How I Got an Acceptance From My “Dream Journal”...and You Can Too

"At the start of 2024, I wrote down my goals for the coming year..."

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.

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At the start of 2024, I wrote down my goals for the coming year, including listing my top two “dream” literary magazines—Brevity for nonfiction and Rattle for poetry. Eleven months later, that dream has become a reality. Of course, the journey of how I got here doesn’t start at the beginning of 2024 but many years before that. My strategies to get into these two literary magazines were similar in some ways, but different in others. I hope that my story and my strategies will help you get your “dream” acceptances too.

The Backstory

Brevity was the first literary magazine I ever read or loved. I was introduced to it when I was 19 years old as a college student taking a creative nonfiction class for the first time. I was hooked. I even submitted one of my essays I’d written for that class to Brevity, which received a kind rejection. Although I stopped writing for a period of about five years during my early 20s, when I found my way back to creative writing as a new mother during the early days of the pandemic, it was Brevity that I started reading. I read through the impressive bios of their contributors and thought, Wow, one day, I want to be the type of writer who gets published there. I again submitted to them and was rejected. Through their list of additional places to submit, I discovered the wide world of literary magazines and discovered Wow! Women on Writing through which I took several flash creative nonfiction classes.

Later, after I’d been exclusively writing and publishing creative nonfiction for about a year, I branched out to writing other genres, including poetry (which I had read and written a lot of as a kid and teen, but hadn’t picked back up again after my writing hiatus.) It was then that I discovered Rattle through their educational offerings, including The Poetry Space podcast and Critique of the Week (more on those later). I was hungry to learn more about poetry and grateful to find these free resources and a welcoming community. Plus, the more I read Rattle, the more I liked it. They were serious about craft but didn’t care much about the poet’s pedigree. That was very attractive to me because I didn’t have much poetry pedigree to speak of at the time. Alright, enough backstory, let’s get to the strategies.

The Common Strategies 

First, I’ll share some strategies I used across both literary magazines, which I believe can be applied universally. Then, I’ll share some differences in my approach for each publication.

1. Set a goal. The act of specifically choosing and writing down the literary magazines that I wanted to get into was important. It allowed me to focus my attention and time on these publications and determine what success looked like for me, instead of being swayed by others' goals or accomplishments. In other words, I think it’s important to choose “dream journals” based on magazines that are personally meaningful to you, instead of the dream journals everyone says you should have (The Paris Review or The New Yorker, anyone?).

2. Read, read, read. I subscribed to these literary magazines and read each issue cover-to-cover. (Brevity is online only, but you get the idea.) I also read The Best of Brevity which includes the editors’ selected “best” essays. I read the poems that have won or been nominated for awards by Rattle.

3. Follow the editors. It’s helpful to follow the editors on social media, to see what they are posting about and talking about. Many editors have also written articles, essays, blog posts, been interviewed for podcasts, etc. about their vision and mission for their literary magazines or what they are looking for in submissions. I sought these things out for both magazines. It was so helpful to hear from the editors themselves.
   

4. Partake in the offerings and resources. Brevity publishes craft essays, which offer a great opportunity to learn more about how to write powerful flash essays. Rattle has numerous free opportunities which I took advantage of: the Rattlecast (weekly interviews with poets), The Poetry Space (a podcast on writing poetry), Critique of the Week (weekly live critique of poems), and Facebook groups for poets participating in their weekly prompt poems and monthly ekphrastic challenges. Through these opportunities, I learned more about the craft of writing but I also learned more about what these publications and their editors wanted.
   

5. Work on your craft. This one goes without saying, but of course, I continued to read, write, take classes & workshops, participate in writing groups, and work on my craft. (I also continued to submit to other literary magazines and work on chapbook and book-length projects.) 
   

6. Be bold in the face of rejection. In order to get an acceptance from my dream literary magazines, I had to be willing to get many, many rejections from them first. Yes, it sometimes hurt even more because I cared more about those publications. However, no matter how scary it was, I kept sending one more submission.

The Differing Strategies

1. Incessant vs. rare submissions. Brevity charges $3 per submission and usually only has one “general submissions” category. Rattle’s submissions are free, and they have many submission opportunities in addition to their general submissions: themed submissions, prompt poems, ekphrastic challenge, and Poets Respond poems. Plus, the prompt poems and Poets Respond categories allow poets to submit as often as they’d like. Because of this, I submitted to Rattle incessantly. Between all the various categories, I submitted more than 40 times before I received an acceptance from them. That’s a lot of rejections! But I was determined and the rejections were kind, many of them personal and encouraging.

On the other hand, with Brevity because of the fee, I only submitted rarely over the years, whenever I felt I had a piece that was particularly strong. I did receive one or two tiered rejections from them, but mostly form rejections. I submitted there ten times, spread out over many years, before receiving an acceptance from them.

2. Writing work specifically for that publication vs. not. For Rattle, I often wrote poems specifically to submit to their themed calls, prompt poems, ekphrastic challenges, etc. In fact, the poem that finally won me an acceptance was written for the ghazal-themed call. In general, fewer people submit for themed-calls vs. the general submissions, so I wanted to make sure I made the most of that opportunity.

For Brevity, because it’s nonfiction, I waited until I had something interesting or intense to write about from my life. In the end, it was a major health scare that became the content for my essay. I did not write the piece specifically for Brevity. However, after receiving some constructive feedback on the piece from an editor at another journal and making those changes, I felt the piece was strong enough to send to Brevity. I’m glad I took a chance and sent it in.

Some Encouragement

I don’t have an MFA. I don’t have a lot of time or a lot of money. I’m a busy mom with two preschoolers. What I do have is access to thousands of books (through my local library system), a vibrant writing community, and several hours each week to write. Learning to work through rejection and to continually pursue excellence in my craft has served my writing career immensely, and I believe that it can work for you too.

The biggest thing I hope you’ll take away from this essay is never, ever give up. Even if you’ve received a rejection or three dozen rejections from your favorite magazine, don’t stop submitting. Honestly, so much of the writing life is persistence and perseverance. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. All you can do is move in the right direction and don’t quit. I’m rooting for you!

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