My friends, do you enjoy wasting time, feeling tricked, and losing money? If so, I have just the literary magazine database for you.

Behold! Submittable’s Discover feature!

Some of you might have never known of this treasure trove. I, myself, only discovered it a few months ago, thanks to several readers who pointed my way there. You can find it by logging into Submittable.

Really, the opportunities are incredible. First, there are the many literary magazines continuously updating their deadlines. They do this in order to appear at the top of the Discover list because the submission window “ends in one hour” or “ends in three hours” (only to be refreshed once the time limit expires).

Then, there are the magazines that describe themselves as charging a “nominal fee.” Yet you click through to discover:

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Over the past several months, writers have contacted me with various grievances about literary magazines. These are not the usual, run-of-the mill grievances such as long wait times, delayed publishing schedules, contributor copies never sent. These are grievances related to certain magazines’ policies—terms and requests which are patently unfair. Such incidents seem to be on the rise.

My dear friends, I just have to say it: It’s starting to piss me off.

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A question came from a reader. D. wrote:

I sometimes see litmags publish issues with a “guest editor”. Do you have any idea why litmags might bring in guest editors? Is it to broaden the litmag’s perspective with a different editorial vision? Or a way of promoting that guest editor’s own writing or name? Or are they just farming out work so the regular editors can take a breather?

Excellent questions. I would say the answers are Yes, Yes, and probably not.

Let’s explore.

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My friends! We have, yet again, raced, run, rolled, stumbled head-first, fumbled nose-down, tumbled all-elbows, not to mention cartwheeled, careened, catapulted, and in all ways collided right here at the end of another month!

If you are a longtime reader of this newsletter, you know just what that means. If you are brand new here, welcome.

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The end of each month is a space dedicated to all of you. It’s a place to share the work you’ve had published in lit mags over the past month, and, along with that, to acknowledge all of your diligence, dedication, passion, persistence and generally awesome mojo.

I, myself, was quite happy to have an essay appear earlier this month in ’s .

The piece was prompted by a friend asking me to write about my experience with Bad Art Friend. (Remember all that?) The friend is launching a new publishing venture and thought an essay on this subject might be a good fit. I hesitated, unsure I had anything to say. Then I sat down and ended up writing 7,000 words in one six-hour session. (Turned out I had a lot to say!)

The friend ended up shifting the focus of her publishing outlet and was no longer able to use the piece. But I’d been in touch with Sari, whom I interviewed here a few months ago. After my interview, Sari reached out to tell me she appreciated the stance I’d taken during the Bad Art Friend mess. I mentioned I just happened to be working on an essay about it. She said she’d be open to taking a look, if I ever wanted to send it to her.

When the friend passed on publishing the piece, I rewrote major portions of the essay, then cut it down from 7,000 words to 1,500 words. I sent it to Sari and she accepted it right away.

Sari was wonderful to work with. Because this piece discusses real-world people and real-world legal issues, I was rather obsessive with edits. Sari was lovely, quickly responsive and patient throughout.

I hope you enjoy!

READ THE ESSAY HERE.

Now, enough about me. Let’s hear from all of you.

Did your work appear in a literary magazine in March? Share the link!

How did you find out about this magazine?

Did the piece get rejected multiple times before it found its happy little home?

Did you revise as you submitted or was it done and out the door?

Did any editors work with you on revisions?

Are you happy with the final product?

Don’t be shy! Your perseverance and successes serve as inspiration to us all!

Come on out and step right up and go on and brag your lit mag!

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A writer recently shared with me a contract she received from a literary magazine. It was long. It was wordy. And it contained—in my opinion! not legal advice!—some questionable elements. Let’s break it all down.

The first thing to note is that this particular contract is four pages long. That, in my view, is already a red flag. A standard publishing contract with a literary magazine is typically not longer than one page, maybe two.

It is also worth noting that this magazine does not pay contributors. Payment in this case is one contributor copy of the magazine in which the work appears. As far as I am concerned, such a contract between writer and magazine ought to be brief and narrow in scope.

By contrast, here is the contract C. received for two poems:

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Several writers have recently written to me with related concerns. They all feel they’ve gotten terrible feedback on their manuscripts from lit mag editors. In two instances, the feedback was paid for. In one instance, the feedback was unsolicited.

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Last week I read a Substack post by the editor of a literary magazine. The post was about submissions strategy and how to interpret certain forms of rejection from journal editors.

I wanted to link to the piece in Monday’s news round-up. But I could not, in good conscience, do so. I was certain the piece was heavily edited with the use of AI.

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The many issues surrounding AI and its uses are complicated. Some writers may not use it at all, some may use it strictly for research, others might use it for editing and proofreading. I’m not interested in policing other people’s uses of the technology.

I do, however, draw a red line at sharing articles so clearly written with the help of AI assistants that they possess what I think of as “AI voice.” What is AI voice, exactly? I’ll get to that in a moment.

Suffice it to say, I draw an especially bold red line at articles in AI-voice, produced by editors of literary magazines. The role of lit mag editors is ostensibly to curate, preserve and protect quality literature. What does that mean? It means, among other things, seeking out and showcasing fresh voices. New voices, different voices, interesting voices. Indeed, among the hundreds of editor interviews I’ve conducted, a vast majority have said that the single thing which moves a submission from consideration to acceptance is a strong, unique voice.

Given the proliferation of AI-generated writing, one might contend that the role of lit mag editors to identify and showcase fresh human voices is more important than ever. Thus when I encountered this essay by a journal editor, clearly crafted in AI-voice, not only was I taken aback but I drew a firm line against sharing such pieces here.

I also reached out to the editor to determine if my suspicion of AI-use was correct. And here, as an AI-bot might say, is where it really gets interesting. Upon reaching out, what followed was one of the most touching and surprising conversations on the subject of AI-assisted writing I’ve ever had. I will tell you all about it.

First, I want to take a closer look at AI-voice. It’s come to my attention that many people do not know its attributes. I believe we in the literary world should all take a moment to learn how to recognize it.

For this we will need some help from actress Drew Barrymore.

I recently came upon a Facebook post from a group called This Day in History. They highlight stories about celebrities and other famous people. I am fairly confident that all their content is AI-generated. The fact that none of their pieces have authors is a key sign of this.

One of their recent posts is about Drew Barrymore. Give it a read. Don’t worry—it looks longer than it feels. The piece is juicy, interesting, inspiring, and you’ll learn a thing or two about the child star.

Can you spot the AI tells?

