Friends, I write to you today from southern France, where I have been visiting relatives this past week. I won’t lie: It’s breathtakingly pretty. City dweller that I am, I have not seen so much open space, clear blue sky and felt such fresh air in a very long time.
But, that is not what I wish to discuss today.
Or, well, maybe I wish to discuss it a little bit. Here is a hippo, spotted at an animal park in Auvergne.
Wherever you are, I hope it’s peaceful, calming and restorative. Lord knows we all need some of that right now.
However, it can’t be all fun and games all the time. Come fall, there will be much going on around here. September and October are already booked full of editor interviews. Plus there will be the usual Submissions Info sessions. I will also be adding a new Special Topics series, in which I interview both writers and editors on issues germane to the literary world. My first interview will feature a journal editor and writer discussing Cancel Culture.
(As a side note, I’m actively looking for more people to participate in this series. Topics can be anything related to the craft of writing, publishing or aspects of literary culture at large. If you’ve got an idea for something you’d really like to have a conversation about, or something you’d like to teach others about, please get in touch!)
Meanwhile, as always, I want to hear from you.
As a subscriber, what else would benefit you in your efforts to write your strongest work and publish in literary magazines?
Would you like monthly speed-critique sessions, where people give feedback on the opening paragraphs of each other’s work?
Would you be interested in a lit mag reading club, where people read and discuss lit mags?
Would you benefit from a discussion forum where you can post work and get feedback on it?
Do you want more open discussion threads, where you can meet and greet one another, and talk about whatever lit-mag related thing is on your mind?
What do you need?
Or, are you happy as a clam with the way things currently are?
Hi there, I love your idea of a lit mag reading club, a group that is interested in discussing and analyzing what works and doesn't work in accepted pieces of writing to various publications. Thank you for asking!
I agree, a lit mag reading club would help me a lot! I've always been overwhelmed by how many mags there are, and how hard it is to find some of them, so a discussion would be great!
A discussion forum where you can post work and get feedback on it. Big tick.
It would also be good to be able to get others' views on some taboo subjects in writing. I think it would be interesting to get your subscribers' views on a topic that seems to be taboo in writing circles. For example, who amongst writers is actually reading all the work that has been published by other writers in free publications?
Leaving aside the costs of paid subscription and purchasing books, which most cannot easily afford, how many writers are simply interested in having their work published and show little or no interest in the work of others?
Again, we all have limited time, but I do my best to return the favour and comment on fine pieces I've read but obviously I'm some sort of oddball judging by the scarcity of comments by others.
I get that some publishers do not provide contact details for their writers and/or comment fields, for reasons I don't understand, but there are many FB pages where writers can alert readers to the fact that their work has been published and provide a link. Rarely have I seen anyone comment on a linked story.
Finally, here's a scary thought. Maybe there is no actual audience/market for amateur writers and nobody's reading anything (other than publishers). :-)
You're not alone in your suspicion about others passing up reading your piece. The trick is to excerpt a cheeky portion of the work and paste as clickbait with the link. Also it helps if the publisher had a catchy illustration. There's the 'title' bit too - there's a little genius to that ability - casting captions. After these gimmicks, you just sit back and hope for some traffic as you can't really decide who pays a visit and who doesn't in our frenetic-paced world.
Hi Becky. Glad you are enjoying France. I just thought to let you know The Summerset Review is celebrating its 20th Anniversary next month, Sept 15th. Twenty years of quarterly issues, mostly online, never an ad, never a submission fee, never an accessing fee. No slush pile, as we do not solicit. If you want to have an interview, just let me know. Or if you'd like to make an announcement and need an image, here is where the draft cover is for the Fall issue: https://www.summersetreview.org/22fall/splash.htm -- Joe
Aug 13, 2022·edited Aug 13, 2022Liked by Becky Tuch
Becky,
I like all of your above mentioned ideas! I would love to have a forum where we could post our work and get feedback. I would love to be able to discuss the various kinds of literary magazines and the kinds of works they would like. I love the idea of the speed critique sessions, also! Thanks for having us weigh in on these topics!
