Orphaned or abandoned literary magazines are casualties of higher ed mergers

November 29, 2023 / melissaolsonpetrie / Leave a comment

Vintage postcard: Chicago, Minneapolis & St. Paul Railway Depot, Stoughton, Wisconsin.

Lit-mags lose when colleges and universities consolidate, cut back or close

Sometimes campus mergers in higher education can result in orphaned or abandoned literary magazines. More lit-mags may become unresponsive or inactive as colleges and universities continue to consolidate, cut back, or close.

Example: University of Wisconsin System mergers

A decade ago, many of Wisconsin’s 26 state universities and colleges had literary magazines.

Wisconsin had 13 four-year state universities and 13 state-run two-year colleges (separate from technical and private colleges).
Today, several of those literary magazines (most often from two-year colleges) are no longer publishing after a shuffling and reshuffling of campuses.

Two rounds of mergers brought Wisconsin’s two-year colleges under the umbrellas of nearby four-year state universities. The UW System now describes itself as, “13 universities across 26 campuses…”

Case study #1: Luce

Luce was the literary magazine at the University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan (a two-year college). When the UW System reorganized and then reorganized yet again, UW-Sheboygan became UW-Green Bay’s Sheboygan Campus. In other words, UW-Sheboygan became part of a four-year university. However, UW-Green Bay already had its own literary magazine, Sheepshead Review, and Luce faded away (at least for now).

Elsewhere in the UW System, other college lit-mags may not have survived campus mergers or related changes, including:

The Windy Hill Review at UW-Waukesha (now UW-Milwaukee at Waukesha County)
Fox Cry Review at UW-Fox Valley (now UW-Oshkosh, Fox Cities Campus)
Mush Literary Magazine at UW-Marathon County (now UW-Stevens Point at Wausau)
Rock River Review, at UW-Rock County (now UW-Whitewater at Rock County)
Others?

No longer anyone’s job

Mergers are often made in the name of cost-cutting. In higher-ed mergers, almost all university employees see their jobs change. The faculty members or university staff who advised or managed literary magazines usually see new (or modified) work assignments, as well as increased workloads. These job changes may not include their previous lit-mag work.

Supposed redundancies

Administrators hunt down opportunities for cost savings in any campus merger. It’s not hard to guess their reactions upon realizing that after a merger they have not only one lit-mag to support, but maybe two or three more as well. Chop! Mergers and “redundancies” don’t mix.

What’s a writer to do?

On their websites and Submittable listings orphaned or abandoned university lit-mags may appear to be operating with business as usual. Information about behind-the-scenes staffing and funding changes may not be announced.

As always, writers should look for proof of life, so to speak, such as updated website content and recent publications. Also, check out Duotrope and other sources of literary marketplace information.

Even after doing their research, writers may discover that they’ve submitted work to a university lit-mag that has gone silent. No responses. No publications. Nothing.

What about submissions and fees?

Note that some orphaned lit-mags may continue accepting submissions and submission fees. My sense is that this is an oversight (not intentional), at least for university publications. And I hope refunds would be arranged.

For what it’s worth, major scheduling and staffing changes in higher ed often occur during the lull between academic years, namely in the summer. A magazine’s faculty adviser or manager may end an academic year with the publication of a magazine they hope won’t be their last. By the time fall rolls around, the class or the program or the paid jobs that supported that literary magazine may be gone. Who’s left to mind the lit-mag when the paid staff’s gone and the student workers have likely graduated or moved on with their degree programs?

Case study #2: Green Mountains Review

The home campus of Green Mountains Review used to be Northern Vermont University. Currently, the NVU website leads with, “We’re Now Vermont State University!” This points to yet another campus merger.

As a writer, I’ve had a manuscript “in progress” at Green Mountains Review since February 2022. I discovered the university’s name change/merger info when checking to see what was going on at the lit-mag. In other words, I was wondering about the lag, especially upon seeing their website’s last news item was from November 2022.