At seven years old, she made the world fall in love with her.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial turned Drew Barrymore into a global star before she was old enough to understand what global meant. The gap-toothed smile. The unguarded wonder. The complete, natural openness that made audiences feel they were watching a real child encounter something magical — because they were.

What they didn’t see was what happened after the cameras stopped.

Drew was born into the Barrymore acting dynasty — a family name that carried the weight of generations of fame and the specific kind of dysfunction that tends to travel alongside it. Her father struggled with alcoholism and largely abandoned the family. Her mother, a struggling actress who saw her daughter’s stardom as a second chance at relevance, made choices that no child should have been subject to.

When E.T. made Drew a global star at seven, childhood disappeared overnight.

At nine, she was taken to Studio 54 — the epicenter of celebrity excess at its most unapologetic. At nine, she began drinking. At ten, marijuana. By twelve, cocaine.

“I didn’t have parents,” she later said. “I had enablers with checkbooks.”

She was photographed on red carpets while privately unraveling. She smiled for cameras while the world that was supposed to protect her did the opposite.

At thirteen, the spiral became impossible to manage. She was placed in a psychiatric facility — not a celebrity retreat, not a discreet private clinic, but a locked ward. She spent eighteen months there. She has described it since with the unflinching honesty that would become her signature: it was harsh. It was also the most important thing that happened to her. It was the first place where someone treated her survival as worth working for.

When she was released at fourteen, she made a decision that most adults would find terrifying.

She legally emancipated herself from her mother.

At fourteen years old, Drew Barrymore became legally responsible for her own life. No guardian. No safety net. A teenager, alone in Los Angeles, with a famous name and almost nothing else.

Hollywood, predictably, wasn’t sure what to do with her. Child stardom is fragile. Public addiction makes it catastrophic. She was seen as a liability. Studios hesitated. Insurance companies hesitated. Roles dried up.

She kept going anyway.

Small parts. Auditions. Rejections. The slow, unglamorous work of rebuilding a career that had been built on a foundation that couldn’t hold her weight. She didn’t disappear — she just kept showing up, in smaller rooms, with less certainty, waiting.

Then came 1998 and The Wedding Singer. Audiences saw something in her that they recognized — warmth, resilience, the particular quality of someone who has been through real things and come out the other side with their humor intact.

They fell in love again. This time not with a child. With a woman.

In 1995, at just twenty, she co-founded Flower Films. She didn’t want to be a product of Hollywood anymore. She wanted to shape it. Charlie’s Angels. Never Been Kissed. 50 First Dates.She wasn’t just starring in films — she was producing them, influencing every element of their creation, moving from someone the industry controlled to someone who controlled her own space within it.

She wrote her first autobiography at fifteen. She has never stopped being honest about where she came from. The addiction. The institutionalization. The emancipation. The long, imperfect, ongoing work of building a stable life from genuinely unstable materials.

Today, she hosts a television show marked by the warmth and emotional transparency that have become her defining qualities. She is a mother to two daughters and has spoken often about consciously choosing to be different — to break the cycle, to be present, to be the thing she needed and didn’t have.

The real achievement — quieter than any box office number, more durable than any award — is that she learned how to raise herself.

She was nine in nightclubs. She was thirteen in a locked ward. She was fourteen living alone in a city that had already used her up and was ready to move on.

She did not just survive that. She studied it. She understood it. She used every scar as material for becoming something the chaos of her early life never intended her to be: whole.

Yay, Drew! You go, girl!

So, what were AI tells?

Hyperbole: “At seven years old, she made the world fall in love with her.”

LLM’s frequently use extreme language and hyperbole. As the Wikipedia entry for Signs of AI Writing says, “LLM writing often puffs up the importance of the subject matter…”

Narratives collapse. Meaning implodes. Normalcy craters. Childhood disappears overnight. And a seven-year-old made the world fall in love with her.

Could a human have written this? Yes, sure. But right out of the gate, your AI spidey senses should spike here. It is simply false to say the entire world ever felt one way about anything, let alone Drew Barrymore. But the line grabs attention and builds a story of epic magnitude.

Sentence fragments, the rule of three, and em-dashes. “The gap-toothed smile. The unguarded wonder. The complete natural openness that made audiences feel they were watching…something magical—because they were.”

This section is a clusterfudge of AI tells. Here are punchy little sentence fragments, a list of three, and an em-dash, all at once!

From Wikipedia:

LLMs overuse the ‘rule of three’. This can take different forms, from “adjective, adjective, adjective” to “short phrase, short phrase, and short phrase…LLMs often use this structure to make superficial analyses appear more comprehensive.

Yes, the rule of three, sentence fragments and em-dashes are all writing techniques of human beings. And yes, it is entirely unfair that these wonderful linguistic devices have been pilfered by AI bots. Nonetheless, this is our present-day situation.

“Not this, that” sentence construction: “She was placed in a psychiatric facility—not a celebrity retreat, not a discreet private clinic, but a locked ward.”

This is one of the biggest AI tells. Once you notice it, you will see it everywhere. The construction is called a negative parallelism.

As a rhetorical device, negative parallelisms are quite effective. The narrator wishes to emphasize the uniqueness of the situation. This wasn’t one thing you’ve heard about; it was something far different. By setting up what it could have been, the narrator emphasizes the importance of what it was.

It’s effective and compelling, and it is so very AI.

Setting up the reader for a dramatic twist: “What they didn’t see was what happened after the cameras stopped.”

This sentence contains two AI tells. The first is the way the bot has set up a high-stakes situation. The entire world is in love with this girl. But they missed something—the real girl behind the cameras. The girl the narrator will share with you now. It’s similar to another rhetorical device frequently seen in AI-writing: “Here’s where things get interesting.” Or, “Honestly?…”

The second tell here is the phrase “after the cameras stopped.” My ear picks up on this as being choppy and awkward. AI bots like to abruptify and punchify sentences. The cameras didn’t stop rolling, taping, filming. The cameras just stopped.

Using opposites to emphasize a point: “She didn’t disappear—she just kept showing up.”

This is a form of the aforementioned negative parallelism.

A human might say simply, “But Barrymore persisted.” Or “But the young actress would not be deterred.”

Instead, AI bots tend to build intrigue through opposing ideas. She didn’t do X, as you’re probably thinking. She did Y, as I am revealing to you now.

A real truth: “The real achievement—quieter than any box office number, more durable than any award—is that she learned how to raise herself.”

AI prose is often inviting you to lean in, to hear the real truth that it’s about to deliver.