Hi, I’m pretty happy with how things are now. I wouldn’t want to post work Online for discussion, because then it might be considered published. The reading group idea is intriguing. One topic I would like to see discussed is how do you define success rate? I have about 400 submissions with 12 poems accepted, so I think of that as 3% success. But wait, some journals took more than one poem, so really only 8 acceptance letters, or 2%. Since my submissions average about 4 poems each, should I view it as 12/1600, or .75%? Or do I say 12 of the 60 poems I’ve been sending out (over and over) have been taken, for a whopping 20%? As of now, I’m going with 3%.
Thanks, Becky. I’m new here, so I don’t know what’s been covered already. I’d love to hear more about others’ submission strategies. I.E., how many packets do you have out at any given time? Do you cap how many times an individual poem is circulating? Is aiming for 100 rejections a year a good idea? Etc.
Becky, Lit Mag News Roundup is a living constantly emerging, ever evolving creature always looking to the future -- and you have such a solid grasp on the business, online and print. And you share so much. I like how it goes. Much obliged. Laisser les bontemps rouler!
Yes, though if we do just a half hour I worry the conversations will only cover basic submission info. My goal is to go beyond that. But I'll definitely think about ways I might add some shorter conversations into the mix.
It’s a conundrum. I have only listened to a couple of the interviews because of the length, but when I have they are interesting. But an interesting interview I don’t have time to listen to doesn’t do me any good!
interesting point that I hadn't thought of. There are a few editors who stood out to me both because of what they said about their magazines and, I guess, just because they vibed good for me:), so I don't know how you can capture that in a shorter space. It's hard for me to sit still for the hour--and I'm retired. People who are not retired can't watch during the day, maybe.
Aug 17, 2022·edited Aug 17, 2022Liked by Becky Tuch
More interviews with editors, for sure. I love the many you've done already as well as your passion for this community (thank you!), though hearing from more editors would be extremely beneficial. For example, when you interviewed Gerald Maa from The Georgia Review, he said, ""When literature does not exceed your sense of your own taste, then you're dead in the water." I love and respect that for two reasons. First, it's great to know that an editor isn't judging a story purely based on his/her own aesthetic. Second, because the statement makes him human instead of some disembodied, ivory-tower "editor"; someone who wants to be challenged by different styles and points of view. And when you interviewed Christopher Linforth from Atticus review, he told us that he's looking for work that's "punchy" and "slightly off-kilter"—a statement that has real, tangible specificity. So yeah. more editor interviews, please!
The things I selfishly want to know more about in your interviews (though you usually cover most of these already) are:
• How long have you been editor of X and what brought you to it?
• What do you think separates X from other journals? What makes it unique?
• What are the specific things you look for in a short story, beyond the obvious criteria?
• Are people submitting to the slush competing with already well-established writers who are repped by their agents? If so, do the slush submitters have a real chance, if the story is truly good, of being published by you? What's that percentage? Or do the bulk of your accepted stories already come from the slush?
Clearly, we all want to publish in journals that have some gravitas. Because we want our stories to be read. But I always wonder: are any of us ever really "read" in the journals where we've been published? Or do we have to break into the Paris Reviews of the world to ever get anywhere with our writing?
I would find useful a discussion of just what they might mean when publishers define the genre's they are interested in. Literary and Romance and such are pretty straightforward, but, for example, some publishers seem to define Speculative as tending much toward sci-fi, horror, etc., while other publishers seem more interested in Literary with a Magic Realist tinge. And I never ever can figure out what a publisher is looking for when they say they want "Experimental" work.
Hi Becky, thanks for all the work you do and I hope you have a wonderful vacation.
I like the editor interviews a lot. Maybe you could have say, a monthly interview with a few editors about a particular work that they published in their journals. They could go into some detail about why they chose it, how much revision was needed etc
If the two or three pieces were planned in advance, the participants could read up beforehand. It may encourage some to read or purchase a copy of the journal.
You have done some of this during the interviews but this way, the editor can get into the specifics and the audience can grasp what it’s all about.
I love this idea, James! Perhaps we could have a lit mag reading group, and then at the end an editor could come and discuss why they chose the particular pieces for that issue. Like a book club where the author comes in to answer questions.
