Can you believe March is coming up so soon? Feels like winter was hardly here at all! At least, that’s true where I live. (And it is especially true at this moment, where I happen to be writing to you from sunny Florida and extremely strange, surreal and exhausting Disney World.) (Family thing.) (Long story.) (Don’t ask.)
Anyway, if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know what the last weekend of the month means!
And if you are brand new, welcome to the Brag Your Lit Mag thread!
This weekend’s conversation is devoted to all of you, your experiences, your accomplishments, your true tales and long journeys.
Tell us the magazines where you published work in the last 3 months or so.
Share the inside story.
How did you find the journal?
What was your submission process like? Did you revise the piece as you submitted it? Did you send it to 3-300 places before it found its home?
How was your publication experience? Did the editor work with you on revisions?
Share the link so we can find it.
Don’t be shy now. Come on out, step right up. Go forth and brag your lit mag!
My happy dance came this week when I discovered a message on Instagram from the editor of Consequence Forum letting me know he nominated my short story, "I, Divided," for a Pushcart Prize. The message was from April 2022! This makes my third fiction nomination (I have one for poetry), and I am now inspired to continue to write fiction when I'm not writing YA historical novels in verse. I found this lit mag on New Pages. The story was published in Fall 2021. It's about a Holocaust survivor who developed a split personality as a coping mechanism.
I've been regularly submitting since my novel PAPER BAGS was published by Woodhall Press 10/2021 so I'm thrilled for this opportunity to open a conversation about our words.
Feb 25, 2023·edited Feb 25, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
Much of my poetry the past five years has come out of something terrible I did 52 years ago.This is going to going to sound dramatic, and it is, because attempted suicide is as dramatic an experience as a human being can have. In 1971 I was 24 and fell into a profound clinical depression--the kind where you largely stop eating, sleeping, desiring, emoting. [And it just occurred to me that perhaps that is why we are so fascinated by zombies, the living dead, because we are the only species that can feel depression or for that matter, willfully commit self-murder]. To this day I'm not sure exactly why, but in a sense my life--the way I had been living it-- had caught up with me.
Back then I was agnostic, pretty sure only matter was really in our vast universe--so no God, no soul, and death meant extinction. My hero was Camus, and I saw myself as a brave existentialist, accepting that life is meaningless. So logically when I feared being committed for life to a massive mental institution [they still had those back in the early 70's[, as my nerves were shot and I shook like a 95 year old man with Parkinson's, I thought the only 'escape' was to throw myself off a bridge at Montpelier,Vermont into the Winooski River. ...man, was I wrong about the extinction part!
I'm not going into what I experienced whilst drowning [and unconscious ], but I did--finally- share it with the world in a brief mini-memoir that my editor at Cyberwit kindly let me include in my 3rd book of poetry, 'Soul Songs', that the publisher released a few weeks before last Christmas. I don't know quite why it has taken me a 1/2 century to share what I experienced with more than just a handful of close friends, but if it helps even one person to think twice about seeing suicide as the ultimate escape--and let's be honest--have not many of you thought about it at some time? God, the immortal soul, hell, and no doubt heaven... all real. I'm sure it is because we have souls that we are capable of good and evil, unlike animals who act on instinct. We see this every day from the local news of crime and brutality to seeing a large country invade and rein destruction on a smaller, peaceful neighboring nation--for no damn good reason! And each of us every day feel that war within us between light and darkness, don't we?
Let me end this on a positive note: I thank God--that Being/Presence/Force permeating the Universe--and each of us--for all of what I went through [and there were beautiful things as well, like the OBE I shared with my fiance ]-- for now I know that the problem with life is not that it is meaningless , as an honest atheist will say, but that there is so much meaning in EVERYTHING that at best we can only grasp a bit of it, a sliver, a parcel, but when we do, we'll feel a shiver run throughout our bodies, as even our skin tingles with something beyond this world. You've felt that at sometime, haven't you?
My latest happy dance is for my translation from the Spanish of Mexican writer Mónica Lavín's moody, dark story "The Mangroves" which was published in The Southern Review's gorgeous Winter '23. It is a real paper magazine, so you cannot read it online, but if you want to buy, you can do so here: https://thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2023/263/
If you're really nice to me, I might offer you my friends and family code.
I met Sacha Idell at an American Literary Translators Association Editor-Translator Pitch Session. ALTA pitch sessions are the max and if you are a translator and not an ALTA member, you are seriously missing out. Also, if you are an Editor who seeks translations and haven't investigated ALTA, you are also missing out. The art of the pitch is one that everyone should practice, so I love doing these sessions whether I sell a piece or not. Well, I was driving north to see my mother at the time my session was scheduled, so I timed my trip to arrive at the Maryland House Rest Stop and cracked open my laptop right there. in the car. I pay for satellite WIFI for just such situations, I really could have stopped anywhere. Sacha thought my location was pretty funny, and laughter smoothed the way for a fun conversation. He is smart, easy, appreciative, and kind, a delightful editor to work with. He went over my text carefully and came up with two or three small suggestions all of which I accepted. This publication was special because it's the first time Mónica and I have published one of her stories in English first: #translation #shortstories #pitch
My long ghost story is coming out on Sunday: "Lost in London." It'll be in Bewildering Stories. I found the online mag while looking for lit mags of any kind that took long fiction, which is a very hard sell. And Fifth Wheel Press took my 37th memoir essay from the last year and half or so and it's due next month. I found them via Chill Subs. I shifted back to memoir essays and short fiction in late 2021, I think, because it was easier to concentrate. But I'm back into the novel I set aside and I can see the end clearly at last.
Hi Becky and my fellow writers! Well done to everyone, everywhere who keeps showing up!
I wanted to share my recent story, "Betsy, Lizzy, Beth" which was published in the first issue of a journal called World Ember (https://www.worldember.com/index)-in the Culture issue. They pay $10 too (although I haven't received this yet, they said they would send at end of month.)
Anyway, I will try to keep this as short as possible, I wrote "Betsy, Lizzy, Beth" over a year ago. I was in that first excitement of writing a story I really loved and sent it out with high hopes. The whole first 9 months or so it just got rejected over and over, all form rejections, no glimmers of hope. Finally an editor from one mag wrote me very specific revision instructions. I employed his advice and sent it back, but he rejected it anyway (He made no promises so it was expected/okay with me). BUT the story really improved based on his instructions. SO, out it went again, but this time I got some very bright glimmers of hope. One editor said the story made her cry (in a good way I presume, LOL). Someone else called it WONDERFUL. And it was long listed somewhere else. The journal that accepted it called it, "haunting, tragically beautiful." I was so surprised and thrilled by these comments. Anyway, I think the best place to read it, unfortunately, is my web site, because on the World Ember site you have to work through the magazine PDF and it's kind of hard. But def check them out. I think the mag is beautiful. I swear this is not a shameless plug for my website: https://www.maggienerziribarne.com/work/betsy-lizzy-beth.