Redemption arc. “She wasn’t just starring in films—she was producing them.”

The piece ends with Barrymore reclaiming herself not as a child star, but a full-grown actress. She embraced comedic roles and then began to produce and direct.

AI pieces often contain a satisfying and hopeful shape. Obviously, this is also true for human-written pieces. But in pieces that are written by or heavily edited by AI, there is almost always a shift toward healing and redemption. The story is compact, tidy and neat.

Ideas that don’t make sense. “She used every scar as material for becoming something the chaos of her early life never intended her to be: whole.”

This one is sometimes trickier to see because on quick reading, you grasp the idea. Barrymore’s scars made her stronger, etc. But upon analysis, these words don’t quite make sense. How could it be that “the chaos of her early life never intended her to be” something? Does chaos have intentions? Does chaos care whether Drew Barrymore is whole or not? Does chaos intend for things to happen?

Read it quickly and you grasp it. But stop to think about it and, well, the narrative collapses, meaning implodes, normalcy craters—it’s gobbledygook.

Did you find other AI tells? Please share them.

Now, let’s get back to our editor.

When I reached out, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. I had a feeling I’d get no reply at all.

To my surprise, she wrote back right away. That she published such a piece had been on her mind too. In fact, I was not the first person to inquire about the article. She admitted to me that she “got a little over-zealous with the AI-powered ‘clarity’ suggestions in the editing software I’ve used since before AI-times (Grammarly).” She also acknowledged that “It polished the life right out of my prose…”

The editor went on to tell me that she’d been “thinking a lot about my instinct to polish my awkward and weird voice and the ‘let-me-give-you-what-you-want-engine’ that AI offers.” But the message she received from another reader had reminded her that what people actually want to hear is her own voice—“my weird awkward natural voice.”

In an additional note of graciousness and humility, she added, “I appreciate your note as a second reminder that I’ve gotta be me. (Sad that this is often my advice to writers and I didn’t follow it.)”

I was deeply touched by this editor’s transparency and thoughtfulness. We went on to chat more about human voice, AI voice, and the voices in our heads that fill us with doubt as we try to work. To my added surprise, the editor decided to pull the piece and then re-post it in her own voice. It’s live now and it’s a million times better—softer, realer, more human. I will share it in a news roundup sometime soon.

My conversation with this editor got me thinking about a feature of AI writing assistants I’d not before considered. We’ve often discussed how they encourage laziness, how they disable critical thinking. We’ve considered the plagiarism angle and other ethical concerns.

One thing I’ve not seen much talk of is how AI-assistants dampen one’s own voice.

Finding your voice as a writer is hard work. Where does it come from? What shapes it? How do you even find it to begin with? How do you know if you have a unique voice? Does every writer have a unique voice? Do writers need a unique voice in order to tell their stories and be successful? What is voice?

These are not simple questions to answer.

But I do know this: Relying on AI-assistants to help craft one’s prose is one way to ensure that a writer never discovers their own voice.

It is tempting, very tempting to use these tools. One moment you’re asking AI for police procedure for a car theft in Kentucky. Then you’re asking AI to describe the kinds of accents people in Kentucky have. Then you’re asking it to proofread a scene from your Kentucky crime story. Then you’re accepting AI’s suggestions to make the scene sound truer to Kentucky life. Then you’re letting the bot write full sentences for you and inserting them into your own prose—hey, it actually sounds pretty good, why not, it’s just a sentence here and there.

But I believe there is a cost. And that cost is voice. Voice. One of the most potent tools we have as writers. One of the most potent forces we have, as people.

AI-assisted writing turns every essay into an essay with the exact same prose style. The writer’s voice gets lost, subsumed by uniformity and conformity. Worse yet, the very process of relying on AI steers one away from finding one’s own voice, from digging for the unique word combinations that are true to oneself, from finding a singular language to express what is deeply personal or deeply urgent, deeply true.

AI can help us all churn out prose faster. It can pump out content for us with just a few clicks.

But it cannot help us find our own voice. In fact, I believe it actively hinders us from doing so.

And what a loss that is, for literary culture, for writers, for humanity. If we do not have our voices, after all, how do we ever intend to use them?

I’m so thankful to this editor for her honesty, transparency and willingness to talk. I think it’s up to all of us to have such conversations and to determine where our red lines are when it comes to AI-writing tools.

It’s up to all of us to protect and nurture our own real, human voices.

If writers and lit mag editors do not take up the cause—honestly? Who will?

What do you think?

Are you aware of the common tells of AI? Does AI-voice get on your nerves?

Will this guide help you recognize AI-assisted prose?

Does reliance on AI for writing and editing smother a writer’s voice? Should we be concerned about that?

Don’t you just love Drew Barrymore?

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Well, my friends, we have, once again, walked, rolled, stumbled, fumbled, shoveled, slid, sled, skated, skied, crawled, clawed and catapulted our way into the end of another month. (And rumor has it that spring is just twenty-one days away!)

If you are a longtime reader of this newsletter, you know what the end of the month here is all about. If you are brand-new here, welcome!

The end of each month is the space for all of you to come out & share your most recent publications. Tell us where you’ve had work accepted in February. Share links!

And, too, please let us know what went on behind the scenes.

How did you find the journal that accepted the work?

How many places did you submit to before the piece found its happy home?

Did any editors work with you on revision?

Did you make changes as you submitted or was it done and out the door?

Are you happy with the final result?

Don’t be shy! We are here to celebrate the persistence, passion, and achievements of each one of you. Your successes are a light that help shine the way for all of us.

So come on out, step right up, and come brag your lit mag!

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This past week, Ben of Chill Subs and I were discussing AWP, the annual writing conference hosted by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs and taking place soon in Baltimore, Maryland. Chill Subs will have a table in the bookfair this year, and if you are going, you should all swing by and say hello to those incredible indefatigable folks.

I, on the other hand, can’t seem to make up my mind about the conference. I haven’t yet registered. Baltimore is just an hour by train from my home. The bookfair on Saturday would be do-able. And yet…something holds me back.

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I’ve always enjoyed AWP. The first time I attended was in 2008, the same year I launched The Review Review. I stepped into the bookfair and swooned like I’d been catapulted into a magical wonderland. Here were hundreds of booths for nothing but literary magazines and small presses. And everyone was so nice!