I'd like to see more opportunities for sharing work and critiquing other's work. It's hard to find good reviewers and I think there are a bunch out there who are dialed in to your newsletter. Through other venues, I've made a few good contacts in this manner and we still share our work. It's been super helpful, particularly if it's been difficult to join a formal writing group. The groups could be split into poets, novelists, short story writers, essayists, etc. Thanks for asking!
Thank you for asking Becky. I seem to do pretty well on the pitch I.e. I’m asked to submit—and then I miss the mark, it doesn’t fit, blah, blah. So I need help somewhere between—like sending what I’ve promised—if there’s a group/forum for my ailment 🫢
Love your passion and commitment to this newsletter, Becky. One of the topics in lit mag publishing that concerns me is the push to publish “marginalized” voices over all others. The result is that very good essays and short stories get rejected in favor of those that deal with hot political topics, or those written by minority writers. I’d love to see a return to the day when pieces were evaluated simply on the excellence of the writing. That’s a truly democratic way of selecting content for a journal.
Thanks, Bruce. Yes, I've seen this concern appear from various people in the comments. I've been thinking of introducing a weekend conversation around it. This is important to discuss, while recognizing these issues are extremely sensitive. I would like to think a constructive and respectful conversation is possible here.
Hi Bruce. Here is a 2018 essay by Bob Hickok that addresses your concern. It prompted quite a range of discussion when It was republished three years ago by Utne Reader and is even more relevant now:
Thanks, XPC. The essay you provided is clearly written by someone who was ready to join the current bandwagon as long ago as the 60’s. He is, by his own admission, going to support what is going on right now in literary publishing because it aligns with his own politics.
That is such an astute point, Bruce--how the world (in this case, the poetry world) aligns with a writer’s politics. It has always struck me that many people who have a strong attachment to their beliefs tend to assume that everyone else automatically agrees with them, and that no further discussion is needed. I see this tendency in bigots of various stripes, in religious fundamentalists, in aesthetic purists, and in political zealots. All such people seem to assume they’re making commonsense observations. What I think is relatively recent (accelerating in the last ten years or so) is the apparent merging of orthodox political convictions with something like religious fervor, so that one’s political opponents are not just wrong but downright evil and in need of eradication. Not an atmosphere for intelligent exploration or the free exchange of ideas.
In an earlier Saturday conversation I mentioned a litmag that insists all identifying marks are removed from submissions because literary excellence (or merit or something) is the only criterion for selection, but then asks submitters to tick a box on the submittable form if they're BIPOC, have a disability, are over 50, etc., etc. Are these people such utter morons that they can't see the complete contradictionin a matter of lines?
Having recalled that (and got myself riled up as I did so), I wonder what real difference all the pious declarations about diversity, etc. make in practice, and whether a lot of editors are not themselves ticking a box when they publish such a declaration.
Hi Patricia. Sounds like the implication here is that the magazine’s editors are looking for the best work to be found within the specified parameters. And of course that raises the question of whether such work is necessarily of greater or lesser quality (however defined) than work falling outside those parameters. Other questions arise, too. I think we can have an open and respectful conversation here about this and related issues, and I look forward to it.
You have a legit concern which resonates with every quota-based selection. But I don't think they let down the bar by looking for 'marginalized' voices. It just improves the diversity of voices and perspectives because no editor/publisher would compromise quality of writing just to be more inclusive.
Perhaps so, but if there are three essays that are all equally well-written, the one from the marginalized writer will usually get chosen. And given the fierce competition for every issue of a journal, that means the marginalized voices have a huge advantage.
Not necessarily, Bruce. I'd like to think that subject matter would be what separates what/who is chosen between equally good submissions. Somehow, the marginalized voices are supposed to bring to the discussion table topics glossed over by the advantaged groups. That different perspective is why editors would privilege them not necessarily for just being marginalized.
Hi Becky, thanks for Lit Mag News. I appreciate everything you are already doing, and I would love to see a list (or more info & discussion) rating lit mags based on how well/how much they promote writers' work once they have published it.
I would certainly benefit from a discussion forum where you can post work and get feedback on it, provided such a post would not be considered publication. My beloved critique workshop collapsed with the pandemic and has not been revived, and I need feedback. Groups could be established for different genres, as prose writers face different challenges to getting published than poets. Besides feedback, some discussion about specific lit mags and their specific preferences would be helpful. Lately I've felt I have often been barking up the wrong tree.
