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From my experience, Allium, Streetlight Magazine, The Smart Set, and Cleaver make a strong effort to promote their authors' work. It is much appreciated!

On a tangentially-related note, I just had a piece rejected by Big Wing Review. However, even though BWR processes submissions through Submittable, there wasn't even a form rejection acknowledgement. It was just rejected, and I had to hunt around to determine my status. I've never had this happen before- and I've been rejected a lot. Has anyone else experienced this?

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I sent some poems to BWR and they never responded to them. Then they sent an email saying they were reading for their next issue, and seemed to expect me to be interested in sending more. No thanks.

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Thanks for the heads-up on this place.

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Thanks for that. I guess it's not just me.

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Interesting. Usually poetry and fiction will have different editors and staff. BWR has sent me many times the usual form rejection, but recently sent me an awesome letter that left me speechless.

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Glad you got the awesome letter. I didn’t have a huge amount of interest in them in the first place, just thought I’d give them a try, which can be a good idea.

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It has been my experience with many publications that poetry, non-fiction and fiction have different editors and staff. So I am sorry that happened to you.

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Thanks. But it’s only an only a minor annoyance/disappointment. My heart was not set on appearing in BWR.

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I had a poem in Streetlight last year and another coming out this year and I've been very happy with both the process and the result!

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Yup, declined without any notice on Feb 27. First time I can remember not getting a rejection email via Submittable, but maybe it's just they "didn't push the right button" or something.

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Thanks for the heads-up on Big Wing Review... I sent a story there for their last call so I'll remember to root around the Submittable trash bin if I don't otherwise hear from them.

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Hi, Scott. Yes, this has happened to me a few times before on Submittable: a wordless rejection.

When it happened, I entered the journal's name in my daily writer's journal with a note to avoid them in future.

Rather unpardonable laziness. I winced reading your note.

I'm so sorry to hear of what we used to call on campus "infra dig." Ouch!

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"Unpardonable laziness" made me smile. Literary magazines, in general, are megafactors better at rejections than literary agents for novel queries. The norm too often in that world is the silence of deep space. A writer may spend three years on a novel and query 10 prospective agents. Hearing back at all from 5 of them, even if all are rejects, is practically a victory.

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Patrick, I am still waiting to hear from NINETEEN indie presses - - - from way back in August 2022 - January 2023 - - - to whom I sent my intriguing and illustrated Hallowe'en poetry collection.

Recently, it has been acquired by a good press.

No, no, I won't be going back to Autumn 2022's list to bother to withdraw my ms.

"Unpardonable laziness" should swing both ways.

Who agrees with me, intrepid lit-magpies?

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Thanks. This was a first for me but I guess it wasn't a glitch or, as I thought: "Maybe they are just waiting to write a nice personal rejection." Hah!

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You can always write Big Wing a nice personal rejection, Scott. (smile)

What a shameful way to treat writers!

Cobras nidificant in cervicalibus suis.

[Old Roman curse: May cobras nest in their pillows.]

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Latin!!! Sexy!!!

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