In subsequent years—Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C.—the conference was equally rich and rewarding. Most of those years I had a table for The Review Review. The absolute greatest parts of the conference were talking to people who came by and goofing off with editors at tables near mine. (Poet Ross Gay was at a table behind mine one year, and he shared with me some small purple carrots from a Ziploc baggie, which I’ll never forget.)

I stopped going to AWP when I had a baby and haven’t attended since. For many years, I blamed new motherhood for my lack of attendance. But I am no longer a new mother. And yet, I still have not attended the conference.

It is only now, in writing this, that I think I understand the true reason. In 2014, my last time at the conference, I was genuinely dismayed by how little attention was paid to the serious crises within academia. So much so that I was compelled to write an open letter to AWP: Professors in homeless shelters: It is time to talk seriously about adjuncts.

Since then, the conference has improved somewhat in this regard. They have incorporated one or two panels on the subject of adjuncts. There is also now an . Yet largely, the conference remains dedicated to pursuing one’s own personal career ambitions—publishing, getting an agent, improving craft, enriching one’s pedagogy.

Meanwhile, 70% of the academic workforce is now contingent labor. Many adjuncts are earning less than minimum wage. Since I published that article in 2014, conditions have only gotten worse. Adjuncts still report juggling several teaching jobs at once, working for poverty wages, and avoiding hospital visits for fear of financial ruin.

According to the Higher Education Inquirer,

Pay and Financial Security: Poverty Wages Become the Norm

In 2006, Hoeller reported that Washington community college adjuncts earned just 57 cents for every dollar paid to their full-time colleagues. The disparity persists—and in some ways, it has widened. Today, more than a quarter of adjuncts report earning under $26,500 a year, below the federal poverty line for a family of four.

According to a report on The Impacts of 2020 on Advancement of Non-Tenure Track and Adjunct Faculty,

The pandemic…increased career insecurity for non-tenure-track faculty in ways that are more subtle but equally important. For instance, when institutions extended tenure and promotion clocks, they often failed to think about the implications of moving online for instructional and research faculty.

All this and yet I’ve yet to see a single panel dedicated to the kind of structural changes that would improve the material conditions of grad students, adjuncts and non-tenured professors. These might include sessions on how to create a grad student union, how to obtain health insurance as adjuncts, how to organize a sit-in at your university for increased teaching stipends (as former Gulf Coast editors and students at University of Houston successfully did).

But no. Such panels do not exist at AWP. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of panels dedicated to political engagement. We can learn to “write resistively” or learn “Cartooning at the End of the World.” We can discuss “Editing for Community and Change” or “Strategies for Navigating Organizational Change.”

But, it seems, what we cannot, must not, should not ever discuss is the broken system staring us all right in the face. Perhaps it’s not very sexy to have a panel dedicated to collectively organizing for health insurance and a living wage. Or, maybe such panels might not be very welcome by those who actually sponsor the conference.

Quite possibly, such panels would go under-attended, given the fact that the very academics who would most benefit from such discussions likely cannot afford to attend this conference at all. (Does AWP offer a special registration rate for adjuncts? I’ll let you guess.)

All this is to say, for me, AWP has become a fraught space. Fun? Yes. Interpersonally delightful? You bet. A pleasurable haven to pick up and hold gorgeous magazines in one’s hands? You know it. The dance parties are a blast. The purple carrots are delicious.

Ultimately though, I feel no inclination to attend. Only now do I know why: a part of me feels like that child at a dysfunctional family dinner where everyone is chit-chatting about nothing. I have the urge to stand up and shout, Are we all going to keep pretending everything is okay?!?

The conference’s internal contradictions are simply impossible for me to reconcile. Its emphasis on political discourse allows itself to be branded as engaged and community-minded, while ignoring basic exploitative realities faced by a huge swath of the academic population.

Simply put, I no longer feel inspired by AWP. I feel like I’m being asked to participate in mass delusion.

I have one other gripe about AWP and then I will stop raining on everyone’s parade.

That is their writer-to-agent program.

AWP is pleased to offer registered conference attendees the opportunity to apply to meet with literary agents at the #AWP26 Conference & Bookfair. All registered attendees, including both in-person and virtual-only attendees, are welcome to submit to Writer to Agent. These agents are seeking new clients to represent in fiction and nonfiction.

Literary agents from Aevitas Creative Management, Ayesha Pande Literary, Folio Literary Management, The Friedrich Agency, Serendipity Literary Agency, and Trellis Literary Management will read and review applications on a rolling basis to find prospective clients to meet with at the conference. If the literary agency is interested in the author’s work, they will contact the applicant directly to schedule a day and time to meet during #AWP26.

I think it’s unethical to make writers register (and pay) for the conference, without those writers knowing if they will even have a chance to meet with an agent. If there are other literary conferences that operate this way, I have not heard of them.

I was shocked this past week to see one writer was even told that no agents wanted to meet with him at all. You know who this writer was?

I can’t get over how ridiculous this is. Robert Olen Butler is the author of twelve novels and six short story collections. He has published in many of the nation’s leading lit mags and has appeared in Best American Short Stories twelve times. He’s received many awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA grant. Oh, and he’s won a Pulitzer Prize.

Ah, well. I guess no agent was interested in his current work. Such is the absolute absurdity of the literary marketplace.

But, if Robert Olen Butler can’t get a meeting with a literary agent, no doubt other writers are having trouble too. One writer on Butler’s Facebook thread actually remarked that he received the same message.

Personally, I think it’s wrong for AWP to charge for registration at its conference in this circumstance. It feels like holding writers’ dreams hostage to compel them to pay a few hundred dollars.

Maybe others feel differently about this or see AWP’s rationale here. I’d be curious to hear it. In the meantime, if you, too, received a note like this after applying to this program, know that you are in good company!

Such are my thoughts on AWP.

Now that I’ve depressed all of you who are going…do have a wonderful time!

Wear comfortable walking shoes. Drink lots of water. And I hope you find some yummy purple carrots.

Please let me know your thoughts.

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If you’ve been swimming in the lit mag waters for even a short amount of time, you’ve likely heard one editor or another say it: Their magazines are “labors of love.” Or else you’ve read it in the guidelines somewhere.

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Picture it: A congested interstate. Gray, grinding, gridlocked.

Every morning you drive this interstate to get to work. Every morning, you sip from your favorite travel mug, blearily listening to the news while moving forward one excruciating inch at a time. Now and then some drivers get impatient. They try to change lanes, they shout, they honk. But where can anyone go? There is nothing to do but sit, wait.

