Why you’re writing is different than why you are submitting work to journals; those are two different questions. This piece addresses the second question, not the first, which is of course a more intimate, personal, existential question. Having parsed that, there are some very good reasons to submit your writing to lit mags even if “nobody” (meaning, not very many people) are reading:
The cred. If you are published, you get to list the work in your author bio, your queries to agents, your applications for fellowships, grants, and residencies; and anywhere else cred counts.
Validation: a lit mag editor is not just any reader. If you are published, you have demonstrated talent or a distinct voice or a gift for lyricism that has impressed a skilled, discerning reader – someone who has read a lot of submissions and knows what’s good.
One reader can make a difference. I was recently contacted by the editor of a small start-up online magazine because he read something of mine that was published in another online magazine and liked what he read. He asked me to submit. I did. He accepted it. It was great to be seen in that way, even if by only one fellow human being.
And finally, always, art is a gift. You are called to write. You will write anyway. You submit so that your writing, your calling, has some trajectory, some audience, even if it is tiny. To be read is the fulfillment of the gift. Does it matter if your gift is accepted by only one or a few or many?
Beautifully written. A lit mag editor is a reader -- if the piece you send is rejected, it was read* -- if the piece was accepted, that one reader (or board of readers) opens the way to more readers.
I agree that what one does is follow a calling, the writing. Once created the work one has the option to offer the gift to others. Why not? "To be read is the fulfillment of the gift."
*One of my dearest poet friends insists editors don't read, yet he continues to send out his work.
I DO read ...and thereby become inspired to write. I don't care if a journal is obscure; my writing is practice for writing that may have wider readership, including full-manuscript-length work.
"Why Am I Writing If Nobody's Reading?" If I had a dollar for every time I've asked myself this, I'd be a millionaire! I've had debates with writers who've said, ultimately whether you're read or not is not important. As long as you enjoy writing, you'll write. Even if no one reads your writing. And yes, this is true. But as this well-written piece suggests, being read is crucial. So, congrats, B.B. Garin. Me? I enjoy writing and reading my own work! Though I'd be lying if I didn't admit I wish others would join me...
A couple of things come to mind. That Four Quartets line: "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." I definitely want people to read my stuff, but the endeavor isn't dependent on many people putting eyes on it and liking it. It's more about trying to solve the puzzle of matching language to experience in a way that's true, effective. That's the main endeavor. That's the main business. The side business is getting eyes on it. The other thing that came to mind is that last year I won a big prize and as a result my debut short story was included in a prestigious anthology which I made sure to send copies to people in my life who meant a lot to me while also encouraging friends to purchase the anthology in order to support the publication and award sponsor so writers behind me continue to have the chance to win the award. As a result, how many people in my life read the story? Unclear, but I"d guess not more than 10-15. But it did matter to me. At the same time, I recommended that my local library purchase the anthology so it would be available for library patrons. Several weeks later I got an email from the library saying that it had decided not to purchase the anthology. This was a national award folks and my local library didn't deem it significant enough to carry it. What does that tell you about the readership of even prestigious anthologies?
The tendency to want what we write to exist in print I think has many reasons. For one, as you point out, it’s that tingle we experience when we think of a reader absorbing our view of an imagined or actual reality, gaining even the smallest of insights into the mystery of life, an extension of the concept that each of us are part of an all encompassing human mind much as each cell of our body contributes to the common survival of all.
We also, of course, do it to be praised, to be reaffirmed in our thoughts. It’s a natural human tendency to feel that not only have we been accorded our time basking in adulation but that, much as children, we need approval.
As humans and as potential parents we also dream, crave even, to have an extension, a progeny of ours in some form outlive us so that, in a sense, we remain among the living longer than a singular life.
Finally, there is the altruistic motive. If it so happens that, in revealing what we’ve stumbled upon, we somehow either brought someone even slightly up from despair or explained a familiar concept but in word pictures or experience that is immediate to them, the resulting brief exaltation within us will spur our minds to further creativity.
Yes, just some of the reasons we write. I especially relate to the last one, i.e., writing as communicating. Writing is a way of communicating with people in order to offer something that will help, entertain, or whatever.
Then there are the online journals that just suddenly go offline.....
