I think the simple answer to the question is burnout. Even small journals are flooded with submissions, and the pile keeps growing while each issue is being produced.
I've had a good run with lit mags (more than 50 pubs over 20 years, including places like Kenyon Review and Missouri Review). When I was a professor, the publication was val…
I think the simple answer to the question is burnout. Even small journals are flooded with submissions, and the pile keeps growing while each issue is being produced.
I've had a good run with lit mags (more than 50 pubs over 20 years, including places like Kenyon Review and Missouri Review). When I was a professor, the publication was value enough for things like tenure review and promotion. But now that I'm out of academe, I can't justify paying $3 a pop for submissions when publication is pro bono and when the pure volume of submissions has ballooned the acceptance:rejection ratio, even for seasoned writers like me. What was once something like 1:15 is now closer to 1:100. Which often means paying hundreds to be published for free.
It's a completely broken system. Institutions are slashing even the most storied arts and humanities programs. And the smaller journals just don't have the reach to offer anything better than Substack does. At least that's what I've concluded. The main reason to keep submitting to lit mags is to hope an agent will find you there or you'll get a prize nomination or selection in Best American.
I came to feel that publications in lit mags were like one-night stands. The writer and editor served a purpose for each other, and that was the end of it. I've never had an enduring relationship with an editor after publication. But now I think that a more charitable view is that these folks are completely snowed with work and just can't beat back the slush pile enough to catch a breath. They are burning the candle at both ends.
Interesting comment about being a one-night stand. I've send stories to reviews were I was published before and several times they sent me a nice note saying that rarely do they publish from the same writer. So you have a point.
Which may reveal that editors wish for a different dynamic, too? I haven't read the whole comment thread, but I'd be curious to hear one of their responses. I've had nice exchanges with some of my editors when I've asked for them, but they haven't led to any standing invitations to send more work or what I would think of as an ongoing collaboration, like those that writers sometimes forge with their book publishers (although that, too, is increasingly rare).
I think this is a very reasonable and fair take, Joshua. The journals and their staff are often overwhelmed, and they are competing to be heard within a glut of information available online, via streaming, etc. etc. I will say Hayden's Ferry Review is lovely to publish with and hosts contributor readings. But literary magazines are generally reaching and speaking to such tiny audiences, I'm not sure how much they can do, publicity-wise, given their small volunteer staffs, and the very noisy online world we live in, where there are so many competing demands on potential readers' attention.
"But literary magazines are generally reaching and speaking to such tiny audiences, I'm not sure how much they can do, publicity-wise, given their small volunteer staffs, and the very noisy online world we live in, where there are so many competing demands on potential readers' attention." Exactly!
Incidentally, I always liked HFR, but never made it with them :). I think this question inevitably leads back to the value proposition that Substack offers. I now have 2,000+ free subscribers, which is more than twice HFR's circulation. I still prefer the idea of someone else judging my work fit to print, but why would I keep paying HFR $3 a pop for 15-20 years (or forever) for smaller circulation? If readers are voting with their feet, and if some of them are paying me, it's hard to go back. And yet some deep part of me is still thinking that this is not how it should be. I miss that feeling of being a cool kid in someone else's pages!
In my experience, all agents that I have come across, you say the word short story and they acted like I was talking about soggy saltine crackers. They had absolutely no interest. They wanted novels. They wanted genre fiction. They wanted the stuff the market wanted to buy. Don't say the lit word too loud because they would think something was stinking in the room. I paid top dollar in conferences to hear their god-has-spoken advice and again, I would walk out of those one-on-ones angry and with a desire to do absolutely the opposite. Is there a way around the agent dilemma?
The point about burn-out is understandable to a certain extent, Joshua. But I think, if journals run out of energy to promote, perhaps they should step back and ask themselves what they are doing it all for. Speaking from my theatre background, any artistic event needs a certain amount of promotion. Or it dies, no matter how worthy the work. The online space (at least) is already so crowded out with journals. And if they've stopped doing promotion, remove those "we can't pay, but we promote and celebrate our writers actively" messages in the guidelines.
Why don't _more_ editors choose to close to submissions once they've reached the limit of what they can reasonably handle? It would be much less exhausting for them--and kinder to the writers.
(I do wish I'd started submitting before the dawn of electronic submissions; I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever beat those odds.)
I think the simple answer to the question is burnout. Even small journals are flooded with submissions, and the pile keeps growing while each issue is being produced.
