My 6 Step No B.S. Guide to Submitting Short Stories to Lit Mags

Fiction writer shares his method for finding lit mags, formatting cover letters, and submitting to journals

Welcome to our weekly column on the ins and outs of lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors everywhere.

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By Benjamin Davis

The writer-to-editor relationship is basically a bunch of needy kids asking all of our literary mommies and daddies to put our work up on their refrigerators. It’s a weird dynamic, but that’s what it is.

Since there are many little bits and pieces to submitting stories, there are a lot of different long-winded articles about how to do each one. I find this frustrating—driven, quite simply, by the internet’s insatiable appetite for ‘content at all costs’. The cost? Reading three pages to learn one step in a six-part process just to pull out a couple pieces of useful information.

It's exhausting. So, I did it for you.

Step 1: Answer This Question:

Why are you submitting your fiction?

• If you are an MFA student with aspirations to be a literary icon and publish in the top 50 journals in the world, I’m likely not about to tell you anything you don’t already know, or, really, anything that might be useful to you.

• If you are a fiction writer, in any genre, looking to get your work out there, grow your audience, and make a name for yourself, full steam ahead.