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The day of my birthday, just a bit over two weeks ago, something incredible happened: I finished my novel. Officially. I’d reached a few moments of near-doneness and almost-done-ness over the past few months. But on this day, I knew: It was done. I did it.

The book took me about four-and-a-half years to write. When I first began, I thought I would have it finished in a year. Of course, that’s rarely how it goes, right? The characters have different plans for us, for themselves. Plot lines are discarded. Entire throughlines reveal themselves to be utterly illogical. New ideas emerge. Chapters expand. Eighty different endings are taken for a test-drive. The years go by.

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Many times while I was working on the book, I daydreamed about being here, where I am right now. Done! Finished. And finally querying agents. In my imagination, I was no longer tormented by dangling plot threads and unresolvable riddles. Instead, I was coasting, as if on an inflatable raft, atop a sun-dappled swimming pool. Just me and my finished book and a list of agents to query by my side.

Ha! Joke’s on me. For one thing, there is no sun-dappled swimming pool anywhere in sight. It’s utterly, painfully, freezing cold in my city right now. For another thing, there is no floating happening—none at all. Just as my fantasy of a quick and exhilarating novel-in-a-year turn out to be delusion, so too has my daydream of querying-agents-as-swimming-pool-rafting.

I know, I know. I really should stop telling myself anything writer-related will ever be quick or easy. But I do think a bit of self-delusion is required, don’t you? Otherwise we might never attempt anything at all.

Which brings me to my point. Yes, I have a point! And it’s not that I finished my novel and it’s not that the glacial pace of publishing is an exquisite kind of torture, and it’s not that I’m really, really craving summertime and sunshine and swimming pools.

It’s simply that it’s hard. And because it’s hard—not all of it, and certainly not all the time, but a great deal of it, a great deal of the time—a whole lot of people simply give up.

My dad, whom I’ve written about before here, was a wonderful writer. He taught high school English for thirty years and taught me to diagram sentences when I was ten years old. He was obsessed with language, knew the etymology of hundreds of words, had whole passages of Shakespeare, The Odyssey, 1984, A Raisin in the Sun, Death of a Salesman, committed to memory.

“Attention must be paid!” he used to say to me, riffing on the Willy Loman line. And, more randomly, perhaps while rushing me out the door, “Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables!”

Once he retired, he took writing workshops, wrote dozens of short stories and a novella. He had a novel that he’d been working on off and on for several decades. His sentences were long, complicated, moody and wound deeply into his characters’ consciousnesses in ways few contemporary writers do.

Yet, my father rarely sent anything out for publication. I remember once he got a rejection from a magazine he’d submitted to at my urging. He was appalled at the terseness of the letter. “Did they even read it?” he wondered to me, like so many of us have no doubt also asked ourselves.

I know he wanted his work to be read. I know he wanted to be published. But I think he did not have the stomach to endure the parts of being a writer that don’t always feel very good. The waiting. The disappointment. The uncertainty. The empty inbox day after day that cuts more deeply than any outright rejection ever would.

It takes something very particular—hunger, determination, and yes, perhaps at times, a bit of self-delusion—to persist in trying to get one’s work published. There are many people who do not do so. There are many, many people who crave the satisfaction of having their words in print, yet cannot tolerate the process of making that happen. There are many writers who give up.

This is not to pass judgement on any such writer. We all have our own threads to untangle, our own baggage to carry. I would not be the writer I am today without my dad’s love for literature and his lifelong obsession with language. His pessimistic worldview surely also provided its own kind of lessons.

What I am saying, though, to all of you, is that you really are doing something special. Please don’t ever forget that. Writing and sending your work into that sometimes-hostile world—it takes fire. It takes steel. Yes, it takes some attention to detail and maybe a color-coded spreadsheet, a pile of post-it notes climbing up your wall and a certain fondness for record-keeping.

But above all else, it takes a strong heart. An open heart. One that is willing to let itself get a bit bent, if not outright broken from time to time, because it knows itself to be ultimately mighty and resilient. A truly expansive heart.

This weekend, going into our monthly brag session, I simply wanted to underscore these points. You may be in a great place with the work you’ve been sending out. You may indeed be floating on a raft somewhere sun-dappled and magically warm. (Can we all come join you?)

On the other hand, you may feel like you’re getting only rejections. Worse, you may feel like nothing is happening at all. You’re stuck in Dr. Seuss’s Waiting Place,

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come,
or a plane to go or the mail to come,
or the rain to go or the phone to ring,
or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No

But still, you keep going. You’re here. You’re in this.

With your fierce heart, your loving and powerful heart, your durable heart, you just keep going.

I tip my hat to each and every one of you. And I thank you—for your inspiration, your support of me and most of all your support of one another, through it all.

Now, let’s get down to some braggiliciousness!

Most of you know the deal already. If you don’t, if you’re new here—welcome!

The end of each month is the space for you to share what you’ve had published. Tell us where your work appeared this month. Share the link(s)!

Also, tell us the story behind the publication. Did you submit to multiple places before this work found its happy home?

How did you learn about this magazine?

Did the editors work with you on revision?

Did you revise as you submitted or was it done and out the door?

Are you pleased with the final result?

Don’t be shy! Come on down and shine your light and step right up and go on now and brag your lit mag!

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First and foremost, as sixteen states here in the U.S. have declared states of emergency due to a pending snow and ice storm, I hope you are all faring well! Stay warm and safe, everyone.

Now, for some lit mag discussion to heat your hearts and minds…

Last week we discussed the situation of Ann, a writer who had her work published without her awareness and in a format she did not approve. Whether Ann consented to having her work published in the first place is a bit gray. (She did not say “Yes,” but replied with enthusiasm to the acceptance letter).

Certainly, though, there are instances where writers give no consent at all. The writer simply sends in the work and lo! Wouldn’t you know it? They receive a package in the mail of an anthology with their printed piece. Or else they happen to visit the website and find their work there.

What should a writer in this situation do?

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Something wild happened this week.

First, a reader told me about a situation she had with a literary magazine.

Ann wrote:

I’ve reached out to you before on other matters, but this one’s a real stinker. I submitted a short story to a publication called Grande Dame Literary in early November, adding a 25-dollar fee to fast-track the submission. It was accepted immediately (which should have made me suspicious). I then inquired about publication and seeing edited copy through Submittable’s message board. No response. I waited a month and inquired again. Through ChatGPT, I discovered the magazine’s editor is someone named Kate Becker, who is a writer with a website here. So I queried her on January 7. And then it occurred to me to go to the Grande Dame site, where I found my story published with strange formatting, so that it looked like free verse, and truncated in the middle of the narrative. I sent a message again to Becker on January 9^th asking that the story be removed immediately. No response again. And the Grande Dame contact page does not seem to work.

