Lit Mag Chat with Erik Harper Klass, Part 2
Insights from the Founder of Submitit
Good day! I come with tidings of our Lit Mag Chat, freshly wrapped.
Typically our Lit Mag Chat sessions are not recorded. In fact, that is often what makes them special and fun. They’re free-flowing, laid back, candid and supportive places for people to ask questions and raise concerns about lit mag submissions.
Today, however, we had a special guest join us. So, as promised, the conversation was recorded for anyone who might be interested. And what a conversation it was! We talked for nearly two hours and probably could have gone on longer if there weren’t other jobs to tend to, kids to pick up from school, meals to prepare, pets to feed, and so on. (Why must life always intervene with our desire to discuss literary magazines ENDLESSLY?!!?)
Anyway, our special guest was Erik Harper Klass. Erik is the Founder of Submitit, a service that “takes the guesswork out of submitting to literary journals.” Erik has designed a unique algorithm that predicts where short stories and personal essays have the greatest likelihood of finding a home.
Full disclosure: I used Submitit for a story of mine a few years ago. The story soon received an acceptance from Inscape. Erik is extraordinarily knowledgeable about literary magazines. He is also a painstakingly meticulous editor and highly informed about trends not only in publishing but in grammar (yes, grammar trends are definitely a thing). Perhaps my favorite thing of all: his margin notes are insightful, encouraging and often hilarious.
In today’s conversation, Erik talked about his work at Submitit, shared his approach to dissecting various qualities of a work of prose, and gave lit mag suggestions for five stories (which he read prior to the chat). We talked about what lit mag tiers mean, which lit mags belong to which tiers and why, and how Erik creates his own tiering system. We also discussed other writer quandaries such as decoding rejection letters (and if it’s worth it to even try), repeated submissions to the same magazine, the eternal quest for validation, and much more.
If you didn’t have your stories chosen as part of this discussion, please keep your eyes peeled for the next event like this. We will most certainly have Erik back another time and will do this again.
To everyone who came out today, thank you for participating! Your faces are just the sunburst I needed on this cool cloudy city day.
And of course, thank you to Erik for breaking down his submissions strategy for us all.
This video is for paying subscribers only. So if you’re not one, consider becoming one today and get lots more inside info about all things lit mag.
Happy viewing!