Earned my second skull in HAD (first one wasn’t just a fluke!) in late May. And while I wasn’t quite sure if the piece fully fit the mag’s vibe, I decided to risk a rejection. Lo & behold, it was picked up with a comment in the acceptance letter that it was a little different than what they normally take, but in a good way. So let this be your reminder not to self-reject.
Elizabeth, this piece is wonderful. I especially like "the unsexy dedication required for building a life together" - and you've reminded me how incredibly blessed I am, to have a husband who offers exactly that, without hesitation, whenever it is needed.
Elizabeth, thanks for sharing the link to your story. I'm glad I read it. My husband and I did have the fine print in our vows, but I know we didn't understand them, not yet.
Thanks for reading! Impressed that you including the fine print in your vows. And yeah, no one can guess the specific set of indignities to come, but it feels clear-eyed to acknowledge their likely arrival.
I remember reading this last month & how it so fully captures the experience of relationships through difficult medical conditions. This line--"Maybe then it’d be clear from the outset how showing up for the hard bits can refine love to its most potent essence if we let it."-- brought back my post-brain surgery experience and the shift of an independent-minded woman 'allowing' herself to be dependent on her husband.
“Brief Notes to My Brother’s Other Sisters” placed in a Fish Short Memoir Contest a few years ago and appeared in a print-only anthology. It’s now online at Gordon Square Review, which I found by looking up a writer whose work I admire. No changes requested. Three months between acceptance and publication. http://www.gordonsquarereview.org/
Lisa, is the melanoma in an imagined future, or is it what's actually happening in your life now? It works well in the piece either way... and I find myself wanting to make some kind of gesture of support if you are going through it now.
Cynthia, thank you for your kindness. Unfortunately, it's not imagined. Also, kidney recipients in the past have contracted it from deceased donors, so had I donated, I might have passed it along before I knew I had it. Again, thanks for your reading and thoughtfulness.
Accepted: 7 poems, 1 essay, 1 short story, 2 books
Down in the Dirt: Hermit crab essay, “Go West, Young Shua Dvorkin: A Biography in Three Soirees, a Wedding, and a Death” (September). Rejected eight times since February. Had to withdraw from a few places once the piece was accepted.
The Ekphrastic Review Writing Challenge: Exclusive. “Pixelated” after Kaz Ogino.
Jewish Writing Project: Exclusive poetry submission. “Yiddish Lesson.” Scheduled for March 2026 publication.
Marrow Magazine: “This Is Your Life, Feyge Leah,” in which a displaced refugee finds herself on the iconic 1950s American TV show, “This Is Your Life.” This is a fictionalized TV script. Hard to place over the last year. Rejected ten times since November 2024. Will be published between July and September.
Minyan Magazine: “Delectables.” Only submitted to one other lit mag which rejected it. Heard back in a matter of days. Scheduled for winter publication.
Paterson Literary Review: Exclusive submission. “Propensities.” (Spring 2026) This wasn’t even a formal submission. I sent it to the editor since I would miss a session of her generative workshop I’ve been in for years. She said she loved it and accepted it for publication. One and done.
Umbrella Factory Magazine: “Delicate Dance in Leningrad, 1990, after Matisse; “I Become Acquainted with Death,” and “Russian Nesting Dolls” (August). “Russian Nesting Dolls” Received nineteen rejections since August 2022. I revised earlier this year.
Bottlecap Press: Ekphrastic poetry chapbook, Poems of the Winter Palace.
BlazeVOX: Short story collection, The Color of Time and Other Stories.
Published:
Bottlecap Press: Ekphrastic poetry chapbook, Poems of the Winter Palace.
I had a piece published at Flash Frog this month. It had been a goal of mine to have something published there for a while now, and I got some positive feedback on my first submission to them but they didn't take it. So I waited a bit and submitted this one and they did!