I’m not alone in wondering about Green Mountains Review, according to a recent Lit Mag News article “Who holds lit mags accountable?” by Becky Tuch. She asks useful questions about who is accountable for unresponsive or inactive lit-mags, especially when submission fees are involved, such as the $3 that Green Mountains Review had collected for each submission until recently.

In a follow-up Lit Mag News article, Tuch noted that Green Mountains Review has ceased publication. She links to the article, “‘Green Mountains Review’ Shuts Down Amid Vermont State University Budget Cuts.” And about those fees…

In today’s environment of increased university cuts, the tally of orphaned or abandoned lit-mags may continue to grow, reducing opportunities for writers, editors, designers, readers, and more.

Halloween Story Confections

October 31, 2023October 31, 2023 / melissaolsonpetrie / Leave a comment

Vintage: Mystic Tray from Haskelite Manufacturing of Chicago.

5 podcasts & online readings for going scarily into the night

It all started with “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti, or rather podcaster Jacke Wilson’s reading and discussion of “Goblin Market” on his History of Literature Podcast. Although the episode was available months earlier, I didn’t get to it until last October, and it was perfect for Halloween.

As the autumn holidays approach, I’m looking for more Halloween podcast goodness — a healthier pastime than, say, a trip to the candy stash that’s supposed to be for the trick-or-treaters.

Here’s some of what I found (or returned to):

1. “Goblin Market”

Already mentioned… Episode 415 “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti on the History of Literature podcast. Rossetti’s extended narrative poem follows “two sisters seduced by the fruits being sold by a pack of river goblins,” writes Wilson.

See the Poetry Foundation’s website for the full text of Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” from Goblin Market and other Poems, originally published in 1862.

2. “The Tell-Tale Heart”

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe – History of Literature’s episode 450. The classic dark tale benefits from Wilson’s discussion of Poe’s life and the story’s oh-so-telling details.

See the Poe Museum’s (Richmond, VA) website for full text of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” which was first published in 1843.

3. “Spooky Stuff! Halloween Romance”

“Spooky Stuff! Halloween Romance Interstitial” – For romance novel fans, this episode from the fifth season of the Fated Mates Podcast recommends “some of our favorite recent witches and demons and incubii and ghosts and vampires and others,” write hosts Sarah MacLean and Jen Prokop. The hosts also “try to get to the bottom of why paranormal romance and monster romance [don’t] feel like Halloween romance.” NOTE: Adult themes, NSFW, headphones recommended, etc.

4. Apex Magazine

Apex Magazine’s Episode 99 featuring “Over Moonlit Clouds” – For dark speculative fiction, including this lycanthropic/aviation/societal dilemma by Coda Audeguy-Pegon, check out Apex Magazine, which posts narrated versions of its stories regularly.

5. Ouija Board insights

Ouija Board: What We Ask of the Dead – For the nonfiction minded, this essay by Kaia Preus from Arizona State University’s Superstition Review offers some contemporary perspectives and history on Ouija Boards.

Return to these podcasts and publications for recent offerings about, say, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “devils” in the romance genre, or just more of the “Strange. Surreal. Shocking. Beautiful.”

Reducing the churn in literary magazine submissions: Aligning writers’ work to editors’ missions

November 22, 2022 / melissaolsonpetrie / Leave a comment

Vintage postcard: Aquarium, Belle Isle, Detroit, Michigan.

The literary magazine universe doesn’t need to be this way:

Editors frustrated by an avalanche of manuscripts that are wildly inappropriate for their publication’s audience, mission, or market. Mismatched texts clog their submission portals, consume their time, and leave them so cranky that when they actually find a promising text, they may be too tired or frustrated to acknowledge it.
Writers clueless as to why they’re being rejected again, and again, and again. The whole submission process begins to feel like throwing darts at balloons in some literary carnival game. Merely a word or three of feedback from an exhausted editor feels like a win.
Readers struggling to understand what makes one literary magazine different from another. For example: Which literary magazine is sure to offer eco-fiction and eco-poetry? Which magazine tends to provide eye-opening perspectives from X community?