Thanks for this space to brag a little. But please excuse my bragging!
After a year plus of trying, I published in Brevity, a publication I love for not only their flash nonfiction, but also their craft essays. I wrote an essay about how playing pickleball helps tame the writing monster.
Hi Becky & Lit Mag Readers, I had two publications in the last three months, both poetry. One poem landed at Thimble Literary Magazine, and the editor was great to work with. Thimble is both digital and in print. I also had a poem at Red Flag Poetry, which also publishes your work online, but then makes and send you a half dozen postcards of your poem that you can send round to your pals. So cool. The poem at Thimble had been in submission circles for more than a year. The poem at Red Flag was fairly new and one that I sent specifically to Red Flag only. In this same three-month period my work was declined at Poetry, Hayden's Ferry Review, 32 Poems, MER, Pidgeonholes, River Heron Review, and The Adroit Journal. But I also have work forthcoming in Zone 3, and I have a few things still out and about.
I was delighted to learn that I've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Pembroke Magazine for my personal essay, "My Swastika, His Horse," about a lifetime of living in the South amidst signs and symbols of the Lost Cause myth. PM is publication of the University of North Carolina- Pembroke and has been published continually since 1969. The editor, Peter Grimes, has been good to work with.
Feb 25, 2023·edited Feb 25, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
Though I've felt as though publication progress has been dragging, it turns out I had two stories appearing in February after all....
My experimental story, "The Empty Room," appears in Del Sol Review, which has an odd website that makes it damn near impossible to link directly to the story. I can understand why; they want to promote all their contributors. But, if you want to read "The Empty Room," you'll have to go to the link below, look for issue 26 (which as I write is the landing page), and find the story under "Fiction."
And just a day or two ago, I heard that Rock and a Hard Place magazine's latest issue was out, including my story, "Fried Baloney Sandwiches," a poignant tale based on the years I spent interviewing and photographing railroad tramps living along the LA River. No free access, but they're a superb magazine, well-edited and -produced, and not just because this is the fourth story of mine they've published (along with a couple of photographs), and not just because they pay. Kindle and print editions available at https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Hard-Place-Issue-Winter/dp/B0BWLRXD4M That's 194 pages of good work.
Found Del Sol in either Poets & Writers or Newpages; don't recall where I found Rock and a Hard Place.
OK, I'll give this a go. I've had several poems published in the last few months - with me it's always been feast or famine - including one in EPOCH, which actually paid me $100 (the poem is quite short so this was a lot, in my experience). I'm also excited because EPOCH is published in Ithaca, N.Y. and as a relative newbie to nearby Rochester, I felt more grounded by this. There's no link to my poem, but you can visit EPOCH on Instagram and Mastadon, or download a PDF of their new issue at epochliterary.com/shop. Potential contributors should go to epochliterary.com/submit .
Gyroscope Review posted in the Calls for Submissions Facebook group, and even though I'd been rejected by them many, many times I decided to try again because I thought the poem was a good fit. The editor sent out the acceptance notification the day after the submission window closed. She was very professional, and I LOVE the cover. A pdf version of the Winter 2023 issue is available online-- https://www.gyroscopereview.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Winter-Issue-2023-FINAL-GR-Web.pdf. All-around positive experience. I'd gladly trust them with my work again.
My poem "Leaving in Two Languages" was published in "Shift" put out by MTSU yesterday. It's a print journal, though it appears the work comes online later:
They have themed calls, one opening today or tomorrow, though I have to admit to forgetting what it will be for the next anthology.
What was fun was the Zoom reading last night. I love to later be able to read the poems carefully and put faces to names in the bio. They have been very professional, with contracts, and follow up emails and reminders--as well as a clear Zoom invite.
A week ago today, I got a message from Rattle that my poem "Pigeon Dyed Pink" was chosen for that week's Poet Respond, their weekly competition for poems inspired by a news story. You can read it here: https://www.rattle.com/pigeon-dyed-pink-by-clare-cross/. I was also briefly interviewed on their Rattlecast.
I was absolutely over the moon. I had quit submitting for a while partly due to health issues, so it's been literally years since I've had work accepted. I have read and loved Poets Respond for a long time.
I'm still trying to figure out why poems I've slaved over for months don't get accepted, yet this one I wrote in two days was picked right up.
Feb 25, 2023·edited Feb 26, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
My short story Landslide was published this month in Atlantic Northeast which was the magazine’s first issue. I found it on Chill Subs and got lucky because the story is about hiking in that area. I had a few rejections prior. In fact the original title was the second line of the song - if you climb a mountain and turnaround- and that’s where the story starts. I remember this song had a second life when the band got back together and the notable covers by The Smashing Pumpkins and The Chicks, so I thought tapping into it was worthwhile.
I submitted my humorous story, The Five Pound Blunt, to 3 lit mags and it was rejected by two and accepted immediately by one, Piker Press. Read it here, https://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=9608
I'm brand new to this nl, so I'm going to share a success story for a piece that ran in December.
So... last year? Or maybe it was in 2021?... I was in this small writing accountability group and we used to give each other assignments every month so we could write outside our comfort zones. One of the members challenged us to write a piece in the second person, which was SO FLIPPING HARD, but I ended up with this short piece about my late grandmother, which I sort of liked it, so I started sending it around to places and it kept getting rejected.
About a year later, I decided it must be deeply flawed in some way, so I brought it to a new critique group and they gave me all of this fantastic feedback and, a week later, I shit you not, even before I'd had a chance to revise my piece, I got an acceptance from the Offing, to which I'd submit the piece a year prior? I legit was like, "Hey, dude! I'd almost given up on this piece and was just about to revise it!" (what is even wrong with me?) and we talked over what I'd been thinking and he wanted the piece as is and, well, here we are:
The Offing had been sort of on the edge of my radar since they first launched, but I'd never placed anything there. I always love adding a new pub to my list of successes. :)
As always, Becky, thanks for providing this platform! I've encountered so much cool writing via Lit Mag Brags.
I'm delighted to have two different tales (one fiction, one poetry) in beestung this month. beestung is "a quarterly micro-magazine of non-binary writers that’s sweet and stings." I love that writers can submit more than one genre of writing, and up to six pieces. I subbed six last April, and had two accepted in May. beestung pays, and Sarah Clark, the EIC, was a total professional and great to work with.