This story had been around for a long time, but I only started submitting it (in slightly different form) pretty recently. It got some encouraging rejections and was longlisted for CRAFT's flash prize earlier this year, but I felt like there was something about the climax of the piece that wasn't sitting quite right. Finally I did one last revision and that was the version I sent to Flash Frog. They were very enthusiastic about it and sent me a nice pre-pub note saying they had no editing suggestions, that every word seemed to be just where it needed to be, which was very nice to hear! It felt really good to see it through and find what I think is the perfect home for it. And here it is! https://flash-frog.com/2025/06/09/no-saviors-by-sarah-bradley/
I'm thrilled with my first interactive story, The Drinking Game, which won Subnivean's Prose Award this month. As reader, you are a chronic alcoholic who has to make the right choices to escape the story alive - but choice is slippery when you're in addiction. As a reformed alcoholic, I worked hard to find a way of recreating the doom loops, repetitions, tedium and disaster of addiction, and Subnivean worked incredibly hard on the technical aspect, getting all the links to work so the experience is seamless (and maddening and depressing and weirdly fun and then depressing) for the reader. I think this was the fourth place I submitted it, which is unusually low for me - I normally rack up 10 to 63 rejections per acceptance. (Yep, 63). Please give it a whirl: http://subnivean.org/post/copy-of-dan-rivas
Also, I'm so pleased that after 18 months of me laying siege to Fictive Dream (they got a submission from me every two months to the day) and their lovely editor Laura sending me incredibly lovely rejections, we finally found #TheOne together. It's Not The End Of The World is a short story based on a real life Mongolian astronomer I met 10 years ago. It got shortlisted for 4 contests and got 4 rejections before finding its home, here: http://fictivedream.com/2025/06/08/its-not-the-end-of-the-world/
Both of these stories got more positive feedback than almost anything I've ever written, so despite some disappointments June was a very kind month for me.
Also thrilled Lit Mag News is getting recognition. You are such a valuable resource for the community, so utterly readable and practical, and I still think about your masterful demolition of Narrative at least twice a week. Thank you.
First - so happy about Lit Mag News doing so well. I haven't commented here, but you are a fantastic resource for the community
There ARE stories I have given up on after 10 to 15 rejections, but it's rare - I'm often arrogant enough to believe I am right and those editors are wrong. Its not enough to write a good story, that's one thing I have learnt as a reader for magazines. There are lots of good stories written. You need to find someone who loves it enough to champion it above all others. And that can just be a numbers game.
I had two stories which really took some placing though. The God Of Luck was a fairly politically sensitive and sexually explicit story about globalisation, economic inequality, cross cultural gay hookups, white privilege, etc set in Cambodia. And I knew that people were probably a bit nervy about a white guy writing that story, but Pangyrus had the guts to take it at my 64th attempt.
I also had a strange story full of mysteries called Olek and Lina and I did get offers on that one but only if I rewrote it to explain more and I got really stubborn and refused to do it and on its 43rd submission someone took it just as was and I felt jubilant.
Jaime, I love both these pieces, and I love that I have found a fellow writer who both "lays siege" to magazines and is stubborn enough to keep submitting a story he believes in. I think I'm up there with you at 64 submissions before acceptance on at least one of my stories and there are several that came in between 40 and 50 submissions. I'm waiting for the day that my stories get accepted before I hit the 10 mark, but am prepared to be stubborn the rest of my life. LOL
YES! You're my first fellow belligerent! I don't do it for every single story. Sometimes I know I've taken a risk and the response I get tells me the risk just didn't take off. But if I am pretty sure it's good (and you have to learn to be your own champion in this game) I will keep at it. In every single case, the publication that took these stories in the end was more impressive than many who rejected it. The story just needed to find the right reader.
"In every single case, the publication that took these stories in the end was more impressive than many who rejected it." This happens to me often. I suspect, too, that I get better at choosing where/when to submit a particular story. Congratulations on your two pieces! I particularly enjoyed the interactive story--done so well!
The thick skin is the tough part Greg, especially for writers who are by our natures sensitive.
One thing I think is helpful is to read for a good quality lit mag - you'll quickly realise that there are a lot more wonderful stories pouring in than you imagined. That can flip your attitude from being hurt by rejections to amazement you ever get accepted at all!
I was a reader for two genre publications so I get what you are saying. It's also nice to be on 'the other side' from time to time as well (i.e. not always being the contributor).
I came across your interactive story in the wild, as it were, and can't remember now how I found it? But thoroughly enjoyed, impressed, and inspired by!
Am with Claire: enjoyed and am impressed by! (As a nonfiction writer, I'll say I'm indirectly inspired by, too -- there are so very many ways to approach form & structure!)
Ah thank you that's great, I appreciate that. If you ever remember how you stumbled upon it let me know. It's so hard to get stories read in the ether, especially with Twitter now like the landscapes and inhabitants of Mad Max 2
Congrats to you Becky and Lit Mag News and its continued excellence as a resource and community!