These types of misalignments aren’t unique to the publishing world. In teaching, an instructor may fail to communicate how course learning outcomes align with class activities. Think back to times when you were unpleasantly surprised about what was on a test. In business, an inept manager may harp on minutia (such as using envelopes that cost 8 cents vs. 9 cents apiece) while rewarding only mission-related work with year-end raises.

Both teachers and managers, should look at themselves first when they don’t receive what they want in terms of performance. The same can be said for lit mags and their editors.

What is a lit mag (short for literary magazine)?

Wikipedia offers the following, “A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters. Literary magazines are often called literary journals, or little magazines, terms intended to contrast them with larger, commercial magazines.”

Wikipedia includes a brief history of literary magazines, as well as a link to a “List of literary magazines.” Also see writer Clifford Garstang’s helpful 2022 Literary Magazine Ranking, a yearly compilation he bases on Pushcart Prize results.

Communication can be the key to reducing the churn in literary magazine submissions. Unfortunately, mission statements and “About Us” webpages are often vague, such as “We want to publish the best fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction available.” What does “best” mean? Each staff member may approach or define “best” differently.

Subgenre overload

Market listings for literary magazines — whether in Submittable, Duotrope, annual Writer’s Market books, or elsewhere — often push editors to offer more specifics about what they want to publish. This can be useful. However, such listings may also exacerbate miscommunication, especially in regard to subgenres. How much do you know about a lit mag that says it publishes a laundry list of subgenres?

For example, the Poets & Writers literary magazine database lists 38 potential subgenres, and recently a reputable Midwestern literary magazine designated 32 of them and excluded only six:

Autobiography/memoir
BIPOC voices
~~Commercial fiction~~
Creative nonfiction
Cross-genre
Erotica
Experimental
Feminist
Fiction
Flash fiction
Formal poetry
Graphic/illustrated
Graphic/health
Historical
Humor
~~Journalism/investigative reporting~~
LGBTQ voices
Literary fiction
~~Love~~
Lyric essay
Micro-poetry
Narrative nonfiction
Nature/environmental
Nonfiction
Poetry
Political
Pop culture
Prose poetry
Regional
~~Religious/spiritual~~
Serialized fiction
Short fiction
Speculative fiction
~~Speculative poetry~~
Translation
Visual poetry
War
~~Young adult~~

How much does a list of 32 subgenres tell writers, readers, or even staff members about a lit mag? From the editorial side, the rationale may be to keep options (or subgenres) open. But writers have likely responded with a raft of everything-goes submissions.

On the plus side, broad mission statements or subgenre lists offer flexibility for a magazine’s management, especially for college and university publications that change editors yearly. However, the outside view of vague descriptions or jargony missions is that the publication’s editorial targets are constantly shifting.

An unfortunate result is that the common advice to read a magazine to familiarize yourself with what it publishes often doesn’t work with the broad missions and shifting staffs of some publications. For example, one year a lit mag editor may include mermaid and ghost stories, but editors in previous and following years may reject such stories at the first hint of merpeople or specters.

Theme issues

Theme issues or special sections may be useful for editors, writers, and readers facing unclear or outdated mission statements.

Some publications, such as Fairy Tale Review, set a theme for each issue. Other magazines, such as Creative Nonfiction, intersperse theme and “regular” issues. When editors communicate their themes they often offer more information and details that help writers align and target their submissions.