Lately, I have been revising and publishing a lot of haiku, senryu, and tanka. I began writing haiku during my senior year of high school when my English teacher did a unit about this type of poetry. I am now 73 and improving my skills as a writer of short poetry. I like the challenge of condensing my ideas into a small number of syllables. Recent haiku theory recommends that English haiku should be shorter than 17 syllables, so the condensation is more extreme. Here are my recent poetry publications: “Patchwork Quilt.” (haiku) Cold Moon Journal (November 2022): https://coldmoonjournal.blogspot.com/ ; “Birthmark.” (tanka) Eucalypt #33 (November 2022): 40; “Passover in Michigan.” (senryu) Presence #74 (November 2022): 25; “Havdalah.” (senryu) Prune Juice No. 38 (December 2022): https://prunejuicesenryu.com/2022/12/19/issue-38-senryu-kyoka/ ; “Crocus” and “Black Pipe.” Blithe Spirit 33.1 (February 2023). I had to revise “Patchwork Quilt” and “Havdalah” for years to get them right for publication. "Havdalah" began life as a quatrain.
I also published my first short play during the fall of 2022. Triton College had produced Pledging as part of its Tritonysia Play Festival in May 2017. Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in Rushing Through the Dark (fall 2022).
Best wishes for 2023 to my sister and brother writers!
Feb 25, 2023·edited Feb 25, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
Congratulations, everyone! I love reading these reports each month. Miniskirt published my flash essay in their Valentines issue. I wrote it a couple of years ago and it was rejected 3 or 4 times. Then I took Jenna McGuiggan's flash nonfiction class, and revised it. After revision, it was accepted at the first place I sent it to. They had previously rejected a narrative nonfiction piece of mine, but asked me to send more work. I found Miniskirt among Duotrope's themed submission calls. Jenna is offering the class again soon, if anyone would like details. https://miniskirtmagazine.com/issue-18-holiday-issue-19-valentines-day-the-double-issue/debra-wilson-frank-nonfiction-seating-arrangements/
Meanwhile, I've had 7 rejections in 7 days! Five asked for more work, including Ploughshares, so it's not a total loss. And one gave extensive feedback, After Happy Hour Review--very generous of them!
I wrote a story about the time my partner and I were harassed by a man while while walking our dogs. It was so bizarre! Anyway, I'll be reading that story at an event in Providence, RI called Stranger Stories! I'm so excited and so nervous. I've never done anything like this before and I can't wait. The process to submit was simple and straightforward. They got back to me in like three days after the deadline closed, which was lovely. If you're in the area, come check it out and hear the tale! Deets are here: https://www.strangerstoriespvd.com/submit
Congrats to everyone with their publications! I love reading about all the great places writers are finding for their work. In 2022, these early months of the year were the best for me, and that seems to be true for 2023 too. Here are my recent publications.
1. My essay “How to Change the World in Fifty Years” was published at Words & Sports Quarterly. I had just written this piece to promote the release of my book (Gwen Jorgensen: USA’s First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete-Meyer&Meyer Sport). The essay was rejected a few places, but the sports theme fit perfectly for this call. It was accepted quickly and got timely tweets from the lit mag when it went live. A small compensation too! Great positive experience with Aaron Burch and rest of these people from HAD!
2. SBO (School Band and Orchestra) published my essay "Six Ways Violin Helped My Daughter Win Olympic Gold" this month. Again, quick response, and publication within the month. Communication has been excellent, and the piece is both in print and online.
3. Little Somethings Press picked up my poem “Holy Deck of Cards” for their Ephemera Issue. Great little magazine. All hand made with beautiful artwork, bindings, etc.
The editors needed to make a few changes to accommodate the size of the issue and were wonderful to work with, asking permission before any changes were made. Also a small payment for this publication.
So I just had three poems accepted by a paying review, two days after submission. I suppose the news is that one had been rejected previously by fourteen other reviews. Be persistent and have confidence in your work everyone!
Thanks for this feature. It's been a dry few months in terms of acceptances for me, but seeing the success of others is encouraging. And there are some amazing stories here.
Ponder Review accepted two of my photographs and it was a happy surprise, when it came out, to see that one was selected for the cover. :)
(I haven’t submitted writing there yet, but the photo submission process was great. Quick response, very friendly, beautiful print journal with photos, poems, and stories.)
Happy dance: I'm the recipient of the Jerome Hill Arts Fellowship in Literature a 50k grant to further my writing work and an acceptance from the Indiana Review for a fiction story from a novel-in -progress.
Feb 26, 2023·edited Feb 26, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
I am an emerging poet. My debut poems, the first I ever wrote, were published in the current issue of Synkroniciti Magazine. I just learned that three more of my poems will be published in their forthcoming issue. They are great to work with and very responsive.
Feb 26, 2023·edited Feb 26, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
I had quite a few acceptances in February. I just went back and counted: 20 of my poems were accepted this month and will be coming out soon, some of them reprints, some new; some journals are printing multiple pieces. Tomorrow morning, a poem I wrote in 2021, "Tonight," will be featured on Your Daily Poem, and on Tuesday, The Journal of Radical Wonder will be reprinting my poem "Living with the Elephant," which I also wrote in 2021 and which was my very first published piece, in Multiplicity Magazine last June.
I had a poem on YDP before, late in December. The editor is very friendly and easy to work with, but she's only interested in positive, upbeat pieces, so I submit accordingly. I think I found YDP on Duotrope last fall.
This is my first piece to appear on The Journal of Radical Wonder. They have accepted 2 other poems which will appear in March. Their team of editors is also very friendly, and I really like the concept behind this journal, so I'm delighted to be included there. I found out about them here; someone posted their name and prompted me to go see them on Medium.
I also had 3 poems accepted by Verse-Virtual, my first acceptance there, all 3 previously unpublished. They will come out on March 1st. I found out about them here, too - thank you all! - and I'm thrilled to have my work published there.
All of these acceptances came in early in February, and I've sort of forgotten the joy... Thanks for this opportunity to reconnect with it.
P.S.--the latest acceptance of an essay means I've now had 40 memoir essays and short stories accepted or published since I started sending out in the summer of 2021. That's the most short work I've published in any year or two in my career--and I've made money along the way. :-) For essay fans, my author web page is here: https://www.levraphael.com/essays.html. For short story fans, my page is here (scroll down): https://www.levraphael.com/fiction.html#fiction
This is lit mag adjacent actually. I had the opportunity to be interviewed on the Short Story Today podcast and it came out this week. Jon DiSavino is the host and he has a neat format: interview followed by a story of yours he selects to read. (The story had been previously published in an anthology.) Jon is a trained actor so he does a really sensitive and effective reading. The interview invitation came about via a strange series of twitterverse coincidences, but I was delighted to do it.
