All the Single Lit Mags!

Unfolding editor scandal, fighting age-ism in publishing, submitting advice, editor interviews, contests and calls for submissions galore

Greetings Lit Magvatars,

This past winter, I shared the news of the resignation of Believer Editor, Joshua Wolf Shenk, after an unfortunate zoom incident. More recently, several outlets are reporting that “the incident was just the latest controversy for the highly regarded literary figure.” “The embattled essayist has been the subject of numerous inappropriate behavior complaints since joining Black Mountain Institute in 2015.”

In other news, several writers have voiced frustration with the Women’s Prize, which has announced “a new award in partnership with Good Housekeeping magazine.” A great prize with one catch: winners must be under age 35. Writes Joanna Walsh:

It’s great to encourage young writers, so what’s the problem? The arts world is already deluged with age-limited awards. Big prizes include the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award (for under-35s), the Dylan Thomas (for under-39s) and the Rooney prize (for under-40s) in Ireland. There are also a host of smaller age-limited grants, residencies and other opportunities, not to mention publicity campaigns similar to Futures, such a Granta’s Best Young British Novelists (for under-40s) and their Best Young Spanish Novelists (who, for some reason, have to make it even faster, by the age of 35). The assumption, it seems, is that older writers are so culturally or financially secure that they have no need for money or recognition.

This is not the case…What’s more, many women from culturally marginalised backgrounds find their route to publication lengthened by prejudice and exclusion. And what about those slowed by disability, or chronic illness? Or writing in English they’ve spent years learning as a second language? Or working to pay off student loans? Age-limited awards favour those with the confidence, time and money to commit to a writing career young.

Joanna Walsh has created an open letter to The Women’s Prize and Good Housekeeping magazine.

Several other opinion pieces crossed my path this week. At The Millions, Brittani Sonnenberg writes about Agentless Agency: On Submitting to Lit Journals. Sonnenberg says, “New plan. I’m going to approach submissions as an online dating adventure for my writing, and see if I can set my pieces up on some alluring blind dates.”

At LitHub, Erica Jenks Henry has written about The Agony and the Ecstasy of Publishing Your Work in a Literary Magazine: “And that is it. There is nothing else to do, and the writing I have thought so much about—so much more about than when I first wrote it in a heave of inspiration and imagery—is live somewhere, is in a literary magazine somewhere, and nobody that I know knows.”

Lincoln Michel has written about rejections. In On Rejections, Rejections, and Rejection, Michel writes, “You can look at the math and realize that the rejections aren’t really personal. It’s unlikely the editors will even remember you the next time you submit. Hell, they might not even be the same editors given the turnover at literary magazines (especially ones attached to universities and staffed by students). So you have to decide to just keep knocking (politely and following the guidelines) at the gates until they let you in.”

For those of you looking for new places to submit, Paper Cat Press has a new newsletter that includes a roundup of writing opportunities. These include prizes from lit mags and calls for submissions from both lit mags and presses.

In Poets and Writers’ latest Lit MagNet, Aurielle Marie discusses the poetry submitting and publishing process. “Marie advises other writers looking to publish work to not take ‘every rejection as a personal value metric’ and says that ‘consistency and audacity work together to make magic happen.’”

If you’re looking for great new contests, check out Winning Writer’s list of “over two dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with deadlines between August 15-September 30.”

If you’ve been inspired to write some funny pieces lately, here is A List of Humor and Satire Websites That Accept Writing and Contributors. And S. Kalekar has posted a new list of 30 Print Literary Magazines that Publish Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry.

For those looking for lit mags to submit to this fall, this Twitter thread might be of interest:

AlaskaQuarterlyReview @AQReview

Is there a thread somewhere of all the autumn lit mag deadlines?? We want on it, or we want to start it! 🍂

And if you’re looking to pick the brain of some lit mag editors, Nimrod editors will participate in a Q&A session. “Have questions about getting your work ready to submit or about the publishing industry in general? Want to know what catches an editor’s eye or turns them off your work? Join Nimrod’s Editor-in-Chief, Eilis O’Neal, and Associate Editor, Cassidy McCants, for answers about anything and everything publishing.”

Speaking of which, have you seen my latest editor interviews? In case you missed them, be sure to check out the Lit Mag News Roundup youtube channel. You can now view interviews with the editors of Booth, One Poetry Journal, Boxcar Poetry Review, Creative Nonfiction Magazine, Santa Monica Review, Story Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Tahoma Literary Review, and more.

(Are you a journal editor who would like to be interviewed? Drop me a line!)

More interviews coming in September! Stay tuned, friends.

And that you wistful willows slowly watching the winding down of summer, you awaiters of autumn and all it will deliver, you whiling away the time while you witness the whirling of color-changing leaves, you who feel weird, you who are worthy of all that is wonderful, you out there wishing and wondering, wandering through the wilderness of that which is delicious and wicked, you weeble-wobblers, you wishy-washers, you working every day on your widgets and your wares, you out there, wily wielders of words, because words are everything for you, and you, who from every corner write the world as you both know it and don’t, as it is and as it was and as it should become, is the news in the literary magazines.

Have the very best week, pals.

Fondly,

Becky

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