A couple examples of upcoming theme issues (and their deadlines) include:

Creative Nonfiction. Theme: “Caring for the Heart.” Deadline 1/23/2023. “For an upcoming issue, Creative Nonfiction is seeking new narratives about caring for the heart — medically, technologically, or metaphorically. We’re looking for stories from healthcare workers and researchers; counselors and cardiologists and coaches; nurses and nutritionists … or any red-blooded writer with a heart.” See Creative Nonfiction’s website to continue reading the submission call.
Fiction International. Theme: “Refugee.” Deadline: 2/16/2023. “Fiction, non-fiction, and indeterminate prose texts of up to 5,500 words that address the theme of ‘Refugee’ are welcome. We will consider submissions of narrative, anti-narrative and indeterminate texts but only accept submissions reflecting the theme.…” See Fiction International’s Submittable listing for more information, as well as a link to the magazine’s catalog, which might offer insights into “indeterminate texts.”

Why literary magazines? They could be an important part of your book’s journey

January 12, 2022January 12, 2022 / melissaolsonpetrie / Leave a comment

Vintage postcard: General Motors Building, Chicago World’s Fair, 1933.

Start with the acknowledgment pages

If you read the acknowledgment pages of many novels, nonfiction books, short story collections, and poetry books, you’ll often see where earlier excerpts were published. This can tell you several things, including that the publications listed:

May be something you would like to read
May be markets for your own work

Often, first publications or excerpts appear in literary magazines. If you’re working on your own book or collection, literary magazines may be an important step in your reading, researching, and publishing journey.

For example, in World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s 2020 book, the acknowledgments include literary magazines such as Brevity, Diagram, Ecotone, and Georgia Review.

Bully Love, Patricia Colleen Murphy’s 2019 poetry collection, lists acknowledgments for Hawaii Review, Heliotrope, Indiana Review, and many other publications.

Finding literary magazines

Finding information about the literary magazines listed on an acknowledgments page is an online search away. However, reading the stories, poems, and essays they publish can get tricky. The spectrum of literary magazines ranges from fully online to print-only magazines that publish zero content online.

Reading content

Reading online literary magazines can be as easy as signing up on their websites, but reading print-based magazines may involve ordering print or electronic copies of individual issues. Some magazines offer pdf versions of recent back issues that may be available for reduced prices and quick access.

Don’t skimp on reading. An important part of the submission process is familiarizing yourself with individual literary magazines. Research what they’ve published. A friend of mine from grad school didn’t do this, and he ended up with a publication that he finds embarrassing to this day.

Submitting work

Submission windows for literary magazines may vary from one week to year-round. A few don’t accept any unsolicited work. Tactics to find these submission windows and writers’ guidelines start with a magazine’s website. If the magazine offers a newsletter, sign up to receive alerts about content, contests, submissions, blog posts, and (yes) fundraising.

Another tactic to find submission windows and guidelines is to “follow” publications in Submittable, an online submission management platform. Once you follow a publication, you’ll build a dashboard-like “Following” screen within Submittable that you can skim for “opportunities.” Some of these opportunities are solicitations to buy copies of magazines, but the majority are submission portals for fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, comics, plays, contests, and more.

Setting your intentions

Many writers set quotas for themselves when drafting or sending out work. However, fewer writers seem to set reading quotas, such as to explore one new literary magazine each week. Or push your weekly reading to include at least one short story, essay, or set of poems from a literary magazine.

This intentional exploring and reading of literary magazines can yield inspiration, which contributes to your writing, revising, and submissions process. You’ll also gather valuable information about the literary marketplace, including where to find copacetic writers and editors.

For help, check out “Resolve to read a literary magazine,” a recent effort by the Community of Literary Magazines and Publishers. Click through the CLMP membership directory for reading and submission options as well as discount subscription bundles.

Flash nonfiction: Good news and a field guide recommendation

October 14, 2021October 14, 2021 / melissaolsonpetrie / 1 Comment

Vintage postcard: Bungalow scene in Santa Ana, Calif.

Good news

I’m happy to share that my flash nonfiction piece “Handwashing Dishes” has been published online by The Southeast Review.

The Southeast Review, established in 1979 as Sundog, is a national literary magazine housed in the English Department at Florida State University, Tallahassee, and is edited and managed by its graduate students and a faculty consulting editor.