Couple of notes on process: he typically has a 15-minute call in advance as a get-to-know-you session a couple of weeks before the interview, but he happened to be travelling in my area so we met for coffee for a half hour. The interview conducted several weeks later was fun. He reads many of your stories closely so his questions are really good re patterns in the work, etc.. One strange quirk of reading versus having a piece read was I had been so used to seeing one character's name w/o hearing it that I had totally forgotten that I wanted a Spanish pronunciation for it instead of the American pronunciation so he recorded "Eunice" the American way "U-niss"as opposed to "ay-oo-niece-say" in Spanish. I only realized that after the recording was done.
Also, after I had already done the recording I realized that the Author's Guild has a recommended speaking contract that would have been nice to have in place. The contract makes clear that the host cannot re-use the interview w/o the author's permission. For example, let's say an interviewer wanted to publish a series of interviews, they would have to give your permission or your permission if he wanted to use the interview in some other context. Anyway, live and learn. It so happens an opportunity came up to submit the story recording to a public radio open call. So I contacted the host and we negotiated a split on the acquisition fee should the piece be selected and put it in writing.
However what I really want to share is that I'm now a volunteer editor at 101 Words https://101words.org/ and I am enjoying the work thoroughly, especially the interaction with other writers. It is both thrilling and daunting that there is so much talent out there in the microfiction world. Give it a try. Writing a complete story in 101 words is a lot harder than it looks but you'll learn a lot about your writing in the process. I certainly am.
This post and comments have been inspiring for me! Although I started writing in my youth I've only recently gotten serious about it. I learned a lot from from reading these responses, including new journals to consider and Chillsubs for researching more. Thank you to everyone here! I wish you all continued acceptances. Maybe one day I'll be able to brag as well. ❤️
February has been nothing short of brilliant for me. On Friday the 17th, I was announced the winner of the annual Toyin Falola Prize for my short story "Arewa Boys". The prize was judged by distinguished writers Faysal Bensalah (Algeria) and Karen Jennings (South Africa). Then two days later I got an acceptance from Solarpunk magazine for a Spec-fi piece. This was swiftly followed by the publication of my story "A Little Boy's Dream" on The Evergreen Review. It's accompanied by intriguing art pieces by artist and Dengue Fever bassist Senon Williams.
I submitted this story in early 2021. It was accepted a year later. And I had to wait another year for its publication. I queried them a couple of times. The editor at Evergreen Review (Jeffrey Allen) did apologize for the delays. The editing process was great though. Jeff made some vital suggestions... Tbh, It was quite frustrating having to wait for such a long time. But I'm glad it all worked out well in the end.
Hi, all! I am a new subscriber, so this is my first time commenting. Congratulations to everyone in acceptances! I —both OCD and disorganized—use Duotrope, Submittable, and a huge binder for tracking my poetry submissions. I have had 5 poems accepted by 4 journals since the start of the year. And I did an overhaul on my website and blog (I post writing prompts and poems I love on my blog.) So I am feelin’ groovy!
Colorado Review takes stories 15-25 pages, so up to a 6,250 words, a bit longer. The Delacorte Review takes pieces from 3,500 to 50K words, but only cnf.
There's a funny story to this piece—a story of two pieces sharing one title.
The editor at Mediterranean Poetry contacted me two years after I'd submitted "Outside on a Balcony" to his pub. He'd taken so long to respond to my submission because it'd gone into his Spam folder (along with several other submissions), and he said he'd be delighted to publish it.
(Had I not withdrawn the piece from Mediterranean Poetry? I checked my records and found my withdrawal—whew. It'd also landed in the editor's Spam folder, I guess.)
I hopped onto Mediterranean Poetry and read a few current pieces. I also reread the submission guidelines and discovered that they consider previously published work. With that in mind, I let the editor know that the piece had been published two years earlier—providing him the link—and asked if he was still interested.
The published piece no longer resembled the piece I'd submitted to him, he said, and I sensed that he preferred the piece he had in hand. I asked him to send it to me. I liked it. When I suggested that he publish the piece he preferred, he went with the piece I'd sent him originally.
Happy Days!
I also learned that a rather long story that's dear to my heart has been longlisted in a story contest. So I'm crossing my fingers that it does well or is accepted for publication at least. :)
This community offers remarkably exciting company and I need to come here more often to see and hear what you are writing and publishing. I am thrilled to have an acceptance of my 1,800 word story, "Not In There" by Calyx Journal. It will be in their late 2023 or early 2024 issue. Calyx asked for specific revisions, which were good ones, so I accepted them for publication.
This is my first prose publication acceptance and Becky and the Submissions Q&A session gave me the idea to try Calyx! Thanks so much. Mary McAlister Randlett
I just turned 56 and have had two pieces accepted for publication for the first time (I started submitting in late 2021). My gothic, culty horror story is up @IdleInk https://idleink.org/2023/02/04/island-intensive-by-leila-wright/ and MONO is including my story “Green Grass” in its Spring print edition. Chuffed as!
On the last day of February, I would like to celebrate having one of my poems published for the first time. WOOT! It is in Pidgeonholes https://pidgeonholes.com/2023/02/fog/
This reminds me of Bret Lott's writing book, where he quotes a passage from a story with a long list of items, with the word "the" before just one of the items. It's something like "the silver necklace." He says that we know there's something special about the necklace, but we never find out what, and that mystery is OK. I've thought about this often, especially since in writing workshops, there seems to be a tendency to think that absolutely everything should be explained. Your comment gives me something more to think about. Thanks for bringing it up (and I need to reread The Hunger Artist).
My happy dance came this week when I discovered a message on Instagram from the editor of Consequence Forum letting me know he nominated my short story, "I, Divided," for a Pushcart Prize. The message was from April 2022! This makes my third fiction nomination (I have one for poetry), and I am now inspired to continue to write fiction when I'm not writing YA historical novels in verse. I found this lit mag on New Pages. The story was published in Fall 2021. It's about a Holocaust survivor who developed a split personality as a coping mechanism.
On 12/13/22 I received my first acceptance to a lit mag. The piece was published on 1/31/2023 and is titled: "When Our Words Become a Commodity"--It's about what happens when we publish private conversations. https://brevity.wordpress.com/2023/01/31/when-our-words-become-a-commodity/
I've been regularly submitting since my novel PAPER BAGS was published by Woodhall Press 10/2021 so I'm thrilled for this opportunity to open a conversation about our words.
Much of my poetry the past five years has come out of something terrible I did 52 years ago.This is going to going to sound dramatic, and it is, because attempted suicide is as dramatic an experience as a human being can have. In 1971 I was 24 and fell into a profound clinical depression--the kind where you largely stop eating, sleeping, desiring, emoting. [And it just occurred to me that perhaps that is why we are so fascinated by zombies, the living dead, because we are the only species that can feel depression or for that matter, willfully commit self-murder]. To this day I'm not sure exactly why, but in a sense my life--the way I had been living it-- had caught up with me.