I am in absolute despair and guessing this will ruin my chances of publishing the story elsewhere. How can I get the story removed from the site? How do I warn others away from this dreadful publication?

Oh, dear.

There is a lot to discuss here.

Let’s first get to know Grande Dame Literary. From their guidelines:

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A question came from a reader. Kelsey writes:

I am scared to make the jump. I am new, unedited, and I have 5 books. I want to submit something to a magazine, but everything I have is part of my books. Some of my chapters can stand alone, but can I do that? Will I be able to use them if my books get published? I feel like it’s stealing from myself.

Ah, what wonderful questions. Kelsey, you have come to the right place!

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A reader recently shared with me an experience he had with a literary journal.

John wrote,

In August, I submitted the personal essay, The Mann an Sich to a bunch of literary magazines. One of them was The Grist, run by the University of Tennessee.

On December 1st, John’s essay was accepted for publication. The editors wrote to him:

Dear John Kaufmann,

Thank you for sharing your work with us! We are delighted to be able to accept “The Mann an Sich” for publication in the print issue of our upcoming Issue 19, due to be released in 2026.

…We will send your contract, honorarium, and additional information (including some suggested edits) as we begin the production process. You will receive your contributor copy upon Issue 19’s publication.

Thank you for the chance to read your work, John! We are excited to publish this piece and we couldn’t be happier to have you as a contributor.

John wrote back that same day, thanking them and stating the piece was available.

Before we continue, it’s important to know the contents of John’s essay. “The Mann an Sich” is about John’s experience with a teacher. He describes his own troubled adolescence—“I was a mess. I was deeply, ontologically angry…I kicked holes in walls, broke household appliances, swore at my mother, fought physically with my father.” Eventually his parents sent him to a prestigious prep school.

John relates meeting a Latin teacher with “a quiet authority,” who held a powerful sway over the students, and over John. “If he had recruited me for a doomsday cult, I would have signed up before he was done asking.”

The teacher didn’t magically transform John into a great student. In fact, John was expelled from the school. But the teacher did make an impact, and John later modeled his own teaching on his Latin teacher’s.

In 2018, the school released a report of investigation of sexual abuse. The Latin teacher was the report’s most prominent subject. John writes, “The news hit me hard because, before I went to prep school – when I was eight or ten, before I began to chew tobacco and spit on walls – I was sexually abused.”

John reflects on how the abuse at the school could have happened, how one of the victims was likely affected, his own experience of abuse, the Latin teacher’s later disappearance, and John’s attempt to grapple with the legacy of a man who was a good teacher but also a predator. Throughout the essay there is discussion of Greek and Latin, reflections on how language evolves, and how we understand the universe through language.

Knowing what is in John’s essays provides important context for the ensuing conversation with Grist’s editor. John has posted his essay, and you can read it in full here.

After they accepted the work, John told me he didn’t hear from the editors for three weeks. On December 23rd, the Editor-in-Chief contacted him:

My name is Titus Chalk, the editor-in-chief of Grist magazine. I know you’ve been dealing with our CNF editor Zuleyha (cced above), but I wanted to contact you directly.

I’m afraid I am writing with bad news. Despite initially accepting your piece The Mann an Sich, I am choosing to no longer move forward with it. It contains much fine writing and some valuable discussion, but as I have spent more time with it, I think it also runs contrary to the vision that Grist has for its content. It’s possible that some of this might be remedied by further research and/or revision, and I hope you might return to the piece and eventually find a good home for it. Unfortunately, this issue of Grist has particularly short lead times and I do not feel confident we can get the piece to a satisfactory place in time to meet our deadlines.

I appreciate this is a rare occurrence, and a disappointing one at that. There is certainly much admirable in your writing, and I hope you will not take this setback as more than a bump in the road and chance to reflect further on your work. Grist certainly remains open to reading new writing you produce in future.

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news on this occasion. And I nonetheless wish you a happy holidays.

When I first read this note, I found myself enraged on John’s behalf. First there is the observation, “It contains much fine writing and some valuable discussion,” which is nonspecific. “Some valuable discussion” sounds frankly dismissive.

Of course, no explanation for the work’s merits or lack thereof would be expected were this a standard rejection note. But it’s not. John’s essay was accepted for publication at this magazine weeks ago. At that time the CNF editor had written, “We are excited to publish this piece and we couldn’t be happier to have you as a contributor.” Now, his work appears to only possess “some valuable discussion.”

Then there’s the contention that the piece “runs contrary to the vision that Grist has for its content.” Why, then, was it accepted for publication? Was it approved without final vetting from the Editor-in-Chief? Is this atypical here? Will they hold a staff meeting to clarify what their vision actually is and how their editorial process operates? Personally, I think John is entitled to more information. None was provided.

The editor then says that the piece’s misalignment with the magazine’s vision could possibly “be remedied by further research and/or revision.” Whose research? John’s? Research into what? And what sort of revision? Revision toward what end? Why would John revise when at least one editor—at this magazine—loved the piece?

Most troubling of all is the editor’s advisement, “There is certainly much admirable in your writing, and I hope you will not take this setback as more than a bump in the road and chance to reflect further on your work.” Again the nonspecific (and grammatically awkward), “much admirable in your writing.” But on top of this, the editor is advising John on how to handle this mishap, downplaying it as no “more than a bump in the road” yet also inserting a mild reprimand. This is a chance for John to “reflect further” on his work.

Reflect how? Reflect why? Reflect to what end? There is no insight offered, beyond this vague reproach. It reads almost as if the editor wishes to express that it is John who is at fault for having his essay accepted here in the first place. John should really take some time and “reflect” on what he’s done.

Naturally, John wanted more information. He wrote back,

Since I have withdrawn this piece from consideration elsewhere, I am curious - what about it runs contrary to the vision that Grist has for its content?

The editor replied that day:

Thank you for your response. And, of course, you did the entirely correct thing of withdrawing your piece from consideration elsewhere. I am sorry about that - and I am sure that when any publication re-opens its submissions window, you should be able to re-submit it to them, particularly if you revise it further.