I have a story in Running Wild Press’s 8th Short Story Anthology that came out earlier this month. It took two years or so from the point of acceptance to publication. It’s a longer story (7,500 words) so there were less places to send it, had about ten rejections over a year’s submitting. I got the acceptance after they’d had it for nine months, an email that came a couple of hours after my mother died. I think she would have liked this one, a family drama, even though the mother in the story abandons her family—not taken from real life. Available in paperback, e-book, and audio book at all the usual places, including the Wedding Boy’s site: https://www.amazon.com/Running-Press-Short-Story-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0D5872V7T
Speaking of weddings…a short story of mine is an “entrée” as part of Malarkey Books’ “Mealarky,” posted on their website last week. They were looking for pieces with a food connection, and “Heavily Ever After” is about a honeymoon gone awry, including at the resort’s best restaurant. Besides the food motif, the editor also requested a recipe taken from each piece itself (or inspired by it), so that’s there too. The entire “Mealarky Summer Menu” is here: https://malarkeybooks.com/mealarkey/2025/6/19/summer-2025-rd8wx
Congratulations on those publications! Sorry to hear about your mother's passing - that's certainly a bittersweet moment to get the acceptance only hours later.
As Rodgers and Hammerstein once wrote: June is bustin’ out all over! By which I mean that June has, in fact, been a bumper month for this old scribbler. A total of eleven poems and one piece of flash fiction and three acceptances for September.
Two of my poems came out on June 1. One of them at London Grip New Poetry
The seventh poem, “Sonnet 2 Revisited”, has been published in print by Literature Today. The editor had invited contributions under the rubric of ‘Echoes of Human Experience’. Uxorious man that I am, I wrote a modern version of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 2” (as one does…) but with a much more positive spin on it to celebrate my still beautiful wife’s 70th birthday, which is next month. The online version can be found here:
Incidentally, I wrote the last two before the Orange Oaf went completely off the rails.
My one regret is that the editor of Winamop “did not have the balls”, to quote him, to publish my poem, “The Final Solution”. I’ll it to the readers of this June brag to work out what the topic was.
To round off what has been a pretty successful month, Literally Stories published a piece of flash fiction: “Snow White Meets Little Red Riding Hood”:
Meanwhile, Offcourse have been in touch again to tell me that they would like to publish the three poems that I sent them this month in their September issue. I just love the way Isabel and Ricardo present poems on their bright, clean site.
Well, Greg I am already 2 months into my 89th year! Admittedly, I did only take up writing, let’s say earnestly, during the pandemic so in terms of creativity I have been trying to make up for lost time. Nonetheless, I think it will be very difficult for me to repeat the successes of this month.
So you're successful at ageing too! While it certainly has been a feast for you this month, that doesn't mean it has to a famine ever after. If you enjoy the process of writing and submitting stories and poems then why stop? You could also bring out a collection of your stories or poems.
All the above available you can guess where. There's also a small collection of flash fiction Curiouser and Curiouser Flaswhich ice so-so.h Fiction by Tony Dawson Published by Cyberwit.net ISBN: 978-81-19654-93-2 First Edition 2023
Oh so you have published a few collections then! Do you have enough material for another?
I notice that Cyberwit doesn't give submission guidelines for collections although it does for its two periodicals. I guess you just write to the editors offering a collection or chapbook?
And once having found the idea, there's the difficulty of paring a story down to the bones. Mark Twain's apology for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a short one, is so relevant to the challenges of flash and micro-fiction!
First, well done on getting accepted! That's always a rush. I just had a story accepted that was rejected over 100 times. What helps me keep going is if a fair share (about 20%) of the rejection letters are complimentary/encouraging. That let's me know I'm not crazy. If you love story and are getting positive feedback, if not acceptances, why not keep at it? Maybe it only needs a tweak or two. Don't give up too soon.
I have a story in BULL called “Lies I Tell My Daughter.” It was rejected 36 times. I’ve been submitting it for about 7 years off and on. Here’s how it went: submitted to 5-10 places, got rejected, let it sit there and get dusty for a while, opened it back up, tinkered with it, still believed in it, sent it back out to 5-10 places, etc. etc. until finally I made one little revision re the character’s motivation. Thanks to Ben at BULL.
I am very proud of my story “Fat Healthy Baby,” which won first place in Lilith Magazine’s contest. One of the things that helped in my process for this one is that the maximum word count for the contest put the fire into me to cut 400 words. Glad I cut the right ones. 😅 https://lilith.org/articles/fiction-fat-healthy-baby/
Congrats, Becky. The award is very well deserved!!!!
I had a piece of flash fiction published this month. I don't usually write fiction, I'm much more of an essay gal, so this is unusual for me. This piece was started in a workshop, pre-Covid in response to an unusual prompt. At the time, I submitted it once and after it was rejected put it away and didn't think about it. For some reason I dug it out in May and after rereading it, I decided to submit (after some editing) to Bright Flash Literary Review. They accepted it in 2 days! Wow is all I could say. Communication with them was great. And it was printed without any changes. Here's the link: https://brightflash1000.com/2025/06/07/the-box/
Congrats Becky! You provide amazing resources. It’s incredible!