Back then I was agnostic, pretty sure only matter was really in our vast universe--so no God, no soul, and death meant extinction. My hero was Camus, and I saw myself as a brave existentialist, accepting that life is meaningless. So logically when I feared being committed for life to a massive mental institution [they still had those back in the early 70's[, as my nerves were shot and I shook like a 95 year old man with Parkinson's, I thought the only 'escape' was to throw myself off a bridge at Montpelier,Vermont into the Winooski River. ...man, was I wrong about the extinction part!
I'm not going into what I experienced whilst drowning [and unconscious ], but I did--finally- share it with the world in a brief mini-memoir that my editor at Cyberwit kindly let me include in my 3rd book of poetry, 'Soul Songs', that the publisher released a few weeks before last Christmas. I don't know quite why it has taken me a 1/2 century to share what I experienced with more than just a handful of close friends, but if it helps even one person to think twice about seeing suicide as the ultimate escape--and let's be honest--have not many of you thought about it at some time? God, the immortal soul, hell, and no doubt heaven... all real. I'm sure it is because we have souls that we are capable of good and evil, unlike animals who act on instinct. We see this every day from the local news of crime and brutality to seeing a large country invade and rein destruction on a smaller, peaceful neighboring nation--for no damn good reason! And each of us every day feel that war within us between light and darkness, don't we?
Let me end this on a positive note: I thank God--that Being/Presence/Force permeating the Universe--and each of us--for all of what I went through [and there were beautiful things as well, like the OBE I shared with my fiance ]-- for now I know that the problem with life is not that it is meaningless , as an honest atheist will say, but that there is so much meaning in EVERYTHING that at best we can only grasp a bit of it, a sliver, a parcel, but when we do, we'll feel a shiver run throughout our bodies, as even our skin tingles with something beyond this world. You've felt that at sometime, haven't you?
My latest happy dance is for my translation from the Spanish of Mexican writer Mónica Lavín's moody, dark story "The Mangroves" which was published in The Southern Review's gorgeous Winter '23. It is a real paper magazine, so you cannot read it online, but if you want to buy, you can do so here: https://thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2023/263/
If you're really nice to me, I might offer you my friends and family code.
I met Sacha Idell at an American Literary Translators Association Editor-Translator Pitch Session. ALTA pitch sessions are the max and if you are a translator and not an ALTA member, you are seriously missing out. Also, if you are an Editor who seeks translations and haven't investigated ALTA, you are also missing out. The art of the pitch is one that everyone should practice, so I love doing these sessions whether I sell a piece or not. Well, I was driving north to see my mother at the time my session was scheduled, so I timed my trip to arrive at the Maryland House Rest Stop and cracked open my laptop right there. in the car. I pay for satellite WIFI for just such situations, I really could have stopped anywhere. Sacha thought my location was pretty funny, and laughter smoothed the way for a fun conversation. He is smart, easy, appreciative, and kind, a delightful editor to work with. He went over my text carefully and came up with two or three small suggestions all of which I accepted. This publication was special because it's the first time Mónica and I have published one of her stories in English first: #translation #shortstories #pitch
My long ghost story is coming out on Sunday: "Lost in London." It'll be in Bewildering Stories. I found the online mag while looking for lit mags of any kind that took long fiction, which is a very hard sell. And Fifth Wheel Press took my 37th memoir essay from the last year and half or so and it's due next month. I found them via Chill Subs. I shifted back to memoir essays and short fiction in late 2021, I think, because it was easier to concentrate. But I'm back into the novel I set aside and I can see the end clearly at last.
Hi Becky and my fellow writers! Well done to everyone, everywhere who keeps showing up!
I wanted to share my recent story, "Betsy, Lizzy, Beth" which was published in the first issue of a journal called World Ember (https://www.worldember.com/index)-in the Culture issue. They pay $10 too (although I haven't received this yet, they said they would send at end of month.)
Anyway, I will try to keep this as short as possible, I wrote "Betsy, Lizzy, Beth" over a year ago. I was in that first excitement of writing a story I really loved and sent it out with high hopes. The whole first 9 months or so it just got rejected over and over, all form rejections, no glimmers of hope. Finally an editor from one mag wrote me very specific revision instructions. I employed his advice and sent it back, but he rejected it anyway (He made no promises so it was expected/okay with me). BUT the story really improved based on his instructions. SO, out it went again, but this time I got some very bright glimmers of hope. One editor said the story made her cry (in a good way I presume, LOL). Someone else called it WONDERFUL. And it was long listed somewhere else. The journal that accepted it called it, "haunting, tragically beautiful." I was so surprised and thrilled by these comments. Anyway, I think the best place to read it, unfortunately, is my web site, because on the World Ember site you have to work through the magazine PDF and it's kind of hard. But def check them out. I think the mag is beautiful. I swear this is not a shameless plug for my website: https://www.maggienerziribarne.com/work/betsy-lizzy-beth.
Thanks for this space to brag a little. But please excuse my bragging!
Best wishes to everyone!
Maggie
Have a story upcoming in the Great Lakes Review soon.
Finally finished— for real this time — a 23,000 word novella, which has taken at least five years to complete.
A story is only worth so much time.
After a year plus of trying, I published in Brevity, a publication I love for not only their flash nonfiction, but also their craft essays. I wrote an essay about how playing pickleball helps tame the writing monster.
https://brevity.wordpress.com/2023/02/22/why-i-play-pickleball/?fbclid=IwAR3gXoHAHduHh43KuPBIkNB3mClRWl7O1bozFCjR2jM2vYmoPuDs2v-iU8w&mibextid=Zxz2cZ
Hi Becky & Lit Mag Readers, I had two publications in the last three months, both poetry. One poem landed at Thimble Literary Magazine, and the editor was great to work with. Thimble is both digital and in print. I also had a poem at Red Flag Poetry, which also publishes your work online, but then makes and send you a half dozen postcards of your poem that you can send round to your pals. So cool. The poem at Thimble had been in submission circles for more than a year. The poem at Red Flag was fairly new and one that I sent specifically to Red Flag only. In this same three-month period my work was declined at Poetry, Hayden's Ferry Review, 32 Poems, MER, Pidgeonholes, River Heron Review, and The Adroit Journal. But I also have work forthcoming in Zone 3, and I have a few things still out and about.
https://www.thimblelitmag.com/2022/11/22/slick/
https://www.redflagpoetry.com/home/marianne-worthington-summer-in-east-tennessee
I was delighted to learn that I've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Pembroke Magazine for my personal essay, "My Swastika, His Horse," about a lifetime of living in the South amidst signs and symbols of the Lost Cause myth. PM is publication of the University of North Carolina- Pembroke and has been published continually since 1969. The editor, Peter Grimes, has been good to work with.