I especially appreciated working with Nonfiction Editor Liesel Hamilton, a Ph.D. candidate in nonfiction writing. She asked smart questions during the editing process, and her attentions truly made the piece better.

What is flash nonfiction?
“I am including creative nonfiction work up to 2,000 words, though the great majority of what is discussed is briefer: 500 to 1,000 words, and sometimes even fewer…. [L]ike literary fiction and poetry, the nonfiction we discuss is marked by the distinct, often peculiar, voice and sensibilities of the author and these works examine the deeply human—and often unanswerable—questions that concern all serious art…. [T]he work itself is individual, intimate, exploratory, and carefully crafted using metaphor, sensory language, and precise detail.” (xiv)
—Dinty W. Moore, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction

Flash nonfiction field guide

If you’re interested in writing flash nonfiction, I recommend The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction edited by Dinty W. Moore. As the subtitle says, the book offers “advice and essential exercises from respected writers, editors, and teachers.”

The chapter “Memory Triggers and Tropes” by Rigoberto Gonzalez of Rutgers University was especially helpful in drafting “Handwashing Dishes.” The prompt Gonzalez wrote starts with a useful distinction:

“Recall a memory that has emotional (not sentimental) value for you. To differentiate, an emotional response is attached to reason or thought and makes you ask (and want to answer) who, what, where, why, and how; a sentimental response is attached to feeling and simply asks those same questions without seeking to assess or investigate them.” (35)

Emotional vs. sentimental

The idea of a memory with emotional value immediately made me think about the dishes. They helped me unlock the memory of flying across the country to check on my mother’s welfare after being called by the Phoenix police. I needed to write about the state of my mother’s kitchen and family memories I’d been trying to make sense of for years.

As I drafted and re-drafted the story, finding the right point of view held me back. A straight reportage third-person version (she/they) seemed too detached and clinical. Meanwhile, a first-person version (I) was too much about me. The second-person point of view (you) offered a balance between emotional distance and experiential immediacy that fit.

Two chapters from The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction focused on writing in second-person. When I read Dinah Lenney’s chapter, “All About You,” I saw similarities in our approaches to second-person narration.

Hey, you! (second-person narration)

We both started with research. I remembered the second-person point of view in Jay McInerney’s novel Bright Lights, Big City from grad school. Lenney of the University of Southern California offered a longer list. She included “Carlos Fuentes, Marguerite Duras, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Samuel Beckett, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rumer Godden, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Diaz, Italo Calvino, William Faulkner, etc.” (100).

But what about specifically nonfiction examples? These were more elusive. I added Mary Karr’s Cherry: A Memoir to the list because the book starts with a second-person prologue.

In Lenney’s chapter, she used her flash nonfiction “Little Black Dress” as an example while pointing out what using second-person narration allows a writer to do. She writes, “it slows down the pace of things so that the story happens to you and your reader at about the same time—both of you there, in the middle of whatever it is, however delightful or excruciating” (102).

This slowing down that Lenney refers to helped me see the bigger picture connected to a scene worthy of a squalor documentary. It wasn’t just a weekend of trying to set things to right, there were things that couldn’t be fixed simply with a clean kitchen.

Research (library databases)

The key was further research. I read about the work-related trauma that can impact medical professionals. Mom used to tell me operating room stories—mangled motorcycle riders, disfiguring cancer surgeries, and aneurysms where blood pooled on the floor. She and many career nurses work through physical hazards, such as back injuries from lifting heavy patients, as well as mental trauma. Research into the toll of the health care professions acknowledges the effects of these traumas and helped me see the connection to my mother.

The combination of research into Mom’s work as a nurse—as well as into the craft of flash nonfiction and second-person narration—helped me make sense of lingering images from her house. To borrow language from Rigoberto Gonzalez, the flash nonfiction form allowed me to highlight a “moment of awareness or awakening that will resonate for a lifetime” (34). The writing helped me get closer to answers that had eluded me.