Hi there, I love your idea of a lit mag reading club, a group that is interested in discussing and analyzing what works and doesn't work in accepted pieces of writing to various publications. Thank you for asking!
I'd second that, definitely.
I agree
I agree, a lit mag reading club would help me a lot! I've always been overwhelmed by how many mags there are, and how hard it is to find some of them, so a discussion would be great!
I agree! This would be great.
A discussion forum where you can post work and get feedback on it. Big tick.
It would also be good to be able to get others' views on some taboo subjects in writing. I think it would be interesting to get your subscribers' views on a topic that seems to be taboo in writing circles. For example, who amongst writers is actually reading all the work that has been published by other writers in free publications?
Leaving aside the costs of paid subscription and purchasing books, which most cannot easily afford, how many writers are simply interested in having their work published and show little or no interest in the work of others?
Again, we all have limited time, but I do my best to return the favour and comment on fine pieces I've read but obviously I'm some sort of oddball judging by the scarcity of comments by others.
I get that some publishers do not provide contact details for their writers and/or comment fields, for reasons I don't understand, but there are many FB pages where writers can alert readers to the fact that their work has been published and provide a link. Rarely have I seen anyone comment on a linked story.
Finally, here's a scary thought. Maybe there is no actual audience/market for amateur writers and nobody's reading anything (other than publishers). :-)
You're not alone in your suspicion about others passing up reading your piece. The trick is to excerpt a cheeky portion of the work and paste as clickbait with the link. Also it helps if the publisher had a catchy illustration. There's the 'title' bit too - there's a little genius to that ability - casting captions. After these gimmicks, you just sit back and hope for some traffic as you can't really decide who pays a visit and who doesn't in our frenetic-paced world.
Hi Becky. Glad you are enjoying France. I just thought to let you know The Summerset Review is celebrating its 20th Anniversary next month, Sept 15th. Twenty years of quarterly issues, mostly online, never an ad, never a submission fee, never an accessing fee. No slush pile, as we do not solicit. If you want to have an interview, just let me know. Or if you'd like to make an announcement and need an image, here is where the draft cover is for the Fall issue: https://www.summersetreview.org/22fall/splash.htm -- Joe
Joe, congratulations! Yes I'd love to do an interview with you. I'll drop you a message to set one up asap.
Becky,
I like all of your above mentioned ideas! I would love to have a forum where we could post our work and get feedback. I would love to be able to discuss the various kinds of literary magazines and the kinds of works they would like. I love the idea of the speed critique sessions, also! Thanks for having us weigh in on these topics!
Best,
Sharon B. http://www.sharonoblumbergauthor.com
Hi, I’m pretty happy with how things are now. I wouldn’t want to post work Online for discussion, because then it might be considered published. The reading group idea is intriguing. One topic I would like to see discussed is how do you define success rate? I have about 400 submissions with 12 poems accepted, so I think of that as 3% success. But wait, some journals took more than one poem, so really only 8 acceptance letters, or 2%. Since my submissions average about 4 poems each, should I view it as 12/1600, or .75%? Or do I say 12 of the 60 poems I’ve been sending out (over and over) have been taken, for a whopping 20%? As of now, I’m going with 3%.
That's a great question. I'll introduce it in one of our weekend conversations.
Thanks, Becky. I’m new here, so I don’t know what’s been covered already. I’d love to hear more about others’ submission strategies. I.E., how many packets do you have out at any given time? Do you cap how many times an individual poem is circulating? Is aiming for 100 rejections a year a good idea? Etc.
Becky, Lit Mag News Roundup is a living constantly emerging, ever evolving creature always looking to the future -- and you have such a solid grasp on the business, online and print. And you share so much. I like how it goes. Much obliged. Laisser les bontemps rouler!
Some of the interviews have really inspired me, but an hour is long to stick with. How about somewhat shorter editor interviews?
I hear you. I actually would love to edit them into smaller chunks. I'm still not savvy with video editing but this is something I will look into.
or making the interviews last only half an hour, maybe.
Yes, though if we do just a half hour I worry the conversations will only cover basic submission info. My goal is to go beyond that. But I'll definitely think about ways I might add some shorter conversations into the mix.