Though I've felt as though publication progress has been dragging, it turns out I had two stories appearing in February after all....
My experimental story, "The Empty Room," appears in Del Sol Review, which has an odd website that makes it damn near impossible to link directly to the story. I can understand why; they want to promote all their contributors. But, if you want to read "The Empty Room," you'll have to go to the link below, look for issue 26 (which as I write is the landing page), and find the story under "Fiction."
https://delsolreview.webdelsol.com/#
And just a day or two ago, I heard that Rock and a Hard Place magazine's latest issue was out, including my story, "Fried Baloney Sandwiches," a poignant tale based on the years I spent interviewing and photographing railroad tramps living along the LA River. No free access, but they're a superb magazine, well-edited and -produced, and not just because this is the fourth story of mine they've published (along with a couple of photographs), and not just because they pay. Kindle and print editions available at https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Hard-Place-Issue-Winter/dp/B0BWLRXD4M That's 194 pages of good work.
Found Del Sol in either Poets & Writers or Newpages; don't recall where I found Rock and a Hard Place.
OK, I'll give this a go. I've had several poems published in the last few months - with me it's always been feast or famine - including one in EPOCH, which actually paid me $100 (the poem is quite short so this was a lot, in my experience). I'm also excited because EPOCH is published in Ithaca, N.Y. and as a relative newbie to nearby Rochester, I felt more grounded by this. There's no link to my poem, but you can visit EPOCH on Instagram and Mastadon, or download a PDF of their new issue at epochliterary.com/shop. Potential contributors should go to epochliterary.com/submit .
Gyroscope Review posted in the Calls for Submissions Facebook group, and even though I'd been rejected by them many, many times I decided to try again because I thought the poem was a good fit. The editor sent out the acceptance notification the day after the submission window closed. She was very professional, and I LOVE the cover. A pdf version of the Winter 2023 issue is available online-- https://www.gyroscopereview.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Winter-Issue-2023-FINAL-GR-Web.pdf. All-around positive experience. I'd gladly trust them with my work again.
My poem "Leaving in Two Languages" was published in "Shift" put out by MTSU yesterday. It's a print journal, though it appears the work comes online later:
https://shift-write.com/home
They have themed calls, one opening today or tomorrow, though I have to admit to forgetting what it will be for the next anthology.
What was fun was the Zoom reading last night. I love to later be able to read the poems carefully and put faces to names in the bio. They have been very professional, with contracts, and follow up emails and reminders--as well as a clear Zoom invite.
Recommended.
A week ago today, I got a message from Rattle that my poem "Pigeon Dyed Pink" was chosen for that week's Poet Respond, their weekly competition for poems inspired by a news story. You can read it here: https://www.rattle.com/pigeon-dyed-pink-by-clare-cross/. I was also briefly interviewed on their Rattlecast.
I was absolutely over the moon. I had quit submitting for a while partly due to health issues, so it's been literally years since I've had work accepted. I have read and loved Poets Respond for a long time.
I'm still trying to figure out why poems I've slaved over for months don't get accepted, yet this one I wrote in two days was picked right up.
My short story Landslide was published this month in Atlantic Northeast which was the magazine’s first issue. I found it on Chill Subs and got lucky because the story is about hiking in that area. I had a few rejections prior. In fact the original title was the second line of the song - if you climb a mountain and turnaround- and that’s where the story starts. I remember this song had a second life when the band got back together and the notable covers by The Smashing Pumpkins and The Chicks, so I thought tapping into it was worthwhile.
Here’s the link.
https://atlanticnortheastmag.com/current-issue/
I submitted my humorous story, The Five Pound Blunt, to 3 lit mags and it was rejected by two and accepted immediately by one, Piker Press. Read it here, https://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=9608
I'm brand new to this nl, so I'm going to share a success story for a piece that ran in December.
So... last year? Or maybe it was in 2021?... I was in this small writing accountability group and we used to give each other assignments every month so we could write outside our comfort zones. One of the members challenged us to write a piece in the second person, which was SO FLIPPING HARD, but I ended up with this short piece about my late grandmother, which I sort of liked it, so I started sending it around to places and it kept getting rejected.
About a year later, I decided it must be deeply flawed in some way, so I brought it to a new critique group and they gave me all of this fantastic feedback and, a week later, I shit you not, even before I'd had a chance to revise my piece, I got an acceptance from the Offing, to which I'd submit the piece a year prior? I legit was like, "Hey, dude! I'd almost given up on this piece and was just about to revise it!" (what is even wrong with me?) and we talked over what I'd been thinking and he wanted the piece as is and, well, here we are:
https://theoffingmag.com/essay/you-2/
The Offing had been sort of on the edge of my radar since they first launched, but I'd never placed anything there. I always love adding a new pub to my list of successes. :)
As always, Becky, thanks for providing this platform! I've encountered so much cool writing via Lit Mag Brags.
I'm delighted to have two different tales (one fiction, one poetry) in beestung this month. beestung is "a quarterly micro-magazine of non-binary writers that’s sweet and stings." I love that writers can submit more than one genre of writing, and up to six pieces. I subbed six last April, and had two accepted in May. beestung pays, and Sarah Clark, the EIC, was a total professional and great to work with.
My pieces: https://beestungmag.com/issue14/one-flash-and-one-poem-by-goldie-peacock/
2010 (flash fiction): a celebratory moment in the particular, artsy, Brooklyn existence of a character who makes a living between genders
notes from…my androgynous apartment (poetry): an ode to/lament about sequestering oneself + gender reveal party takedown
Lately, I have been revising and publishing a lot of haiku, senryu, and tanka. I began writing haiku during my senior year of high school when my English teacher did a unit about this type of poetry. I am now 73 and improving my skills as a writer of short poetry. I like the challenge of condensing my ideas into a small number of syllables. Recent haiku theory recommends that English haiku should be shorter than 17 syllables, so the condensation is more extreme. Here are my recent poetry publications: “Patchwork Quilt.” (haiku) Cold Moon Journal (November 2022): https://coldmoonjournal.blogspot.com/ ; “Birthmark.” (tanka) Eucalypt #33 (November 2022): 40; “Passover in Michigan.” (senryu) Presence #74 (November 2022): 25; “Havdalah.” (senryu) Prune Juice No. 38 (December 2022): https://prunejuicesenryu.com/2022/12/19/issue-38-senryu-kyoka/ ; “Crocus” and “Black Pipe.” Blithe Spirit 33.1 (February 2023). I had to revise “Patchwork Quilt” and “Havdalah” for years to get them right for publication. "Havdalah" began life as a quatrain.