I want to brag: The first issue of Epiphany Literary Journal with me as Fiction Editor just came out and is arriving in subscriber mailboxes as I write this. 😀
Congratulations Becky! I'm not surprised you're on the list.
This flash fiction came out in June. It was originally a short story with several POVs, but eventually, and after a variety of rejections, I winnowed it down to a flash with one POV.
I've had a bunch of things appear and more accepted. I had poems in both A Golden State: Women over 60 in CA and Keystone Anthology: Poets on PA (my birth state). My poem that was accepted by Catamaran appeared in their Garden issue; the poem accepted by Cider Press Review was published in their Summer issue. I had an essay accepted by a Jewish anthology, Manna Songs (ELJ) (forthcoming)
• Nature of Our Times (forthcoming)
• Pop Culture Almanac (forthcoming)
• Dark Ink II (title?) (forthcoming from Moon Tide)
Earned my second skull in HAD (first one wasn’t just a fluke!) in late May. And while I wasn’t quite sure if the piece fully fit the mag’s vibe, I decided to risk a rejection. Lo & behold, it was picked up with a comment in the acceptance letter that it was a little different than what they normally take, but in a good way. So let this be your reminder not to self-reject.
The body-horror-love-story cnf: https://www.havehashad.com/hadposts/love-distilled
I admire anyone who manages to get a skull simply for making the crazy rapid deadlines!
Submitting to HAD prepared me well for summer camp registration season.
too funny!
I really liked your piece Elizabeth! It was brave and beautiful.
Thanks, Kate. 💖
I enjoyed your piece. It said a lot in a little space.
Thanks for reading, Matthew.
Elizabeth, this piece is wonderful. I especially like "the unsexy dedication required for building a life together" - and you've reminded me how incredibly blessed I am, to have a husband who offers exactly that, without hesitation, whenever it is needed.
Thank you for reading. And I’m glad you’ve got a good one.
Love it. Congratulations!
Thanks for reading!
Congrats! And good point about not self-rejecting!
Elizabeth, thanks for sharing the link to your story. I'm glad I read it. My husband and I did have the fine print in our vows, but I know we didn't understand them, not yet.
Thanks for reading! Impressed that you including the fine print in your vows. And yeah, no one can guess the specific set of indignities to come, but it feels clear-eyed to acknowledge their likely arrival.
Love this story. Thank you for sharing.
Yes, very special compressed piece. And I see you call it cnf and felt comfortable submitting it to a mag asking for fiction?
Thank you for reading.
I remember reading this last month & how it so fully captures the experience of relationships through difficult medical conditions. This line--"Maybe then it’d be clear from the outset how showing up for the hard bits can refine love to its most potent essence if we let it."-- brought back my post-brain surgery experience and the shift of an independent-minded woman 'allowing' herself to be dependent on her husband.
A wonderful story, beautifully written!
Beautiful piece!
“Brief Notes to My Brother’s Other Sisters” placed in a Fish Short Memoir Contest a few years ago and appeared in a print-only anthology. It’s now online at Gordon Square Review, which I found by looking up a writer whose work I admire. No changes requested. Three months between acceptance and publication. http://www.gordonsquarereview.org/
Lovely, thought-provoking piece, Lisa
Thank you for reading and commenting, Elizabeth! One rejection letter asked how many sisters I had.
Didn't quite get it, I guess! :)
Lisa, is the melanoma in an imagined future, or is it what's actually happening in your life now? It works well in the piece either way... and I find myself wanting to make some kind of gesture of support if you are going through it now.
Cynthia, thank you for your kindness. Unfortunately, it's not imagined. Also, kidney recipients in the past have contracted it from deceased donors, so had I donated, I might have passed it along before I knew I had it. Again, thanks for your reading and thoughtfulness.
Wow. What a beautiful piece of writing!
Accepted: 7 poems, 1 essay, 1 short story, 2 books
Down in the Dirt: Hermit crab essay, “Go West, Young Shua Dvorkin: A Biography in Three Soirees, a Wedding, and a Death” (September). Rejected eight times since February. Had to withdraw from a few places once the piece was accepted.
The Ekphrastic Review Writing Challenge: Exclusive. “Pixelated” after Kaz Ogino.
Jewish Writing Project: Exclusive poetry submission. “Yiddish Lesson.” Scheduled for March 2026 publication.