I actually like the longer interviews because sometimes unexpected gems appear. (I just speed it up to 1.25x)
I agree, James, that gems appear.
It’s a conundrum. I have only listened to a couple of the interviews because of the length, but when I have they are interesting. But an interesting interview I don’t have time to listen to doesn’t do me any good!
interesting point that I hadn't thought of. There are a few editors who stood out to me both because of what they said about their magazines and, I guess, just because they vibed good for me:), so I don't know how you can capture that in a shorter space. It's hard for me to sit still for the hour--and I'm retired. People who are not retired can't watch during the day, maybe.
More interviews with editors, for sure. I love the many you've done already as well as your passion for this community (thank you!), though hearing from more editors would be extremely beneficial. For example, when you interviewed Gerald Maa from The Georgia Review, he said, ""When literature does not exceed your sense of your own taste, then you're dead in the water." I love and respect that for two reasons. First, it's great to know that an editor isn't judging a story purely based on his/her own aesthetic. Second, because the statement makes him human instead of some disembodied, ivory-tower "editor"; someone who wants to be challenged by different styles and points of view. And when you interviewed Christopher Linforth from Atticus review, he told us that he's looking for work that's "punchy" and "slightly off-kilter"—a statement that has real, tangible specificity. So yeah. more editor interviews, please!
The things I selfishly want to know more about in your interviews (though you usually cover most of these already) are:
• How long have you been editor of X and what brought you to it?
• What do you think separates X from other journals? What makes it unique?
• What are the specific things you look for in a short story, beyond the obvious criteria?
• Are people submitting to the slush competing with already well-established writers who are repped by their agents? If so, do the slush submitters have a real chance, if the story is truly good, of being published by you? What's that percentage? Or do the bulk of your accepted stories already come from the slush?
Clearly, we all want to publish in journals that have some gravitas. Because we want our stories to be read. But I always wonder: are any of us ever really "read" in the journals where we've been published? Or do we have to break into the Paris Reviews of the world to ever get anywhere with our writing?
Sorry for rambling. And thanks for all you do!
Great feedback!
Thanks for all the work you do on this.
I would find useful a discussion of just what they might mean when publishers define the genre's they are interested in. Literary and Romance and such are pretty straightforward, but, for example, some publishers seem to define Speculative as tending much toward sci-fi, horror, etc., while other publishers seem more interested in Literary with a Magic Realist tinge. And I never ever can figure out what a publisher is looking for when they say they want "Experimental" work.
Would love a discussion forum where I could post work without it being considered published. I need critique from other poets.
These are good proposals, Becky. I'm just wondering if the works for critiquing could be sent without identification for a truly blind engagement.
Hi Becky, thanks for all the work you do and I hope you have a wonderful vacation.
I like the editor interviews a lot. Maybe you could have say, a monthly interview with a few editors about a particular work that they published in their journals. They could go into some detail about why they chose it, how much revision was needed etc
If the two or three pieces were planned in advance, the participants could read up beforehand. It may encourage some to read or purchase a copy of the journal.
You have done some of this during the interviews but this way, the editor can get into the specifics and the audience can grasp what it’s all about.
I love this idea, James! Perhaps we could have a lit mag reading group, and then at the end an editor could come and discuss why they chose the particular pieces for that issue. Like a book club where the author comes in to answer questions.
Yes!
I'd like to see more opportunities for sharing work and critiquing other's work. It's hard to find good reviewers and I think there are a bunch out there who are dialed in to your newsletter. Through other venues, I've made a few good contacts in this manner and we still share our work. It's been super helpful, particularly if it's been difficult to join a formal writing group. The groups could be split into poets, novelists, short story writers, essayists, etc. Thanks for asking!
I would be especially excited about the speed critiques and lit mag clubs!
Yes to all of your suggestions!
I would love a discussion forum where you can post work and get feedback.
Thank you for asking Becky. I seem to do pretty well on the pitch I.e. I’m asked to submit—and then I miss the mark, it doesn’t fit, blah, blah. So I need help somewhere between—like sending what I’ve promised—if there’s a group/forum for my ailment 🫢
Love your passion and commitment to this newsletter, Becky. One of the topics in lit mag publishing that concerns me is the push to publish “marginalized” voices over all others. The result is that very good essays and short stories get rejected in favor of those that deal with hot political topics, or those written by minority writers. I’d love to see a return to the day when pieces were evaluated simply on the excellence of the writing. That’s a truly democratic way of selecting content for a journal.