Poetry is probably and even smaller market than short stories - but poetry is simply what I do. The simple pleasure of an acceptance, of publishing the fact on my blog, and then getting a comment on said blog indicating that someone has read that poem? Absolutely priceless!
You're fortunate Kim to get that feedback-- being born pre-cyber age, I have no idea how to do a blog--or even what it is--which is part laziness, part stuck in the print age, I suppose
Hi Nolo, I found using wordpress.com for my blog was very easy when I started back in 2016. You sign up, choose a format and start writing. I did it as something to do on a polonged sick leave from work.
I enjoyed reading this, but the piece could have gone further in discussing personal web sites, social media and other ways of getting one's work out. In today's scrum of writers and small 'zines, one has to be one's own publicist...
I used to have low hopes for lit mag readership. However, now that I'm an editor, I've been blown away by the amount of contributors who tell us they sit down and read the entire issue when it comes out. (And our issues are long!) We also often get submissions that call out specific poems people enjoyed. Of course they may have skimmed and only read a couple before finding one to mention, but it still makes me proud to know that at least that one poem found a reader and made an impact because of being published in our mag. We also publish for free online and offer print versions for sale. Usually if someone buys a print version, they buy more than one, which I always think is pretty cool.
For myself, the writing will happen whether anyone reads it or not. I submit to lots of places but even if I didn't (because I do want to be read) the writing would still happen. It's something I am compelled to do and, I expect, this is true for many writers. It just happens. Like death, eventually.
My strategy has always been to send my junk to the magazines I like to read regardless of circulation.
Several years ago, I was linking my lit-mag publications to my website and came to a piece in upstreet. I had my contributor's copy but nothing digital to upload onto my site. So, I reached out to the lovely Vivian Dorsel and asked if she'd provide me a PDF of my story, the one created for the printers. I told her my intent and that I'd provide a link to the magazine on my site. She replied immediately and obligingly. "Of course," she wrote back. "The story rights have reverted to you." Vivian has since passed away and upstreet is also laid to rest. I'm so happy I have my print-ready file so anyone visiting my Publications page can read the story.
I sometimes wonder if I would get more readers on my blog than in any journal except the very top ones. At least once in a while, one of the people who reads me for my critical pieces might get curious and go read a story.
If I KNEW--like gawd herself appeared and told me--that nobody outside my family and friends would ever read anything I wrote, I believe I'd give up. The hell of writing is that you don't know, and there writing seems to offer just enough to keep dragging you along.
When I was a teenager and my 'adult' brain was forming, I wanted to be a writer, that is ,a great writer, a.k.a. Dickens, Tolstoy, Shakespeare-- one whose words would be read for centuries as they became part of disparate cultures. I know--full of myself. Of course, I didn't actually do much writing, not until in my late 20's after I came back from 3 years in the Far East teaching ESL. Then I wrote some poetry, a couple children's stories, and a novel based on the time I taught in the war zone of Cambodia in '73-74. And when it was rejected by the first publisher I submitted it to, I gave up writing altogether--because impatience in one of my many faults. Nothing remarkable in that, I suppose-- just another guy who's not as smart as he thought he was. But for some truly unknowable reason, I began writing again as I approached the not so brave new world of old age, mostly poetry this time, and then I started getting published, Seeing your work online or in print is something so special, and yes, of course you want the whole world to rejoice in it-- but that has never happened, not to any writer, not to any person. If you're fortunate, you reach one or two souls, or a few hundred or thousands, but the numbers are not as important as the reality that your words have transcended into another mind-- and you will probably never know of it. I do know that as of last week I've been accepted in my 8th decade by 121 lit mags in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Romania, Sweden, India, Australia, and Turkey (!) and a trade publisher has put out 2 poetry books with a possible 3rd pending-- all of which is far more than I ever imagined possible as I run--well, walk slowly the last furlong or two of this incarnation.
Why you’re writing is different than why you are submitting work to journals; those are two different questions. This piece addresses the second question, not the first, which is of course a more intimate, personal, existential question. Having parsed that, there are some very good reasons to submit your writing to lit mags even if “nobody” (meaning, not very many people) are reading:
The cred. If you are published, you get to list the work in your author bio, your queries to agents, your applications for fellowships, grants, and residencies; and anywhere else cred counts.