I also published my first short play during the fall of 2022. Triton College had produced Pledging as part of its Tritonysia Play Festival in May 2017. Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in Rushing Through the Dark (fall 2022).
Best wishes for 2023 to my sister and brother writers!
Sincerely,
Janet Ruth Heller
Website is https://www.janetruthheller.com
Congratulations, everyone! I love reading these reports each month. Miniskirt published my flash essay in their Valentines issue. I wrote it a couple of years ago and it was rejected 3 or 4 times. Then I took Jenna McGuiggan's flash nonfiction class, and revised it. After revision, it was accepted at the first place I sent it to. They had previously rejected a narrative nonfiction piece of mine, but asked me to send more work. I found Miniskirt among Duotrope's themed submission calls. Jenna is offering the class again soon, if anyone would like details. https://miniskirtmagazine.com/issue-18-holiday-issue-19-valentines-day-the-double-issue/debra-wilson-frank-nonfiction-seating-arrangements/
Meanwhile, I've had 7 rejections in 7 days! Five asked for more work, including Ploughshares, so it's not a total loss. And one gave extensive feedback, After Happy Hour Review--very generous of them!
I wrote a story about the time my partner and I were harassed by a man while while walking our dogs. It was so bizarre! Anyway, I'll be reading that story at an event in Providence, RI called Stranger Stories! I'm so excited and so nervous. I've never done anything like this before and I can't wait. The process to submit was simple and straightforward. They got back to me in like three days after the deadline closed, which was lovely. If you're in the area, come check it out and hear the tale! Deets are here: https://www.strangerstoriespvd.com/submit
Congrats to everyone with their publications! I love reading about all the great places writers are finding for their work. In 2022, these early months of the year were the best for me, and that seems to be true for 2023 too. Here are my recent publications.
1. My essay “How to Change the World in Fifty Years” was published at Words & Sports Quarterly. I had just written this piece to promote the release of my book (Gwen Jorgensen: USA’s First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete-Meyer&Meyer Sport). The essay was rejected a few places, but the sports theme fit perfectly for this call. It was accepted quickly and got timely tweets from the lit mag when it went live. A small compensation too! Great positive experience with Aaron Burch and rest of these people from HAD!
https://www.wasquarterly.com/sports/vol-2-no-3#how-to-change-the-world-in-fifty-years
2. SBO (School Band and Orchestra) published my essay "Six Ways Violin Helped My Daughter Win Olympic Gold" this month. Again, quick response, and publication within the month. Communication has been excellent, and the piece is both in print and online.
https://artistpro.mydigitalpublication.com/?m=66708&i=783551&p=14&ver=html5
3. Little Somethings Press picked up my poem “Holy Deck of Cards” for their Ephemera Issue. Great little magazine. All hand made with beautiful artwork, bindings, etc.
The editors needed to make a few changes to accommodate the size of the issue and were wonderful to work with, asking permission before any changes were made. Also a small payment for this publication.
Not published online but I posted photos of my poem in the issue here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CoXevLfOMGl
So I just had three poems accepted by a paying review, two days after submission. I suppose the news is that one had been rejected previously by fourteen other reviews. Be persistent and have confidence in your work everyone!
Thanks for this feature. It's been a dry few months in terms of acceptances for me, but seeing the success of others is encouraging. And there are some amazing stories here.
Ponder Review accepted two of my photographs and it was a happy surprise, when it came out, to see that one was selected for the cover. :)
(I haven’t submitted writing there yet, but the photo submission process was great. Quick response, very friendly, beautiful print journal with photos, poems, and stories.)
Happy dance: I'm the recipient of the Jerome Hill Arts Fellowship in Literature a 50k grant to further my writing work and an acceptance from the Indiana Review for a fiction story from a novel-in -progress.
I am an emerging poet. My debut poems, the first I ever wrote, were published in the current issue of Synkroniciti Magazine. I just learned that three more of my poems will be published in their forthcoming issue. They are great to work with and very responsive.
I had quite a few acceptances in February. I just went back and counted: 20 of my poems were accepted this month and will be coming out soon, some of them reprints, some new; some journals are printing multiple pieces. Tomorrow morning, a poem I wrote in 2021, "Tonight," will be featured on Your Daily Poem, and on Tuesday, The Journal of Radical Wonder will be reprinting my poem "Living with the Elephant," which I also wrote in 2021 and which was my very first published piece, in Multiplicity Magazine last June.
I had a poem on YDP before, late in December. The editor is very friendly and easy to work with, but she's only interested in positive, upbeat pieces, so I submit accordingly. I think I found YDP on Duotrope last fall.
This is my first piece to appear on The Journal of Radical Wonder. They have accepted 2 other poems which will appear in March. Their team of editors is also very friendly, and I really like the concept behind this journal, so I'm delighted to be included there. I found out about them here; someone posted their name and prompted me to go see them on Medium.
I also had 3 poems accepted by Verse-Virtual, my first acceptance there, all 3 previously unpublished. They will come out on March 1st. I found out about them here, too - thank you all! - and I'm thrilled to have my work published there.
All of these acceptances came in early in February, and I've sort of forgotten the joy... Thanks for this opportunity to reconnect with it.
P.S.--the latest acceptance of an essay means I've now had 40 memoir essays and short stories accepted or published since I started sending out in the summer of 2021. That's the most short work I've published in any year or two in my career--and I've made money along the way. :-) For essay fans, my author web page is here: https://www.levraphael.com/essays.html. For short story fans, my page is here (scroll down): https://www.levraphael.com/fiction.html#fiction
This is lit mag adjacent actually. I had the opportunity to be interviewed on the Short Story Today podcast and it came out this week. Jon DiSavino is the host and he has a neat format: interview followed by a story of yours he selects to read. (The story had been previously published in an anthology.) Jon is a trained actor so he does a really sensitive and effective reading. The interview invitation came about via a strange series of twitterverse coincidences, but I was delighted to do it.
Couple of notes on process: he typically has a 15-minute call in advance as a get-to-know-you session a couple of weeks before the interview, but he happened to be travelling in my area so we met for coffee for a half hour. The interview conducted several weeks later was fun. He reads many of your stories closely so his questions are really good re patterns in the work, etc.. One strange quirk of reading versus having a piece read was I had been so used to seeing one character's name w/o hearing it that I had totally forgotten that I wanted a Spanish pronunciation for it instead of the American pronunciation so he recorded "Eunice" the American way "U-niss"as opposed to "ay-oo-niece-say" in Spanish. I only realized that after the recording was done.
