the recent trend of some contests not picking winners because the submissions are so awful. My first thought was “I wish I’d known they were having trouble finding good submissions, I would have sent something in.” That was immediately followed by “my god, what if they still wouldn’t have picked a winner? That would mean I DO suck.”
I think I should try to publish in France. I don’t have a link to the article anymore, but the quote from Olivier Nora with the publisher Grasset went “if there’s even a hint of talent, we jump on it.” — Ah, to be desired – and to find out if I even have a hint of talent.
France, eh? I’ll have to remember that.
Thanks for shedding some light on this. I hate impersonal rejections. They’re all, “it’s not you, it’s me” but that doesn’t tell me anything. I’d rather they just said straight out “You suck”. That, at least, I could deal with.
France, eh? I’ll have to remember that.
Thanks for shedding some light on this. I hate impersonal rejections. They’re all, “it’s not you, it’s me” but that doesn’t tell me anything. I’d rather they just said straight out “You suck”. That, at least, I could deal with.
I would be interested to know what percentage of editors work with writers on short stories for literary journals. The editor of the LitJo on which I recently participated as a member of the editorial board was adamant that a piece had to be nearly perfect before we could even consider it. She had to REEEAALY like a lot of qualities in a piece to even consider working with an author on small rewrites.
I found this particularly interesting because it’s an annual. Once a year this puppy goes out. The time can’t be found to work with a few authors or pieces that need just a little polishing when it only comes out once a year? We passed on a lot of terrific stuff because she believed much of it required extensive work (I disagreed in most cases about her complaints but she was the boss).
I’m just curious how many editors (and how frequently their publications put out an issue) are willing to work on several rewrites, as indicated in your post, BF. Anybody have insight more than my own limited experiences?
Would it take so long to say “You don’t suck much, but there were 25 others better than you, so at least you have a number to obsess about”?
Probably.
Really, the only way to do this is to start a literary magazine of your own. That way, you can publish yourself under any name you wish in every issue. Or would that be too much like cheating?
Would it take so long to say “You don’t suck much, but there were 25 others better than you, so at least you have a number to obsess about”?
Probably.
Really, the only way to do this is to start a literary magazine of your own. That way, you can publish yourself under any name you wish in every issue. Or would that be too much like cheating?
I swear on a stack of old Playboy mags that if I ever get ridiculously wealthy I will finance, publish and support your writing. I will also have some editorial legs broken.
I would be interested to know what percentage of editors work with writers on short stories for literary journals. The editor of the LitJo on which I recently participated as a member of the editorial board was adamant that a piece had to be nearly perfect before we could even consider it. She had to REEEAALY like a lot of qualities in a piece to even consider working with an author on small rewrites.
I found this particularly interesting because it’s an annual. Once a year this puppy goes out. The time can’t be found to work with a few authors or pieces that need just a little polishing when it only comes out once a year? We passed on a lot of terrific stuff because she believed much of it required extensive work (I disagreed in most cases about her complaints but she was the boss).
I’m just curious how many editors (and how frequently their publications put out an issue) are willing to work on several rewrites, as indicated in your post, BF. Anybody have insight more than my own limited experiences?
I would be interested to know what percentage of editors work with writers on short stories for literary journals. The editor of the LitJo on which I recently participated as a member of the editorial board was adamant that a piece had to be nearly perfect before we could even consider it. She had to REEEAALY like a lot of qualities in a piece to even consider working with an author on small rewrites.
I found this particularly interesting because it’s an annual. Once a year this puppy goes out. The time can’t be found to work with a few authors or pieces that need just a little polishing when it only comes out once a year? We passed on a lot of terrific stuff because she believed much of it required extensive work (I disagreed in most cases about her complaints but she was the boss).
I’m just curious how many editors (and how frequently their publications put out an issue) are willing to work on several rewrites, as indicated in your post, BF. Anybody have insight more than my own limited experiences?
I swear on a stack of old Playboy mags that if I ever get ridiculously wealthy I will finance, publish and support your writing. I will also have some editorial legs broken.
I swear on a stack of old Playboy mags that if I ever get ridiculously wealthy I will finance, publish and support your writing. I will also have some editorial legs broken.
What I hate the most is the slip of paper (along with the “please subscribe” card…which makes you wonder if you were a subscriber card would they have published your work)with a quickly scribbled note that says something like: “I really liked these…but they just weren’t for us” or “These were close.” Just what f-ck am I supposed to do with those comments?
What I hate the most is the slip of paper (along with the “please subscribe” card…which makes you wonder if you were a subscriber card would they have published your work)with a quickly scribbled note that says something like: “I really liked these…but they just weren’t for us” or “These were close.” Just what f-ck am I supposed to do with those comments?
