Somehow this morning I was able to walk down the street on my way to work without rolling my hips to Rihanna's "Work," a feat that I'm quite proud of.
Anyways, I'm writing this in the AM (8:48 a.m.), but I probably will put it on hold for publishing until after work this evening. But I got into work and while gearing up for the day, I checked my Submittable account. This is something I do pretty obsessively, even though when it comes to being accepted or rejected, the publication will usually send an email (unless they do "completed" but we'll get to that later). This morning, one of my three submissions went from "received" to "in-progress" and yes, I'm pretty geeked.
I don't know who reads this blog, so I've decided I'm just going to talk about my experience with submitting from when do I know a piece is ready and/or done to what do I do now that I've been rejected. As a writer and MFA candidate, trying to get published is a top 5 priority for me and it's something that I discuss with my peers, professors and friends a lot. Fortunately, I've been rejected and published on more than one occasion, so I feel like I'm a good person to talk about these things.
First thing to know is: I'm a pessimist. This is something I've mentioned in some of my work and a thing that I let people know about me early on, I just think it's much easier to not have any expectations. That way, when something goes my way for once (say getting published) then I can be very excited about it, instead of rolling my eyes like "Of course, they accepted it...I wrote it."
The second thing to know is: my first publication was in January 2015 for Nailed Magazine (an online magazine) in their response column. I wrote 1000 words on "Masturbation" on the last day submissions were accepted. I submitted it via email and got a response two hours later, accepting my piece. Very exciting, but I didn't tell many people because...masturbation.
I only started publishing things because I completed all of the classes for my Creative Writing degree in Fall 2015, so I still had an entire semester of Neuroscience, Psychology and Literature courses to take, but I wouldn't be producing new creative work unless it was on my own time. I was finally getting a long awaited and much deserved break from writing. Publication wasn't really pushed in my college classes, at the end of each semester we'd have to submit a piece or two as part of our portfolio, but I didn't really know what I was doing, how to submit, how to choose publications, etc. My first submission was to Susquehanna Review and I still don't know anything about that publication--where it's from, who publishes it, what they want to read, who their audience is--nothing. But I had spent three and a half of my college years writing, workshopping and revising new work. I had poems, short stories, essays, articles, half-written pieces, prose poems, long-form narratives, disjunctive essays, lyric essays, on and on and on. (Maybe I should write a post about how I decided on the essay as my form? 😏) Anyways, I had over 30 works that I'd written for those classes just sitting on my computer, untouched, unpublished. So, I thought, it's time to do the thing that eventually every writer has to do and that's submit.
I submitted three long-form essays from my senior seminar and contemporary writing class as my manuscript for the Ohioana Library Award (which I later had the amazing and humbling privilege of winning). I was submitting manuscripts for graduate schools (thus, why I'm currently at Columbia, gearing up for my final thesis year). I was trying to participate in the monthly response column as often as I could between school, applying to graduate school, being rejected by graduate schools, working/tutoring and doing all of those senior year celebration events. I was able to participate in four before the column was no longer continued.
It's taken me days to write this and all of those submissions are still "in-progress" gleaming in bright azure. So, I guess I'll talk about rejection. If you're going to be real about writing and publishing, then you need to understand that the cold shoulder (sometimes not) of rejection will become very familiar. You'll get rejected at least once. I've been rejected many a time and my pessimism makes me just assume I'm going to be rejected anyways, so most of the time I'm not surprised, but other times, it's like being stabbed in the chest. Grad school rejections were like that. When I send out a piece I'm very proud of and have spent hundreds of hours reading and workshopping and revising, only to get an email or notification that it wasn't accepted--that hurts a lot. Sometimes, publications never get back to you. Sometimes, they lose your piece via email. Sometimes, they just ignore responding to you. I spent months waiting to hear back on an essay I specifically wrote for a publication's submission prompt and I never heard back. Eventually (with the advice of a professor), I emailed them, asking about my piece and explaining that I'd prefer not being in limbo. They still haven't responded. So I did what was best for me as a writer and submitted it elsewhere. It will be published in print later this month.
So how do I find publications to submit to?
www.pw.org (contests + list of most publications)
www.submittable.com (need an account)
www.essaydaily.org (list of publications)
ww.thereviewreview.net (call for submissions)
Twitter
Books by authors I like (usually list previously published works)
But how do I choose?
I should be a good person now and tell you to read every single literary journal you find interesting and see what they publish. If that seems like a lot though (because it can be), look at publications that published works by authors you've previously read and enjoyed. Look at publications that include authors who write in a similar style to yours. I look at word limits (I write pretty lengthy, so I need to know what I can submit), mastheads (who will be publishing my work is important to me) and mission statement (what is this publication about, who are they, what do they want to see/read). I've found that I like publications that encourage some sort of pop-culture based or critical writing mixed in with the personal; also those that are interested in underrepresented/marginalized voices; and pubs that want both beauty and grit in a piece. Once I find interest in a publication, I look at its submission guidelines to get a better idea of what they want and then I peruse the publication to see what's been previously published. Sometimes, you'll find a publication you love that will love you back. Other times, you'll find a publication you love that doesn't care about you. Sometimes, a publication will publish you and then later will reject you. Or the opposite. Publishing is weird.
I follow a lot of publications on Twitter, so I can see when they're open for submissions and work that they are digging at the moment. By following publications I like, I find that I constantly see publications that they (the publications) like and RT, which I find myself also becoming interested in and it becomes a whole cycle. I also follow writers I love on Twitter and they introduce me to more publications and opportunities, etc.
This is a lot. And I feel like I could keep going on forever about publishing and submitting, so I'll stop. There is always going to be someone who loves your work and wants to help you share it, you just have to find them.
I had a professor tell me once that publications should be grateful to publish your work; as in they should also be thanking us for submitting, instead of us thanking them for accepting. The things you write are important, so where you end up placing them speaks to that. It's an arduous process, but in the end it will be very rewarding. Good luck. And may the odds be ever in your favor.