Marrow Magazine: “This Is Your Life, Feyge Leah,” in which a displaced refugee finds herself on the iconic 1950s American TV show, “This Is Your Life.” This is a fictionalized TV script. Hard to place over the last year. Rejected ten times since November 2024. Will be published between July and September.
Minyan Magazine: “Delectables.” Only submitted to one other lit mag which rejected it. Heard back in a matter of days. Scheduled for winter publication.
Paterson Literary Review: Exclusive submission. “Propensities.” (Spring 2026) This wasn’t even a formal submission. I sent it to the editor since I would miss a session of her generative workshop I’ve been in for years. She said she loved it and accepted it for publication. One and done.
Umbrella Factory Magazine: “Delicate Dance in Leningrad, 1990, after Matisse; “I Become Acquainted with Death,” and “Russian Nesting Dolls” (August). “Russian Nesting Dolls” Received nineteen rejections since August 2022. I revised earlier this year.
Bottlecap Press: Ekphrastic poetry chapbook, Poems of the Winter Palace.
BlazeVOX: Short story collection, The Color of Time and Other Stories.
Published:
Bottlecap Press: Ekphrastic poetry chapbook, Poems of the Winter Palace.
https://bottlecap.press/products/palace?keyword=krasner
The Ekphrastic Review Writing Challenge: Exclusive. “Pixelated” after Kaz Ogino. First poem: https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges
Journal of Expressive Writing: “Blowfish.” https://www.journalofexpressivewriting.com/post/blowfish?fbclid=IwY2xjawKwef9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE4SEhCdU5QZjBISllmSHRiAR61PJMbqN4Zft10hK8HalZRpY5LVlFTLHn7y8zst0kmFBHsVN4d5nIKSFrUBQ_aem_zArVqFUKW1vI_qDCJ3ssPQ
Literally Stories: “The Persistence of Ruins.” Flash fiction. https://literallystories2014.com/2025/06/12/the-persistence-of-ruins-by-barbara-krasner/
Congrats on so many publications in one month!
Ah, come on! That's just being greedy - save some print space for the rest of us!! Seriously, congratulations on a mammoth month.
Thanks, Michael. When you're immunocompromised and have to pretty much stay isolated, you write. A lot.
I'm sorry about the reason, but glad about the writing. Congratulations, Barbara!
Now that's a month! Congrats.
Thanks, Dennis! I try to keep up with my myself month over month.
Wow, Barbara! Congratulations! Your accomplishments leave me almost wordless!
Thanks so much, Donna!
WOW! Many congrats.
Mazal tov, you're rockin' it sister!
Huge CONGRATS on these achievements!!
Congratulations, Barbara!!
I just ordered your chapbook from Bottlecap Press and can't wait to read it, Barbara!!
Wow you were busy :))
I had a piece published at Flash Frog this month. It had been a goal of mine to have something published there for a while now, and I got some positive feedback on my first submission to them but they didn't take it. So I waited a bit and submitted this one and they did!
This story had been around for a long time, but I only started submitting it (in slightly different form) pretty recently. It got some encouraging rejections and was longlisted for CRAFT's flash prize earlier this year, but I felt like there was something about the climax of the piece that wasn't sitting quite right. Finally I did one last revision and that was the version I sent to Flash Frog. They were very enthusiastic about it and sent me a nice pre-pub note saying they had no editing suggestions, that every word seemed to be just where it needed to be, which was very nice to hear! It felt really good to see it through and find what I think is the perfect home for it. And here it is! https://flash-frog.com/2025/06/09/no-saviors-by-sarah-bradley/
Sarah, that's a gut-punching piece indeed. I like the juxtaposition of the title and the ending. Congrats!
Powerful story. Congratulations!
Hi, here's a flash fiction piece in BULL, set in a movie theater the night the first "Halloween" movie came out in'78.
https://mrbullbull.com/newbull/flash-fiction/the-usher/
I loved this one, Peter!
Okay, I'll start with the bragging.
I'm thrilled with my first interactive story, The Drinking Game, which won Subnivean's Prose Award this month. As reader, you are a chronic alcoholic who has to make the right choices to escape the story alive - but choice is slippery when you're in addiction. As a reformed alcoholic, I worked hard to find a way of recreating the doom loops, repetitions, tedium and disaster of addiction, and Subnivean worked incredibly hard on the technical aspect, getting all the links to work so the experience is seamless (and maddening and depressing and weirdly fun and then depressing) for the reader. I think this was the fourth place I submitted it, which is unusually low for me - I normally rack up 10 to 63 rejections per acceptance. (Yep, 63). Please give it a whirl: http://subnivean.org/post/copy-of-dan-rivas
Also, I'm so pleased that after 18 months of me laying siege to Fictive Dream (they got a submission from me every two months to the day) and their lovely editor Laura sending me incredibly lovely rejections, we finally found #TheOne together. It's Not The End Of The World is a short story based on a real life Mongolian astronomer I met 10 years ago. It got shortlisted for 4 contests and got 4 rejections before finding its home, here: http://fictivedream.com/2025/06/08/its-not-the-end-of-the-world/
Both of these stories got more positive feedback than almost anything I've ever written, so despite some disappointments June was a very kind month for me.