I've had a good run with lit mags (more than 50 pubs over 20 years, including places like Kenyon Review and Missouri Review). When I was a professor, the publication was value enough for things like tenure review and promotion. But now that I'm out of academe, I can't justify paying $3 a pop for submissions when publication is pro bono and when the pure volume of submissions has ballooned the acceptance:rejection ratio, even for seasoned writers like me. What was once something like 1:15 is now closer to 1:100. Which often means paying hundreds to be published for free.
It's a completely broken system. Institutions are slashing even the most storied arts and humanities programs. And the smaller journals just don't have the reach to offer anything better than Substack does. At least that's what I've concluded. The main reason to keep submitting to lit mags is to hope an agent will find you there or you'll get a prize nomination or selection in Best American.
I came to feel that publications in lit mags were like one-night stands. The writer and editor served a purpose for each other, and that was the end of it. I've never had an enduring relationship with an editor after publication. But now I think that a more charitable view is that these folks are completely snowed with work and just can't beat back the slush pile enough to catch a breath. They are burning the candle at both ends.
Interesting comment about being a one-night stand. I've send stories to reviews were I was published before and several times they sent me a nice note saying that rarely do they publish from the same writer. So you have a point.
Which may reveal that editors wish for a different dynamic, too? I haven't read the whole comment thread, but I'd be curious to hear one of their responses. I've had nice exchanges with some of my editors when I've asked for them, but they haven't led to any standing invitations to send more work or what I would think of as an ongoing collaboration, like those that writers sometimes forge with their book publishers (although that, too, is increasingly rare).
I think this is a very reasonable and fair take, Joshua. The journals and their staff are often overwhelmed, and they are competing to be heard within a glut of information available online, via streaming, etc. etc. I will say Hayden's Ferry Review is lovely to publish with and hosts contributor readings. But literary magazines are generally reaching and speaking to such tiny audiences, I'm not sure how much they can do, publicity-wise, given their small volunteer staffs, and the very noisy online world we live in, where there are so many competing demands on potential readers' attention.
"But literary magazines are generally reaching and speaking to such tiny audiences, I'm not sure how much they can do, publicity-wise, given their small volunteer staffs, and the very noisy online world we live in, where there are so many competing demands on potential readers' attention." Exactly!
Incidentally, I always liked HFR, but never made it with them :). I think this question inevitably leads back to the value proposition that Substack offers. I now have 2,000+ free subscribers, which is more than twice HFR's circulation. I still prefer the idea of someone else judging my work fit to print, but why would I keep paying HFR $3 a pop for 15-20 years (or forever) for smaller circulation? If readers are voting with their feet, and if some of them are paying me, it's hard to go back. And yet some deep part of me is still thinking that this is not how it should be. I miss that feeling of being a cool kid in someone else's pages!
I hear you! Of course we want someone else to "approve" of us enough to print our work, but a subscription base of 2,000 is nothing to sneeze at!
It seems that there are only two reasons to submit to lit mags: hope of an ego boost or being discovered by a literary agent.
In my experience, all agents that I have come across, you say the word short story and they acted like I was talking about soggy saltine crackers. They had absolutely no interest. They wanted novels. They wanted genre fiction. They wanted the stuff the market wanted to buy. Don't say the lit word too loud because they would think something was stinking in the room. I paid top dollar in conferences to hear their god-has-spoken advice and again, I would walk out of those one-on-ones angry and with a desire to do absolutely the opposite. Is there a way around the agent dilemma?
I have no experience with agents so I can't answer your question.
I will say that I avoid people who set themselves up as authorities.
Or prizes or Best American…
Hope springs eternal.
I see that you're an author @UIowaPress.
Do you live in Iowa? That's where I'm from.
I used to. I’m in central PA now.
And? What next?
No one holds a gun to an editor's head and yells, "Continue producing this literary journal ... or else!"
If fifty percent of literary zines shuttered today, no one would care.
Overwhelmed by the demands of running a zine?
Do us all a favor --- and stop.
The point about burn-out is understandable to a certain extent, Joshua. But I think, if journals run out of energy to promote, perhaps they should step back and ask themselves what they are doing it all for. Speaking from my theatre background, any artistic event needs a certain amount of promotion. Or it dies, no matter how worthy the work. The online space (at least) is already so crowded out with journals. And if they've stopped doing promotion, remove those "we can't pay, but we promote and celebrate our writers actively" messages in the guidelines.
Why don't _more_ editors choose to close to submissions once they've reached the limit of what they can reasonably handle? It would be much less exhausting for them--and kinder to the writers.
(I do wish I'd started submitting before the dawn of electronic submissions; I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever beat those odds.)