As to Grist, I certainly want us to be open to exploring complicated subject matter, but I also have to steward the magazine in a way that is inclusive, respectful, and provides continuity between previous and future editors, due to the annual turnover of the student staff in an academic programme. I felt like there was a valuable effort in your piece to consider the totality of a person, but that this fell away in the piece’s second half and gave way to a flatter idolization of TT. This was evident in the relatively small amount of attention granted to his victims. It also felt like the piece missed the opportunity to interrogate what it meant to adopt elements of TT’s pedagogy or broader way of being in the world. Plus, the handling of the poem in the piece’s conclusion seemed to conflate very different struggles in a manner that belied the nuanced readings elsewhere in the essay. Together, these issues pushed the piece too far away from a nuanced wrestling with a mentor’s complicated inheritance. This raised questions for me about its suitability for Grist, which other team members confirmed. I weigh their opinions heavily for the above-mentioned reasons.

Again, I understand this is disappointing and I am sorry to rescind our offer to publish your work. I do think the work has a higher ceiling, though, and hope you can reach it. Your narrative voice was authoritative and often impressive. I greatly enjoyed the piece’s overall erudition. And I think there may be a thread worth pulling through a new version that considers the appeal of a case language like Latin and its relationship to values. All that to say, there was plenty to recommend your work, too, and I do hope you continue to build on it, even if on this occasion, it proved not to be the right fit for Grist.

I asked John if this was the end of their correspondence. He told me,

I sent a follow up asking for an explanation as to how they found it non-inclusive and disrespectful. They did not respond.

Now, at least the editor provided a more robust explanation for why the publication offer was revoked. Having read John’s essay, I wholeheartedly disagree with this evaluation. But that is neither here nor there.

The pressing questions to me are, how did this get accepted in the first place? Where is the accountability on behalf of these editors to address what is a major fumble in the handling of a writer’s work? This editor notes that “other team members confirmed” his assessment. What about the initial editor who accepted it?

Another question I have is, if the editor has such a clear idea of how the piece could be better aligned with the magazine’s vision, why not work with John on revisions?

I understand that many editors do not have a policy of working on revisions with writers. However, in the rare instance that a work has already been accepted, and a writer has already withdrawn the work from other magazines, I think editors ought to consider this as a real option. Was that considered here? If not, why not?

Once a work has been accepted for publication, I believe the bar for rescinding that offer must be extremely high. The editors discover plagiarism or factual errors. The writer has misrepresented themselves in some crucial way. The magazine undergoes a dramatic change and no longer publishes the originally accepted genre. The editors won’t be putting out an issue at all.

If the editors simply change their mind about a work, I believe a detailed explanation of what happened is owed to the author. I also think the author is entitled to a sincere and heartfelt apology from the editors.

These things happen. As a publisher myself, I understand it. You get a submission, you read it hastily when you’re tired at the end of the day. You shoot back an acceptance to the author. You come back to the piece later and realize it has flaws you missed. Ack, you think. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to accept it.

In that case, it is my view that the work is now your responsibility. In the very rare instances where this has happened with me, I have been forthright with my authors. I’ve told them I picked up a few things in subsequent reads that I would like to work on with them. Lit Mag News contributors will attest that I’ve gone through five, six, seven rounds of revision in order to get a piece more aligned with the expectations of this readership.

I consider my word as an editor to be a bond. Once I tell a writer I will publish their work, it is of paramount importance to me to keep my word. This is because I am a writer, and I know what it means to have work accepted for publication. I know how competitive and difficult the process is. If writers cannot rely on an editor’s word, if publication offers can be rescinded at any moment, how can any writer trust the process at all?

In John’s particular case, the contents of his essay also seem relevant. John reveals profoundly private and sensitive information about his own life. In such an instance, I think editors have an especial responsibility to treat their writers’ work with care. Others may disagree with me on this, but I feel that if a writer shares details of personal trauma in a work, then editors ought to acknowledge the seriousness of what has been shared with them.

Instead, John was told that publication of his piece would not allow this magazine to be a space “that is inclusive, respectful.” Inclusive of whom? Respectful of whom and what? How is reneging on a publication offer inclusive or respectful to John, who has described his own experience with abuse? Is John’s perspective not welcome? More to the point here—Why was it welcome once, and not welcome now?

That these editors do not consider the contract between writer and magazine permanent and reliable may not come as a surprise. On their Mission page they state (bold emphasis mine),

Grist is committed to diversity, inclusivity, cultural interchange, and respect for all individuals. In the case of all submitted and/or accepted work, if an author behaves or speaks publicly—or is revealed or accused to have behaved or spoken, even in private—in ways that contradict these expressed values of the journal, then we reserve the right to disqualify an author’s submission, release the author from any contract, and/or remove their work from our archives.

I have written about these guidelines in another post. As I’ve said countless times before, journals have a right to operate however they wish.

But as I’ve also wondered, what does a publication contract truly mean here? In a publishing environment in which writers are not paid, in which writers are often themselves paying just for a chance to have their work read, shouldn’t the contract be dependable? At the very least, do not writers have a right to know how such matters will be adjudicated and carried out?

Regarding John’s essay, I reached out to the Grist editors for their perspective. I was curious why working with John to make his essay align more with the magazine’s vision was not an option. I also asked under what circumstances publication offers were rescinded.

As of this morning, I’ve not heard back.

What I would like to know is, if an editor sends a publication offer to a writer and then there’s dispute among the editors over the work, is this writer not entitled to a more detailed explanation of what happened? What steps will the magazine take to ensure this does not happen again?

I would also like to know, shouldn’t the bar for rescinding a publication offer be exceptionally high? Even if the editors do not typically work with writers on revision, should not an exception be made in this case, given that the promise of publication has already been made?

Do editors dealing with sensitive material have particular responsibility toward writers? Especially once such material has been accepted for publication? At the very least, should such editors explain how exactly the work’s publication would not lend to the magazine being “inclusive”? Should they avoid encouraging such writers to “research,” “revise” and “reflect more,” as if they are the ones at fault?

Many newspapers offer writers a kill fee in recognition of the work put into a story that the editors ultimately decide not to run. If a magazine offers an honorarium to contributors, is a kill fee appropriate? If not, what about a sincere and heartfelt apology to the writer for this mishandling of their work?

Here at Lit Mag News, I highlight these instances because I am certain they are an anomaly. I hope it remains so. In a literary environment where so much is already precarious for writers and editors alike, the publication offer should be a reliable bond.

If we do not have our word in this business, what do we have?

Let’s discuss.

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Wowza, friends!! We have arrived at the last weekend of the last month of the year!