Also thrilled Lit Mag News is getting recognition. You are such a valuable resource for the community, so utterly readable and practical, and I still think about your masterful demolition of Narrative at least twice a week. Thank you.
First - so happy about Lit Mag News doing so well. I haven't commented here, but you are a fantastic resource for the community
“Laying siege” 😂
I’m impressed by your persistence. I usually abandon my pieces after 10 rejections, figuring I’ll come back to them in time & then rarely do.
Congrats on your recent successes!
Ah thank you.
There ARE stories I have given up on after 10 to 15 rejections, but it's rare - I'm often arrogant enough to believe I am right and those editors are wrong. Its not enough to write a good story, that's one thing I have learnt as a reader for magazines. There are lots of good stories written. You need to find someone who loves it enough to champion it above all others. And that can just be a numbers game.
I had two stories which really took some placing though. The God Of Luck was a fairly politically sensitive and sexually explicit story about globalisation, economic inequality, cross cultural gay hookups, white privilege, etc set in Cambodia. And I knew that people were probably a bit nervy about a white guy writing that story, but Pangyrus had the guts to take it at my 64th attempt.
I also had a strange story full of mysteries called Olek and Lina and I did get offers on that one but only if I rewrote it to explain more and I got really stubborn and refused to do it and on its 43rd submission someone took it just as was and I felt jubilant.
Jaime, I love both these pieces, and I love that I have found a fellow writer who both "lays siege" to magazines and is stubborn enough to keep submitting a story he believes in. I think I'm up there with you at 64 submissions before acceptance on at least one of my stories and there are several that came in between 40 and 50 submissions. I'm waiting for the day that my stories get accepted before I hit the 10 mark, but am prepared to be stubborn the rest of my life. LOL
YES! You're my first fellow belligerent! I don't do it for every single story. Sometimes I know I've taken a risk and the response I get tells me the risk just didn't take off. But if I am pretty sure it's good (and you have to learn to be your own champion in this game) I will keep at it. In every single case, the publication that took these stories in the end was more impressive than many who rejected it. The story just needed to find the right reader.
"In every single case, the publication that took these stories in the end was more impressive than many who rejected it." This happens to me often. I suspect, too, that I get better at choosing where/when to submit a particular story. Congratulations on your two pieces! I particularly enjoyed the interactive story--done so well!
Let’s start a club: Fellow Belligerents!
Fascinating piece. Congrats!
Congrats on those two publications. Perseverance (and a thick skin?) certainly does pay off!
The thick skin is the tough part Greg, especially for writers who are by our natures sensitive.
One thing I think is helpful is to read for a good quality lit mag - you'll quickly realise that there are a lot more wonderful stories pouring in than you imagined. That can flip your attitude from being hurt by rejections to amazement you ever get accepted at all!
I was a reader for two genre publications so I get what you are saying. It's also nice to be on 'the other side' from time to time as well (i.e. not always being the contributor).
I came across your interactive story in the wild, as it were, and can't remember now how I found it? But thoroughly enjoyed, impressed, and inspired by!
Am with Claire: enjoyed and am impressed by! (As a nonfiction writer, I'll say I'm indirectly inspired by, too -- there are so very many ways to approach form & structure!)
Ah thank you that's great, I appreciate that. If you ever remember how you stumbled upon it let me know. It's so hard to get stories read in the ether, especially with Twitter now like the landscapes and inhabitants of Mad Max 2
You are the very definition of persistence!! Congrats on it all!
Both pieces, both brilliant albeit rather grim! The Drinking Game is beautifully laid out, much thanks to Subnivean.
Congrats to you Becky and Lit Mag News and its continued excellence as a resource and community!