Also, after I had already done the recording I realized that the Author's Guild has a recommended speaking contract that would have been nice to have in place. The contract makes clear that the host cannot re-use the interview w/o the author's permission. For example, let's say an interviewer wanted to publish a series of interviews, they would have to give your permission or your permission if he wanted to use the interview in some other context. Anyway, live and learn. It so happens an opportunity came up to submit the story recording to a public radio open call. So I contacted the host and we negotiated a split on the acquisition fee should the piece be selected and put it in writing.
Overall, it was a great experience. You can listen here if interested: https://shortstorytoday.com/episodes/episode-42-stanley-stocker-the-list-760
Thanks for the opportunity to share, Becky.
In the last couple of months I've had 'The Cypher Revolution' published by The Wise Owl https://www.thewiseowl.art/doug-jacquier , 3 short fictions in The Metaworker https://themetaworker.com/2023/01/21/microfiction-by-doug-jacquier/ , 'Speaking ill of the dead' in Bloom (print only), and 'Out Here' in 50 Word Stories' https://fiftywordstories.com/2023/01/12/doug-jacquier-out-here/ . My poems have featured in Shot Glass Journal https://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/doug_jacquier1.html and One Sentence Poems http://www.onesentencepoems.com/osp/
However what I really want to share is that I'm now a volunteer editor at 101 Words https://101words.org/ and I am enjoying the work thoroughly, especially the interaction with other writers. It is both thrilling and daunting that there is so much talent out there in the microfiction world. Give it a try. Writing a complete story in 101 words is a lot harder than it looks but you'll learn a lot about your writing in the process. I certainly am.
I have a poem and photographs published last month in Quail Bell Mag: http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/the-unreal-20/poetry-x-mark-the-spot-you-cried-like-that-too-by-nadia-gerassimenko. I knew Quail Bell Mag for years and have had other works published there before. Such a lovely magazine by very lovely people. My poem and photographs were many a times rejected by other publications, so I was stoked it got picked up by what feels like home.
This post and comments have been inspiring for me! Although I started writing in my youth I've only recently gotten serious about it. I learned a lot from from reading these responses, including new journals to consider and Chillsubs for researching more. Thank you to everyone here! I wish you all continued acceptances. Maybe one day I'll be able to brag as well. ❤️
February has been nothing short of brilliant for me. On Friday the 17th, I was announced the winner of the annual Toyin Falola Prize for my short story "Arewa Boys". The prize was judged by distinguished writers Faysal Bensalah (Algeria) and Karen Jennings (South Africa). Then two days later I got an acceptance from Solarpunk magazine for a Spec-fi piece. This was swiftly followed by the publication of my story "A Little Boy's Dream" on The Evergreen Review. It's accompanied by intriguing art pieces by artist and Dengue Fever bassist Senon Williams.
I submitted this story in early 2021. It was accepted a year later. And I had to wait another year for its publication. I queried them a couple of times. The editor at Evergreen Review (Jeffrey Allen) did apologize for the delays. The editing process was great though. Jeff made some vital suggestions... Tbh, It was quite frustrating having to wait for such a long time. But I'm glad it all worked out well in the end.
Here is the link to the story:
https://evergreenreview.com/read/a-little-boys-dream/
Hi, all! I am a new subscriber, so this is my first time commenting. Congratulations to everyone in acceptances! I —both OCD and disorganized—use Duotrope, Submittable, and a huge binder for tracking my poetry submissions. I have had 5 poems accepted by 4 journals since the start of the year. And I did an overhaul on my website and blog (I post writing prompts and poems I love on my blog.) So I am feelin’ groovy!
Colorado Review takes stories 15-25 pages, so up to a 6,250 words, a bit longer. The Delacorte Review takes pieces from 3,500 to 50K words, but only cnf.
https://www.muw.edu/ponderreview/ :)
I have a flash fiction piece published in Mediterranean Poetry: https://www.odyssey.pm/contributors/meredith-wadley/
There's a funny story to this piece—a story of two pieces sharing one title.
The editor at Mediterranean Poetry contacted me two years after I'd submitted "Outside on a Balcony" to his pub. He'd taken so long to respond to my submission because it'd gone into his Spam folder (along with several other submissions), and he said he'd be delighted to publish it.
Great, but in the meantime, it'd found a home with Bandit Fiction: https://banditfiction.com/2020/10/17/outside-as-a-balcony-fuori-come-un-balcone-by-meredith-wadley/?fbclid=IwAR3h4dxcnd_HavdqLpUm7ohtYJyBIugQF595xrL3z5N4ksWE_oDs9zvoEl4
Plus, I'd revised the piece significantly.
(Had I not withdrawn the piece from Mediterranean Poetry? I checked my records and found my withdrawal—whew. It'd also landed in the editor's Spam folder, I guess.)
I hopped onto Mediterranean Poetry and read a few current pieces. I also reread the submission guidelines and discovered that they consider previously published work. With that in mind, I let the editor know that the piece had been published two years earlier—providing him the link—and asked if he was still interested.
The published piece no longer resembled the piece I'd submitted to him, he said, and I sensed that he preferred the piece he had in hand. I asked him to send it to me. I liked it. When I suggested that he publish the piece he preferred, he went with the piece I'd sent him originally.
Happy Days!
I also learned that a rather long story that's dear to my heart has been longlisted in a story contest. So I'm crossing my fingers that it does well or is accepted for publication at least. :)
This community offers remarkably exciting company and I need to come here more often to see and hear what you are writing and publishing. I am thrilled to have an acceptance of my 1,800 word story, "Not In There" by Calyx Journal. It will be in their late 2023 or early 2024 issue. Calyx asked for specific revisions, which were good ones, so I accepted them for publication.
This is my first prose publication acceptance and Becky and the Submissions Q&A session gave me the idea to try Calyx! Thanks so much. Mary McAlister Randlett
I just turned 56 and have had two pieces accepted for publication for the first time (I started submitting in late 2021). My gothic, culty horror story is up @IdleInk https://idleink.org/2023/02/04/island-intensive-by-leila-wright/ and MONO is including my story “Green Grass” in its Spring print edition. Chuffed as!
On the last day of February, I would like to celebrate having one of my poems published for the first time. WOOT! It is in Pidgeonholes https://pidgeonholes.com/2023/02/fog/
Yes! Very excellent class and I am now revising, a.k.a. tearing apart the first draft of my memoir.
This reminds me of Bret Lott's writing book, where he quotes a passage from a story with a long list of items, with the word "the" before just one of the items. It's something like "the silver necklace." He says that we know there's something special about the necklace, but we never find out what, and that mystery is OK. I've thought about this often, especially since in writing workshops, there seems to be a tendency to think that absolutely everything should be explained. Your comment gives me something more to think about. Thanks for bringing it up (and I need to reread The Hunger Artist).