Validation: a lit mag editor is not just any reader. If you are published, you have demonstrated talent or a distinct voice or a gift for lyricism that has impressed a skilled, discerning reader – someone who has read a lot of submissions and knows what’s good.
One reader can make a difference. I was recently contacted by the editor of a small start-up online magazine because he read something of mine that was published in another online magazine and liked what he read. He asked me to submit. I did. He accepted it. It was great to be seen in that way, even if by only one fellow human being.
And finally, always, art is a gift. You are called to write. You will write anyway. You submit so that your writing, your calling, has some trajectory, some audience, even if it is tiny. To be read is the fulfillment of the gift. Does it matter if your gift is accepted by only one or a few or many?
Congrats! One reader can make a difference, and it's awesome how that happened for you.
Beautifully written. A lit mag editor is a reader -- if the piece you send is rejected, it was read* -- if the piece was accepted, that one reader (or board of readers) opens the way to more readers.
I agree that what one does is follow a calling, the writing. Once created the work one has the option to offer the gift to others. Why not? "To be read is the fulfillment of the gift."
*One of my dearest poet friends insists editors don't read, yet he continues to send out his work.
I DO read ...and thereby become inspired to write. I don't care if a journal is obscure; my writing is practice for writing that may have wider readership, including full-manuscript-length work.
You're my hero. I try to read, too, but probably not as much as I should.
"Why Am I Writing If Nobody's Reading?" If I had a dollar for every time I've asked myself this, I'd be a millionaire! I've had debates with writers who've said, ultimately whether you're read or not is not important. As long as you enjoy writing, you'll write. Even if no one reads your writing. And yes, this is true. But as this well-written piece suggests, being read is crucial. So, congrats, B.B. Garin. Me? I enjoy writing and reading my own work! Though I'd be lying if I didn't admit I wish others would join me...
Thoughtful piece, hits the big question that I've wondered about too.
BTW you've got 3 posts now, which counts as readership, no?
Hope so!
The scant chance that it's picked up by Ploughshares or Best of the Net or Best Poetry of 2023?
A couple of things come to mind. That Four Quartets line: "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." I definitely want people to read my stuff, but the endeavor isn't dependent on many people putting eyes on it and liking it. It's more about trying to solve the puzzle of matching language to experience in a way that's true, effective. That's the main endeavor. That's the main business. The side business is getting eyes on it. The other thing that came to mind is that last year I won a big prize and as a result my debut short story was included in a prestigious anthology which I made sure to send copies to people in my life who meant a lot to me while also encouraging friends to purchase the anthology in order to support the publication and award sponsor so writers behind me continue to have the chance to win the award. As a result, how many people in my life read the story? Unclear, but I"d guess not more than 10-15. But it did matter to me. At the same time, I recommended that my local library purchase the anthology so it would be available for library patrons. Several weeks later I got an email from the library saying that it had decided not to purchase the anthology. This was a national award folks and my local library didn't deem it significant enough to carry it. What does that tell you about the readership of even prestigious anthologies?
First off-shame on your library.
Second-That's still an awesome accomplishment.
Third-I think sometimes having just one important person in our lives responding to something we wrote can mean more than anything.
The tendency to want what we write to exist in print I think has many reasons. For one, as you point out, it’s that tingle we experience when we think of a reader absorbing our view of an imagined or actual reality, gaining even the smallest of insights into the mystery of life, an extension of the concept that each of us are part of an all encompassing human mind much as each cell of our body contributes to the common survival of all.
We also, of course, do it to be praised, to be reaffirmed in our thoughts. It’s a natural human tendency to feel that not only have we been accorded our time basking in adulation but that, much as children, we need approval.
As humans and as potential parents we also dream, crave even, to have an extension, a progeny of ours in some form outlive us so that, in a sense, we remain among the living longer than a singular life.
Finally, there is the altruistic motive. If it so happens that, in revealing what we’ve stumbled upon, we somehow either brought someone even slightly up from despair or explained a familiar concept but in word pictures or experience that is immediate to them, the resulting brief exaltation within us will spur our minds to further creativity.
Yes, just some of the reasons we write. I especially relate to the last one, i.e., writing as communicating. Writing is a way of communicating with people in order to offer something that will help, entertain, or whatever.
Then there are the online journals that just suddenly go offline.....