I have a story in Running Wild Press’s 8th Short Story Anthology that came out earlier this month. It took two years or so from the point of acceptance to publication. It’s a longer story (7,500 words) so there were less places to send it, had about ten rejections over a year’s submitting. I got the acceptance after they’d had it for nine months, an email that came a couple of hours after my mother died. I think she would have liked this one, a family drama, even though the mother in the story abandons her family—not taken from real life. Available in paperback, e-book, and audio book at all the usual places, including the Wedding Boy’s site: https://www.amazon.com/Running-Press-Short-Story-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0D5872V7T
Speaking of weddings…a short story of mine is an “entrée” as part of Malarkey Books’ “Mealarky,” posted on their website last week. They were looking for pieces with a food connection, and “Heavily Ever After” is about a honeymoon gone awry, including at the resort’s best restaurant. Besides the food motif, the editor also requested a recipe taken from each piece itself (or inspired by it), so that’s there too. The entire “Mealarky Summer Menu” is here: https://malarkeybooks.com/mealarkey/2025/6/19/summer-2025-rd8wx
Congratulations on those publications! Sorry to hear about your mother's passing - that's certainly a bittersweet moment to get the acceptance only hours later.
As Rodgers and Hammerstein once wrote: June is bustin’ out all over! By which I mean that June has, in fact, been a bumper month for this old scribbler. A total of eleven poems and one piece of flash fiction and three acceptances for September.
Two of my poems came out on June 1. One of them at London Grip New Poetry
https://londongrip.co.uk/2025/05/london-grip-new-poetry-summer-2025/#dawson
and the other at Lighten Up Online
https://www.lightenup-online.co.uk/index.php/issue-70-june-2025/tony-dawson-hold-the-front-page
Four more were published by Offcourse
https://offcourse.org/issue101/dawson_anthony.html
The seventh poem, “Sonnet 2 Revisited”, has been published in print by Literature Today. The editor had invited contributions under the rubric of ‘Echoes of Human Experience’. Uxorious man that I am, I wrote a modern version of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 2” (as one does…) but with a much more positive spin on it to celebrate my still beautiful wife’s 70th birthday, which is next month. The online version can be found here:
Sonnet 2 Revisited Literature Today 22 June 2025
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cvYBbxTqCcNt8Y-b5SDBsRBC1bpePeIk/view
The poem is on page 103. To find it quickly, just search for Dawson.
Four more poems were published by Winamop. The first one, “Fate” is just a bit of fun. The other three stick it to DJT:
“Hermaphrodite”, “The Golfer of America” and “Donnie the Autarch”. All the poems are here:
https://www.winamop.com/td2504.htm
Incidentally, I wrote the last two before the Orange Oaf went completely off the rails.
My one regret is that the editor of Winamop “did not have the balls”, to quote him, to publish my poem, “The Final Solution”. I’ll it to the readers of this June brag to work out what the topic was.
To round off what has been a pretty successful month, Literally Stories published a piece of flash fiction: “Snow White Meets Little Red Riding Hood”:
https://literallystories2014.com/2025/06/09/snow-white-meets-little-red-riding-hood-by-tony-dawson/#more-41824
Meanwhile, Offcourse have been in touch again to tell me that they would like to publish the three poems that I sent them this month in their September issue. I just love the way Isabel and Ricardo present poems on their bright, clean site.
This month might be a good time to retire!
Retire? Is that possible? ;) Congrats for the eleven published poems and flash story! A very productive month!
Well, Greg I am already 2 months into my 89th year! Admittedly, I did only take up writing, let’s say earnestly, during the pandemic so in terms of creativity I have been trying to make up for lost time. Nonetheless, I think it will be very difficult for me to repeat the successes of this month.
So you're successful at ageing too! While it certainly has been a feast for you this month, that doesn't mean it has to a famine ever after. If you enjoy the process of writing and submitting stories and poems then why stop? You could also bring out a collection of your stories or poems.
Since you brought the matter up...
"Afterthoughts A Collection" by Tony Dawson Published by Cyberwit.net ISBN: 978-81-19228-34-8 First edition: 2023
Review by Charles Rammelkamp for the London Grip New Poetry
https://londongrip.co.uk/2023/06/london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson/
"Musings: Poems" by Tony Dawson Published by Impspired ISBN 9781915819666 First Edition December 2023
Review by Charles Rammelkamp for the London Grip New Poetry
https://londongrip.co.uk/2023/12/london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson-2/
"Reflections in a Dirty Mirror. Poems and Short Fiction" by Tony Dawson Published by Impspired ISBN 978-1915819949 First Edition: April 2024
Review by Charles Rammelkamp for the London Grip New Poetry
https://londongrip.co.uk/2024/04/london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson-3/
All the above available you can guess where. There's also a small collection of flash fiction Curiouser and Curiouser Flaswhich ice so-so.h Fiction by Tony Dawson Published by Cyberwit.net ISBN: 978-81-19654-93-2 First Edition 2023
Oops. The flash fiction title is "Curiouser and Curiouser", which is so-so.