Thanks, Bruce. Yes, I've seen this concern appear from various people in the comments. I've been thinking of introducing a weekend conversation around it. This is important to discuss, while recognizing these issues are extremely sensitive. I would like to think a constructive and respectful conversation is possible here.
Hi Bruce. Here is a 2018 essay by Bob Hickok that addresses your concern. It prompted quite a range of discussion when It was republished three years ago by Utne Reader and is even more relevant now:
https://www.utne.com/arts/new-american-poetry-zm0z19uzhoe
Thanks, XPC. The essay you provided is clearly written by someone who was ready to join the current bandwagon as long ago as the 60’s. He is, by his own admission, going to support what is going on right now in literary publishing because it aligns with his own politics.
That is such an astute point, Bruce--how the world (in this case, the poetry world) aligns with a writer’s politics. It has always struck me that many people who have a strong attachment to their beliefs tend to assume that everyone else automatically agrees with them, and that no further discussion is needed. I see this tendency in bigots of various stripes, in religious fundamentalists, in aesthetic purists, and in political zealots. All such people seem to assume they’re making commonsense observations. What I think is relatively recent (accelerating in the last ten years or so) is the apparent merging of orthodox political convictions with something like religious fervor, so that one’s political opponents are not just wrong but downright evil and in need of eradication. Not an atmosphere for intelligent exploration or the free exchange of ideas.
In an earlier Saturday conversation I mentioned a litmag that insists all identifying marks are removed from submissions because literary excellence (or merit or something) is the only criterion for selection, but then asks submitters to tick a box on the submittable form if they're BIPOC, have a disability, are over 50, etc., etc. Are these people such utter morons that they can't see the complete contradictionin a matter of lines?
Having recalled that (and got myself riled up as I did so), I wonder what real difference all the pious declarations about diversity, etc. make in practice, and whether a lot of editors are not themselves ticking a box when they publish such a declaration.
Hi Patricia. Sounds like the implication here is that the magazine’s editors are looking for the best work to be found within the specified parameters. And of course that raises the question of whether such work is necessarily of greater or lesser quality (however defined) than work falling outside those parameters. Other questions arise, too. I think we can have an open and respectful conversation here about this and related issues, and I look forward to it.
You have a legit concern which resonates with every quota-based selection. But I don't think they let down the bar by looking for 'marginalized' voices. It just improves the diversity of voices and perspectives because no editor/publisher would compromise quality of writing just to be more inclusive.
Perhaps so, but if there are three essays that are all equally well-written, the one from the marginalized writer will usually get chosen. And given the fierce competition for every issue of a journal, that means the marginalized voices have a huge advantage.
Not necessarily, Bruce. I'd like to think that subject matter would be what separates what/who is chosen between equally good submissions. Somehow, the marginalized voices are supposed to bring to the discussion table topics glossed over by the advantaged groups. That different perspective is why editors would privilege them not necessarily for just being marginalized.
Same difference, Mike. The marginalized writer is still being given a huge advantage.
Hi Becky, thanks for Lit Mag News. I appreciate everything you are already doing, and I would love to see a list (or more info & discussion) rating lit mags based on how well/how much they promote writers' work once they have published it.
Beautiful France!
I would love this: A discussion forum where you can post work and get feedback on it
I would certainly benefit from a discussion forum where you can post work and get feedback on it, provided such a post would not be considered publication. My beloved critique workshop collapsed with the pandemic and has not been revived, and I need feedback. Groups could be established for different genres, as prose writers face different challenges to getting published than poets. Besides feedback, some discussion about specific lit mags and their specific preferences would be helpful. Lately I've felt I have often been barking up the wrong tree.
Dear Substack members,
I am inviting you to visit my page where I reviewing different topics regarding music, books. Recently I have started a serie of reviewing a certain type of books. Thank you everyone! https://jaroslavnovosyolov.substack.com/p/serie-books-from-anton-la-veys-shelf?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2