Before we jump into this weekend’s post, a few notes:

one. There will be no news roundup this Monday, December 30th. News roundups will resume on January 5th.

two. I am actively looking to fill the roster for interviews in the coming year. This means if you edit a lit mag that has been around for at least three years, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the interview schedule.

Alrighty now! Let’s get down to business.

If you are a longtime reader of this site, then you know what this weekend is for.

If you are brand new here, welcome! The last weekend of each month is a space dedicated to all of you. This is the space where you can share any publications you’ve had this past month. We want to celebrate and recognize all your hard work, passion, grit, determination, skills, hustle and savvy!

Also! Since it is our special end-of-year edition, if there is a publication from this past year that you are especially proud of, feel free to share that.

Please don’t be shy. Everyone likes to know who’s publishing where, and we all like learning about markets that are doing great work.

So tell us: Where did the piece appear? (Share links!)

How many places did you submit to before this piece found its happy little home?

Did editors work with you on revision?

Did you revise as you submitted the piece or was it done and out the door?

How did you hear about the journal?

Are you happy with the final presentation?

It’s time! Come right out and step right up and please brag your lit mag!

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If you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while, you may recall that I don’t put much store in New Year’s resolutions. It’s not that I don’t think it’s important to evaluate one’s life and set new goals. Of course it is!

If there is something you’ve been meaning to do, it can surely help to have a specific date to make that commitment. Start that novel, begin a daily writing practice, submit more frequently, form that writing group. Yes, yes, and yes. (Also quit smoking, join a gym, cut down on carbs, etc etc etc.)

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What I find problematic about New Year’s resolutions are two things. The first is that the date feels arbitrary and therefore silly to me. Begin a new writing regimen on January 1st? Why? Who says? Why not…tomorrow? Why not this Monday? Why not right now?

In fact, some might argue that January 1st is a terrible day to begin a new regimen because it’s not a true test case. Most of us have that day off from school and work. It’s easy to start something new on a day you don’t have additional commitments. The real challenge is integrating changes into your regular schedule. This might be one reason why only 1% of people commit to their resolutions for a full year.

Many cultures do not regard January 1st as a significant date at all. The Lunar New Year is at the end of January. The Jewish New Year is in the fall. The Persian New Year is in March. The Islamic New Year is in June.

You may have your own individual new year. Personally, I consider my birthday to be a more significant date than the Gregorian New Year. (Though as I get older, both dates have come to feel equally depressing.)

Another problematic aspect of New Year’s resolutions is one I wrote about last year. I suspect this might be the true reason so many resolutions fail. That is, they are so often tied to self-recrimination. The very nature of making resolutions for change implies that we believe something in our lives needs fixing. We insist on change because we are convinced something is broken, often that we ourselves don’t measure up. Resolutions tend to begin from feelings of unworthiness.

I will start that novel…because I’ve been such a slacker.

I will commit to writing more…because my output sucked last year.

I’ll send my work out more frequently…because my CV is pathetic.

I will make more time to write …because everyone else is moving ahead while I twiddle my stubby little thumbs.

It’s only natural that our plans for self-improvement would fail in a headspace like this. (Your thumbs are beautiful and perfect, by the way.)

Truly, what is the motivation to push harder, work more, create bigger, when your mind will invariably become a bossy scold who never appreciates what you do? Nothing is ever good enough for you, your inner self is bound to rebel. And by month two, motivation tanks.

For this reason, rather than pledge oneself to some new agenda, some grand life change, I think it’s better—more gratifying, more compassionate, more motivating—to commit to something you’ve already begun. This means looking at your writing life and finding habits, practices and actions that are working right now.

It’s so easy to castigate ourselves for all the ways we haven’t met our goals or lived up to our own expectations. What about acknowledging what you’ve already achieved? Celebrating what you’ve found exciting in your process? Commending yourself for your already-habitual efforts and hard-won discipline?

And then, committing to simply keeping it going?

You don’t need to lash out at your writer self this holiday season, make pledges to fix your program once-and-for-all. You can, instead, find what has been working for you already. Look at how much you’ve done. Resolve to recognize this, to thank yourself for it, and commit to keeping it going and growing.

One thing I started doing recently is actually something I began long ago. That is, I’m filling gaps in my reading by working my way around the alphabet. (Don’t judge. James Baldwin did the exact same thing.)

I’ve written here before about feeling overwhelmed when deciding what to read at any given moment. A lit mag? A novel relevant to what I’m working on? A novel far afield of what I’m working on? History? Science? Contemporary? Classic? Facebook? X? Amazon reviews?

So, I’ve simplified the process. If a fiction writer’s last name begins with “L” or “M,” and their work looks interesting to me and/or is part of the canon, I’m reading the book. I’m doing these letters because this was where I left off many years ago. Perhaps I will still be on “L” and “M” this time next year. But that’s fine. I’ve already found so much pleasure in writers I wouldn’t ordinarily discover. (And if there’s an author you consider a must-read whose last name begins with “L” or “M,” drop me a line!)

So that’s me. A fun little reading adventure which is already underway.

Now, I would like to hear about you.

I want to know not necessarily what you plan to start in the new year, though that’s fine. If you want to make resolutions, I won’t stand in your way! But mostly I want to hear what you will continue, which you’ve already set in motion.

What will you grow from, which you’ve already planted? What path will you stay on, which you’ve already begun to walk? How will you move forward, not from scratch, not from lack, but from space you have already carved for yourself, abundance which you fully deserve, now, to acknowledge?

Also! For fun, some of you might enjoy looking at this New Year’s post from 2023 and this New Year’s post from 2024. Precious little time capsules where so many of you left comments! What do you think? Have your goals evolved? Has your vision grown?

Let’s hear all about it.

What have you begun to build already, and what will you continue in 2026?

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A question came from a reader. M. writes,

What do editors mean when they want you to take risks? Some are more explicit than others, focusing on form, usually. I’ve not seen mention of topic/theme or POV, however.

I love this question. It’s something I’ve often wondered myself.

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This time of year can be difficult for many people, for reasons big and small. For writers, in addition to all the usual family triggers and stresses (all the things that probably drove us to become writers in the first place), there are additional challenges. The disruption to our schedules can be massive. Distractions, pressures and obligations—social, financial, familial—abound.

Another challenge specific to writers is seeing people post their End of Year lists. If you’re not on social media, maybe you have no idea what this is. Or maybe you’ve encountered this in other parts of the literary ecosystem.

Around this time, writers often take to the internet to share what they’ve accomplished in the past year. For example, if I posted my own accomplishments list, it would look something like this:

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