Oh so you have published a few collections then! Do you have enough material for another?
I notice that Cyberwit doesn't give submission guidelines for collections although it does for its two periodicals. I guess you just write to the editors offering a collection or chapbook?
Congratulations, Tony--what a month!
Thanks, Donna. I hope you enjoyed the flash fiction, in particular. I find it harder to come up with ideas for ff.
And once having found the idea, there's the difficulty of paring a story down to the bones. Mark Twain's apology for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a short one, is so relevant to the challenges of flash and micro-fiction!
A great month - congratulations!
Thanks, Liz. I doubt I'll be able to do it again.
I meant I'll leave it to the readers of this June brag to work out what the topic was.
https://ciderpressreview.com/cpr-volume-27-2/ode-to-the-smells-of-summer/
Also a poem just accepted by MacQueen's Quinterly for their August issue.
And my ekphrastic collection will be released by Shanti Arts Books on or about Oct. 1st!
Exciting time!
The ode is gorgeous, Robbi! It made me hungry for summer days!
well deserved Robbi
Published a few days ago. It was a dream I had. But lately I've been wondering if I was reallly dreaming.
For the record, it had been rejected 23 times. I thikn I found the lit mag via bluesky.
https://www.suddenlyandwithoutwarning.com/sleeping/
What a quick & delightful surprise! Thanks for sharing.
For such a short story, it carries a lot of emotion.
Congratulations on your perseverance.
Thanks. I don't know if perseverance is the right word. Stubborn maybe? :P
First, well done on getting accepted! That's always a rush. I just had a story accepted that was rejected over 100 times. What helps me keep going is if a fair share (about 20%) of the rejection letters are complimentary/encouraging. That let's me know I'm not crazy. If you love story and are getting positive feedback, if not acceptances, why not keep at it? Maybe it only needs a tweak or two. Don't give up too soon.
Congrats, Becky! That’s fantastic news.
I have a story in BULL called “Lies I Tell My Daughter.” It was rejected 36 times. I’ve been submitting it for about 7 years off and on. Here’s how it went: submitted to 5-10 places, got rejected, let it sit there and get dusty for a while, opened it back up, tinkered with it, still believed in it, sent it back out to 5-10 places, etc. etc. until finally I made one little revision re the character’s motivation. Thanks to Ben at BULL.
https://mrbullbull.com/newbull/fiction/lies-i-tell-my-daughter/
Josh I read this one when it came out and really enjoyed it! Whatever tweek you made worked, I thought it was great.
Hey, thanks so much for reading! I really appreciate it.
I'm so glad you didn't give up on this one. What a ride it was!! Whoosh. (How I felt after reading it.) BULL is the perfect home for it.
I am very proud of my story “Fat Healthy Baby,” which won first place in Lilith Magazine’s contest. One of the things that helped in my process for this one is that the maximum word count for the contest put the fire into me to cut 400 words. Glad I cut the right ones. 😅 https://lilith.org/articles/fiction-fat-healthy-baby/
Congrats, Becky. The award is very well deserved!!!!
I had a piece of flash fiction published this month. I don't usually write fiction, I'm much more of an essay gal, so this is unusual for me. This piece was started in a workshop, pre-Covid in response to an unusual prompt. At the time, I submitted it once and after it was rejected put it away and didn't think about it. For some reason I dug it out in May and after rereading it, I decided to submit (after some editing) to Bright Flash Literary Review. They accepted it in 2 days! Wow is all I could say. Communication with them was great. And it was printed without any changes. Here's the link: https://brightflash1000.com/2025/06/07/the-box/
Congrats Becky! You provide amazing resources. It’s incredible!
I want to brag: The first issue of Epiphany Literary Journal with me as Fiction Editor just came out and is arriving in subscriber mailboxes as I write this. 😀
Congratulations Becky! I'm not surprised you're on the list.
This flash fiction came out in June. It was originally a short story with several POVs, but eventually, and after a variety of rejections, I winnowed it down to a flash with one POV.
https://thebookendsreview.com/tag/joan-slatoff/
I've had a bunch of things appear and more accepted. I had poems in both A Golden State: Women over 60 in CA and Keystone Anthology: Poets on PA (my birth state). My poem that was accepted by Catamaran appeared in their Garden issue; the poem accepted by Cider Press Review was published in their Summer issue. I had an essay accepted by a Jewish anthology, Manna Songs (ELJ) (forthcoming)
• Nature of Our Times (forthcoming)
• Pop Culture Almanac (forthcoming)
• Dark Ink II (title?) (forthcoming from Moon Tide)
I also have a poem in Women in the Golden State! What a thing of beauty this anthology is!