Literary magazines offer free access via websites and Project Muse during pandemic

March 25, 2021 / melissaolsonpetrie / Leave a comment

Vintage postcard: United States-Mexico boundary line near Tijuana, Mexico.

At least two print-based literary magazines have opened up their recent issues for online reading during the pandemic:

Ecotone issues 25, 26, 27, and 28 (their most recent issue) are free to read online “throughout the pandemic.” To start reading, go to: https://ecotonemagazine.org/magazine/
The Missouri Review’s content is available online through the Project Muse database until the end of March. (See the tech note below, to help you navigate Project Muse.)

Print-based literary magazines don’t seem to share much of their content online, so these opportunities are worth checking out.

Magazines offering full-text content through Project Muse

Here are seven lit-mags, including The Missouri Review for now, that continue to offer full-text content from their recent issues through Project Muse:

Publication	Available content	Most recent issue
The Missouri Review (University of Missouri)	1978 to present	Winter 2020 (Vol. 21, No. 4)
Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction (Michigan State University)	1999 to present	Fall 2020 (Vol. 22, No. 2)
Prairie Schooner (University of Nebraska Press)	2003 to present	Summer 2020 (Vol. 94, No. 2)
Minnesota Review (Duke University Press)	2010 to present (plus many older issues)	2020 (Issue 95)
River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative (Ball State University)	2003 to present	Fall 2020 (Vol. 22, No. 1)
Sewanee Review (Johns Hopkins University Press)	2007 to present	Winter 2021 (Vol. 129, No. 1)
Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing (University of Hawai’i Press)	1999 to present	2020 (Vol. 32, No. 2)

Note that database content can change quickly. In other words, due to budgets, contract negotiations, and legal and financial wrangling, publications can pop into and out of Project Muse and other databases. What you were looking at yesterday, might not be there today.

For my students, I recommend they download any database document (including bibliographic information) if they even think it might be useful in their work. Note that these downloads are for personal use only.

About Project Muse

Project Muse is an online database available through many college and university libraries. The database offers access to articles, poems, fiction, nonfiction, and other content published by a variety of journals, including select literary magazines.

In terms of market research, database access to full-text content is valuable because once you’ve read what a magazine is publishing, you can sense whether your writing might find a home there. Also, it never hurts to mention a memorable piece you read from the editor’s magazine when writing a cover letter.

TECH NOTE: How to search the Project Muse database

Databases offer multiple points of access, but the following is the quickest way I’ve found to search for and read content from the magazines listed above using Project Muse.

1.

Select “Project Muse” from the list of databases available on your college or university library’s website.

2.

Instead of using the search box at the top of the screen, scroll down to find the “Journal” filter on the left side of your screen. Enter “Missouri Review” in the Journal filter.

NOTE: Skip the “Content Type” filter, which starts a much broader search related to journals.

3.

After typing “Missouri Review” in the Journal filter in Step 2, an overwhelming 4,373 results were returned.

To narrow your results, click on the name of the publication (the link) within your Results list.

4.

After clicking on “The Missouri Review” in Step 3, you should get an “About this Journal” screen that provides some background about *The Missouri Review*.

Scroll down on the “About this Journal” page and you’ll see a list of the available volumes and issues of the magazine. If you’re doing market research, you’ll want to look at the most recent issue, which is currently “Volume 43, Number 4, Winter 2020.” Click on the link to the issue you would like to search.

5.

After clicking on the link for the most current issue “Volume 43, Number 4, Winter 2020” in Step 4, you should get an “In this Issue” and “Table of Contents” screen that offers links to the articles within the Winter 2020 issue.

From this Table of Contents screen, you can click on View (to read content online), Download, (to get the pdf file), or Save.

NOTE: Content isn’t often labeled as fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, but the page numbers offer useful clues. A one- or two-page article is more likely to be poetry, and a 10- or 20-page article is likely to be fiction or nonfiction.