Poetry is probably and even smaller market than short stories - but poetry is simply what I do. The simple pleasure of an acceptance, of publishing the fact on my blog, and then getting a comment on said blog indicating that someone has read that poem? Absolutely priceless!
You're fortunate Kim to get that feedback-- being born pre-cyber age, I have no idea how to do a blog--or even what it is--which is part laziness, part stuck in the print age, I suppose
Hi Nolo, I found using wordpress.com for my blog was very easy when I started back in 2016. You sign up, choose a format and start writing. I did it as something to do on a polonged sick leave from work.
not all that different from running a 10K race.
I enjoyed reading this, but the piece could have gone further in discussing personal web sites, social media and other ways of getting one's work out. In today's scrum of writers and small 'zines, one has to be one's own publicist...
I totally agree, but for anyone who's actively submitting to litmags, I feel like this becomes a question at some point.
Lovely. Thank you for this article. It came to me precisely at the right time. No surprise there. That’s the way our guides work. Much appreciated.
I'm glad the timing was right for you!
I used to have low hopes for lit mag readership. However, now that I'm an editor, I've been blown away by the amount of contributors who tell us they sit down and read the entire issue when it comes out. (And our issues are long!) We also often get submissions that call out specific poems people enjoyed. Of course they may have skimmed and only read a couple before finding one to mention, but it still makes me proud to know that at least that one poem found a reader and made an impact because of being published in our mag. We also publish for free online and offer print versions for sale. Usually if someone buys a print version, they buy more than one, which I always think is pretty cool.
I'm glad to here this.
For myself, the writing will happen whether anyone reads it or not. I submit to lots of places but even if I didn't (because I do want to be read) the writing would still happen. It's something I am compelled to do and, I expect, this is true for many writers. It just happens. Like death, eventually.
My strategy has always been to send my junk to the magazines I like to read regardless of circulation.
A touching article. Thank you, B. B. Garin!
Several years ago, I was linking my lit-mag publications to my website and came to a piece in upstreet. I had my contributor's copy but nothing digital to upload onto my site. So, I reached out to the lovely Vivian Dorsel and asked if she'd provide me a PDF of my story, the one created for the printers. I told her my intent and that I'd provide a link to the magazine on my site. She replied immediately and obligingly. "Of course," she wrote back. "The story rights have reverted to you." Vivian has since passed away and upstreet is also laid to rest. I'm so happy I have my print-ready file so anyone visiting my Publications page can read the story.
I sometimes wonder if I would get more readers on my blog than in any journal except the very top ones. At least once in a while, one of the people who reads me for my critical pieces might get curious and go read a story.
If I KNEW--like gawd herself appeared and told me--that nobody outside my family and friends would ever read anything I wrote, I believe I'd give up. The hell of writing is that you don't know, and there writing seems to offer just enough to keep dragging you along.
I like to believe that hell is actually hope propelling us all along.
When I was a teenager and my 'adult' brain was forming, I wanted to be a writer, that is ,a great writer, a.k.a. Dickens, Tolstoy, Shakespeare-- one whose words would be read for centuries as they became part of disparate cultures. I know--full of myself. Of course, I didn't actually do much writing, not until in my late 20's after I came back from 3 years in the Far East teaching ESL. Then I wrote some poetry, a couple children's stories, and a novel based on the time I taught in the war zone of Cambodia in '73-74. And when it was rejected by the first publisher I submitted it to, I gave up writing altogether--because impatience in one of my many faults. Nothing remarkable in that, I suppose-- just another guy who's not as smart as he thought he was. But for some truly unknowable reason, I began writing again as I approached the not so brave new world of old age, mostly poetry this time, and then I started getting published, Seeing your work online or in print is something so special, and yes, of course you want the whole world to rejoice in it-- but that has never happened, not to any writer, not to any person. If you're fortunate, you reach one or two souls, or a few hundred or thousands, but the numbers are not as important as the reality that your words have transcended into another mind-- and you will probably never know of it. I do know that as of last week I've been accepted in my 8th decade by 121 lit mags in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Romania, Sweden, India, Australia, and Turkey (!) and a trade publisher has put out 2 poetry books with a possible 3rd pending-- all of which is far more than I ever imagined possible as I run--well, walk slowly the last furlong or two of this incarnation.