Really Hard to Understand and Even Harder to Follow Submission Guidelines for Our Literary Journal
"Our editors prefer the Comic Sans font..."
Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.
Submission Guidelines
Our magazine is open for submissions every third Thursday of months ending in r from 12:00 to 3 a.m. Pacific Time (so that would be September through December). If you live in another time zone, please review this helpful conversion chart: Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator (Classic) (timeanddate.com)
Please read all previous issues of our magazine dating back to 1984 before submitting. Unfortunately, issues published between 1984 and 1994 are only available in our password protected print archive. Issues from 1994 to present can be read for free online. The good news is that you can pay an all-access pass that entitles you to read ALL issues (even the print ones!) for a low monthly fee of $3.76. If you’re a speed reader, you may be able to read all issues during your 7-day free trial without having to pay a penny. (Otherwise, prepare to have your account debited from now until the end of time.)
If you subscribe to our magazine, you may also submit during our special subscribers only submission window, which will be held on the second Sunday of every month ending in y (so January, February, May, and July) from 13:00 to 16:00 Mountain Time. (Again, please refer to the helpful conversion chart above if you live in another time zone and are not sure what this means for you.)
Our editors prefer the Comic Sans font because they want to be sure that you read the submission guidelines. If you use any other font, they’ll know that you didn’t.
Please read all previous issues of our magazine dating back to 1984 before submitting.
Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but only if you promise the editors 10% of any payment you receive on the off chance that your work is accepted in a prestigious paying publication as well as naming rights to your next dog, cat, hamster, or child.
Stories We’d Like to See More Of:
1. Stories about vampires who spontaneously combust or live in really expensive apartments in the city, preferably New York City because there is never enough literary writing about New York City until every single square inch has been covered in every decade and season. Think Richard Dean Anderson's MacGyver meets Twilight meets Carrie Bradshaw.
2. Stories about vampires who are also wizards. Think Anne Rice meets Harry Potter, but we’d prefer stories that are not set in the Pacific Northwest because we want vampire stories that reflect the true diversity of the undead experience.
3. Stories about janitors from Boston who are also brilliant mathematicians because Matt Damon. Who doesn't like Matt Damon? If you don't like Matt Damon, then your story probably isn't for us. We’re okay if you don’t like Tom Hanks, and, if as a result, you have conflicted feelings about Catch Me If You Can. His performance in Elvis was a little over the top.
Stories That Are a Hard Sell:
1. Stories of ghosts who just haunt people. We want to see more about their interior lives. Why do they haunt people? Like what's their interior motivation?
2. Stories about sad poor artists. We know that’s realistic. But we read fiction because we want to be entertained.
3. Stories about writers who make a living at their writing. We know that fiction can stretch a reader’s imagination, but that's taking things a bit too far.
4. Stories that are too inspirational. This isn't Chicken Soup for the Soul. If you want to be taken seriously as a writer, you can’t be too inspirational. Also, you have to both write and outline in Comic Sans. No other font is as suited for creativity.
5. Poetry in the style of Mary Oliver. This guideline should be self-explanatory.
Check below to say you didn't use AI because we know that, if you didn't really write your work, you'd still be honest enough to admit that and check this box.
What our vibe is like: Cheese that’s a little sour but not moldy. We're not going for The Cheese Touch in Diary of a Wimpy Kid kind of gross, but we're also not baked imported from France brie. We're more like Vermont cheddar but with those kind of pricy mostly tasteless Carr's Original Table Wafers.
If you have any questions, please do not contact us. We’re too busy reading and writing literature to be bothered with answering questions that you could have found answers to yourself if you had only read these guidelines all the way to the end.
Bonus points for submitters who mention George Carlin in the subject line of their submission email and double dog dare you bonus points to those who type his name backwards or three times and attach an image of a mirror.
Please send all submissions to writingdoesntpay@writingdoesntpay.com. Any questions should be directed to your local psychic. Thank you for reading our magazine. We look forward to sending you a really personal seeming form rejection (or a wildly impersonal badly written one) soon.
We couldn’t do this without you.
Sincerely,
The Editors
 | A guest post by
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One of my favorites is a literary magazine saying "we take everything!" So you submit a story or two and get the "nope, sorry, not want we were looking for".
"Our editors prefer the Comic Sans font because they want to be sure that you read the submission guidelines. If you use any other font, they’ll know that you didn’t." LOVE it, and everything else about these guidelines!