Submittable: Follow the money in literary magazine publishing

December 22, 2020January 25, 2021 / melissaolsonpetrie / 3 Comments

Vintage postcard: Night view of the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago from the sky ride’s observation platform.

Pondering “Giving Tuesday” donation requests and everyday submission fees at lit mags

Writers don’t earn much for publishing their work in literary magazines. In fact, after you add up the online submission fees and the costs of old-school printing and postage, many writers actually pay to have their work published.

However, publishing can build a writer’s social capital. It’s a different type of earning. Publishing is a status symbol, of sorts, that can verify your topic or your writing is good or interesting or digressive or [insert another adjective]. For writing teachers, especially those on the tenure track, publications listed on a vita show a teacher’s relevance and contributions to their field, which helps them get hired or promoted or keeps them employed.

More literary magazines are offering an honorarium beyond “paying” in contributor’s copies and bragging rights. Often honoraria run $25. A few magazines, such as those with commercial or foundation backing, pay professional rates. These mythical outlets may pay $250 to $1,000 or more, but their fiction is liberally sprinkled with agented submissions.

Science fiction, fantasy and other genres

Genre publications, including science fiction and fantasy, seem to take writer’s payments more seriously. Publications can’t be considered professional or “qualifying markets” by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America unless they pay at least 8 cents per word, among other criteria.

This professionalism goes both ways. Many science fiction, horror, and other genre publications pay their writers, but they may require exclusivity. Their writer’s guidelines may prohibit simultaneous submissions, but in return, they often make their decisions (to publish or not to publish) in days or weeks, rather than months.

SFWA members frown on reading or submission fees. “The Egregious Practice of Charging Reading Fees” is the title of a 2018 SFWA blog by John Walters, a hybrid author who has published more than 20 books. Walters critiques the literary marketplace’s submission fees and their impact on disenfranchisement and diversity.

Poetry has value

As for poetry earnings, think back to the blog “Poetry Has Value” where poets shared monthly tallies of their submission fees and income. For example, Erika Dreifus, author of Birthright: Poems, earned $517.65 from her poetry publications in 2016. However, she did this by pursuing free markets for her poems.

“Thanks to my Poetry Has Value posts, I can tell you that I sent out 134 [packets of] poetry submissions in 2016… Had I spent $3 each time, I’d have shelled out $402 on submission fees. Which would have left me with $117.65,” Dreifus wrote in “Making Poetry Pay: Five Ways to Increase Your Poetry Income,” which was published in The Writer’s Notebook in July 2017.

NOTE: The free monthly Practicing Writer e-newsletter from Erika Dreifus includes “fee-free (and paying) calls and competitions—plus other resources—for writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction.” More information is at: ErikaDreifus.com

Where is the money in literary publishing?

So, what happens when you follow the money in literary magazine publishing? Like a big shining billboard, there is Submittable.

Submittable, a “submission management software” company based in Missoula, Montana, gives writers an online platform to submit their creative work to publications. Costs for printing, postage, and SASEs (self-addressed stamped envelopes) have morphed into online submission fees. Magazine staff members use the Submittable platform to accept or reject work online. Stacks of mail and full recycling bins have turned into burgeoning electronic queues.

“Since starting, Submittable has partnered with over 11,000 organizations to promote calls, accept, review and take action on over 50 million submissions and applications from over 4.5 million users,” wrote CEO Michael A. FitzGerald in November.

Fifty million submissions…

Some of those submissions were free. Other submissions cost $25-plus. Most of them were about $3. Some of that money went to the publications and some to Submittable. If you read Tahoma Literary Review’s “What We Pay (and how we do it),” you’ll see that in spring 2020 Submittable’s cut of each submission was 5 percent plus 99 cents. This is on top of a yearly fee, which can be $999 for Submittable’s “basic” level.