What I hate the most is the slip of paper (along with the “please subscribe” card…which makes you wonder if you were a subscriber card would they have published your work)with a quickly scribbled note that says something like: “I really liked these…but they just weren’t for us” or “These were close.” Just what f-ck am I supposed to do with those comments?
So difficult to get a fair hearing. And if you’re over 40 and want to write about your own experience, I think most of the readers of unsolicited mss’s are too young to understand or care. I got many more nice replies when I was in my 20s, despite being a far better writer now.
So difficult to get a fair hearing. And if you’re over 40 and want to write about your own experience, I think most of the readers of unsolicited mss’s are too young to understand or care. I got many more nice replies when I was in my 20s, despite being a far better writer now.
So difficult to get a fair hearing. And if you’re over 40 and want to write about your own experience, I think most of the readers of unsolicited mss’s are too young to understand or care. I got many more nice replies when I was in my 20s, despite being a far better writer now.
Hello, I too am a middle-aged writer struggling to perform the miraculous: get a first draft of a novel in the hopper.
I have had many short stories published, and one nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Before you start salivating, here’s my point: None of them are in “premium, name” literary journals. The Portland Review is as high as it goes. Not The New Yorker (who submits there?) or Zoetrope or The Paris Review. Nevertheless, I managed to get nominated for a Pushcart (okay, EVERYONE gets nominated for a Pushcart) and two agents have contacted me.
Some writers are pretty snobby about where they’ll submit — I have a friend who simply sniffs at submitting anywhere other than the top 10 literary journals featured in Best American Short Stories. She’s a very fine writer — but hasn’t had anything accepted. So, okay, that’s one route. But most likely she’ll have to live with rejection for a grindingly long time.
Rejection sucks. Period. But, there are plenty of markets out there. Ignore the Pigathons, keep polishing your craft and submit all over the place (except total schlock-fests of course). Eventually you’ll hit on an editor who understands what you’re trying to do and who will give you a shot. And, once you have one credit under your belt, others tend to follow. To me, it is all about just getting it out there.
Best to all!
Oh, I screwed up my blog URL. Click on this one, if you want to visit my site.
Hello, I too am a middle-aged writer struggling to perform the miraculous: get a first draft of a novel in the hopper.
I have had many short stories published, and one nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Before you start salivating, here’s my point: None of them are in “premium, name” literary journals. The Portland Review is as high as it goes. Not The New Yorker (who submits there?) or Zoetrope or The Paris Review. Nevertheless, I managed to get nominated for a Pushcart (okay, EVERYONE gets nominated for a Pushcart) and two agents have contacted me.
Some writers are pretty snobby about where they’ll submit — I have a friend who simply sniffs at submitting anywhere other than the top 10 literary journals featured in Best American Short Stories. She’s a very fine writer — but hasn’t had anything accepted. So, okay, that’s one route. But most likely she’ll have to live with rejection for a grindingly long time.
Rejection sucks. Period. But, there are plenty of markets out there. Ignore the Pigathons, keep polishing your craft and submit all over the place (except total schlock-fests of course). Eventually you’ll hit on an editor who understands what you’re trying to do and who will give you a shot. And, once you have one credit under your belt, others tend to follow. To me, it is all about just getting it out there.
Best to all!
Hello, I too am a middle-aged writer struggling to perform the miraculous: get a first draft of a novel in the hopper.
I have had many short stories published, and one nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Before you start salivating, here’s my point: None of them are in “premium, name” literary journals. The Portland Review is as high as it goes. Not The New Yorker (who submits there?) or Zoetrope or The Paris Review. Nevertheless, I managed to get nominated for a Pushcart (okay, EVERYONE gets nominated for a Pushcart) and two agents have contacted me.
Some writers are pretty snobby about where they’ll submit — I have a friend who simply sniffs at submitting anywhere other than the top 10 literary journals featured in Best American Short Stories. She’s a very fine writer — but hasn’t had anything accepted. So, okay, that’s one route. But most likely she’ll have to live with rejection for a grindingly long time.
Rejection sucks. Period. But, there are plenty of markets out there. Ignore the Pigathons, keep polishing your craft and submit all over the place (except total schlock-fests of course). Eventually you’ll hit on an editor who understands what you’re trying to do and who will give you a shot. And, once you have one credit under your belt, others tend to follow. To me, it is all about just getting it out there.
Best to all!
Oh, I screwed up my blog URL. Click on this one, if you want to visit my site.
Oh, I screwed up my blog URL. Click on this one, if you want to visit my site.