Why Submit to Literary Journals?
This topic has been covered relentlessly in cyberspace- but here is my perspective for young writers who are just embarking in the creative writing field. Most people who wish to be apart of the traditional literary world want to contribute by being published in literary journals. Being published is the main way traditional writers become professionals. If you are beginning an MFA program you are already beginning this process, and it might be time to start sending your work out. (If you really want to know about this rat race, volunteer with your MFA program’s literary journal!)
The other less career-driven reason you’d want to send your writing out is you want to contribute to the literary community. If you get accepted to a journal, you are a contributor forever and become a supporter for their success. Their success is your success and vice versa.
A sound first step to all written above is to submit to journals and get your name out there. It’s good practice to discover where your audience is, where your writing fits, and how you wish to define your own identity- more on that later, or read here:
Why Are You Submitting to Lit Mags In the First Place?
2 months ago · 72 likes · 124 comments · Benjamin Davis
How Would I Even Begin?
Do you have writing stuck in a drawer somewhere you are proud of that you don’t know what to do with? try your hand at submitting it around. There are thousands of literary magazines out there, and it can be a bit overwhelming. Before plunging into the databases, understanding your own writing is an important aspect of finding it a home.
What genre do you work in, what is your style, tone, content like? Is your work ready for review? Are you more or an experimental/lyrical writer or more of a traditionalist? Do you write in short or long form? what type of writing do you want to be known for? all of these elements affect what journals you target. It’s part of cultivating your identity as a professional. Read more on that here: https://writeordie101.substack.com/p/how-to-match-your-writing-to-the
Finding and Submitting Writing
Once you’ve figured that out, now it’s time to roll up your sleeves and dig in. Start with the Chill Subs site. Use the filters to avoid sifting through everything under the sun. They have creative ways of filtering out what you need. Submittable is also a good place to go. These databases have deadlines, links to the journals websites, acceptance rates, and more!
If this is already getting overwhelming, sometimes beginning with literary magazines that offer themed submissions is a good way to gauge where your writing fits.
Regardless of what you do- always read the content of the journal to understand what they publish. In connection, submitting with intent is an imperative step. Just submitting willy-nilly to any literary magazine is not the best strategy, as it won’t necessarily help you get published in quality places. Not all literary journals are created equal. Here is a link to Write or Die 101 that explains this further
What Makes a “High Quality” Lit Mag Anyway?
a month ago · 43 likes · 32 comments · Benjamin Davis
This whole process requires some involvement and research.
Some good questions to ask of literary journals are:
1. How long have they been in the business? Do they have a track record, or did they just pop up a week ago?
2. Does their website look like it intentionally hasn’t been updated since 2004? (how they present themselves and their written content online matters!)
3. Are they active on social media? This means not just having an account, but also posting and celebrating their contributors. Check out what they actually do.
4. Who are their contributors?
5. What type of content do they publish?
6. Who are the editors?
7. Acceptance rates are also important- do they accept every Tom, Dick, or Harry… or do they have some measurement of quality?
I myself try to target a wide net of lesser-selective to more selective magazines. I trust my intuition mostly. Bottom line for me: if the journal gives me a good feeling, if I vibe with the content, and if I get excited about being a possible contributor. I work in creative nonfiction, photography, and flash fiction, so I’m very busy. There are homes for all of it!
After collecting a few literary magazines, now its time to submit. Pay attention to the submission requirements- any foundational mistake will warrant an easy rejection.
What About Rejection?
After you click “submit” now… you wait. Honestly, expect to be rejected, a lot. (Different tiers of literary journals have different acceptance rates.) It’s part of playing the game, but persistence is how you win it. I myself have a literal string of rejections that is made out of post it notes. Usually, writers hover around a 90% rejection rate. It’s all part of the process, the more you submit and read, the more you’ll evolve. Getting published by the smaller places grows your reputation and builds up to bigger-deal acceptances. In my case, I had to submit my first essay: “Dinosaurs Before Dark” about 20 times before it was accepted by The Bangalore Review. In contrast, the first photograph I ever sent out was accepted by the Wild Roof Journal. Both of these acceptances built the foundation for me to become accepted elsewhere, it’s ideally a snowball effect in the best sense. Everything in the arts is subjective. For a deeper dive on these ideas go here:
How to Beat 20% of the Competition Every Time You Submit to a Lit Mag
a month ago · 71 likes · 46 comments · Benjamin Davis
Also understand there are different types of rejection. A form rejection is an automatic template response that’s sent out to pretty much everyone who didn’t make the cut. A soft rejection is when the journal liked your submission, but regrettably couldn’t publish it for whatever reason. This isn’t a bad thing- usually editors say they want to see more of your writing! If your writing keeps getting rejected with want and abandon, then it means a few things.
1. It could be your targeting the wrong journals for your style- I’ve done it, this is where that research I talked about comes in handy.
2. It could be that your content is great, but no one has picked it up yet, be patient!
3. It also could be that your content isn’t ready for the big time yet, and this is a hard decision to make. Sometimes you have to pull your writing from submission and really take a hard look- is there anything I could change to make this better? Are there copy edits I missed? Only you know your writing best.
Overall, everyone with a pulse in the writing community has big opinions about publishing. Don’t listen to the cynics. Do your research first and trust yourself.
Until next time,
Lena N. Gemmer
Lena N. Gemmer 