For Submittable, what does this look like in rough numbers?
• 50 million submissions @ $3 apiece = $150 million * 5 percent = $7.5 million
• 50 million submissions * 99 cents = $49.5 million
• Total: $57 million (This estimate doesn’t include Submittable’s base fees.)

Not bad for a company, originally called Submishmash, that FitzGerald started in his basement with Bruce Tribbensee and John Brownell in 2010.

FitzGerald stepped down as Submittable’s CEO in November 2020 to continue his treatment for colorectal cancer. Thor Culverhouse has since taken over as CEO, but the transition and the recent global recession brought to light hints about the financial side of Submittable. As reported in the Missoulian newspaper:

In July 2019, the company raised $10 million in venture capital.
In April 2020, Submittable laid off 30 of its 130 Missoula-based workers.
I’ll add that, during the pandemic, literary magazine submissions may be up, if the quick closing of metered or free submission windows is any sign.

Why “Giving Tuesday” made me think about this

Even before “Giving Tuesday” I started receiving donation requests from literary magazines that I submitted work to over the years. I don’t mean to put a negative spin on this, but some of these magazines last communicated with me via a boilerplate message like, “Thanks for your submission [and submission fee], but we’re not going to publish your work. We’re so busy that we have nothing more to say right now. Good luck.”

About those $3 submission fees, my math shows:
• $1.86 stays with the magazine
• $1.14 goes to Submittable
Note that it’s not unusual for a higher-tier magazine to receive 10,000 submissions a year.

Nonetheless, I saw a stark contrast. The donation solicitations were annoying, especially those from magazines that hadn’t communicated regularly through newsletters or other avenues. But these literary magazines needed donations, grants, subscriptions, and submission fees to keep publishing. We’re talking about budgets of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

Meanwhile, a company that “partnered” with these sometimes-struggling publications talks about fees and venture capital on the order of millions of dollars.

And writers? Maybe they made $500 through their writing last year, if they worked hard and avoided submission fees.

An update from Submittable

Keriann Strickland, director of product & content marketing for Submittable, contacted me to provide additional information about their business and fees. Here’s what she wrote:

First, you caught an error for us; thank you. Michael’s [former CEO Michael FitzGerald’s] blog post should have said nearly 20 million submissions [instead of 50 million].
As the blog you quote mentions, we’ve expanded from our literary roots into many other industries and use cases. That total submission number represents all of those industries/use cases (not just literary journals)—most of them without submission fees.
In the minority case where an organization charges fees, you’re correct that we charge $0.99 + 5% of the total sum collected—4% of that goes to our payment processor (we use a 3rd party for security and compliance standards). More on that break down here: https://www.submittable.com/features/fees-and-payments/
In partnership with CLMP [Community of Literary Magazines and Presses], we also offer special discounted plans for literary journals at $39/month or $290/year (well below our basic pricing https://www.submittable.com/clmp/).

A newer three R’s for writing: Reject, revise, and repeat

October 28, 2019 / melissaolsonpetrie / Leave a comment

Vintage postcard: Sky ride, Chicago World’s Fair, 1933

Some literary magazines offer a few sentences of feedback if you pay a couple of dollars more for your submissions. A few sentences or a paragraph or two is what you get—not a full critique.

While a full critique can cost hundreds of dollars, a couple of dollars seems worthwhile to get something beyond the generic rejection of “doesn’t fit our needs,” “wasn’t right for us,” “unable to accept,” “not selected for publication,” and so on.

Note: On Submittable.com, you can search using the words feedback or comment to get a list of current submission opportunities that have a feedback option.

Nonetheless, feedback isn’t always easy to take. Here’s an excerpt from comments I received recently:

I liked this story, but a good amount happens here that doesn’t move the story forward. Some of it is in extraneous description; some of it is action. Reading these bits, I can see how they are good writing, but they don’t quite contribute to the story, which bogs down the reading experience overall.

This feedback applied to a short-short story of about 700 words. My first reaction was, “If you took out the description and the action, what would be left?” But then, the feedback only referred to “extraneous” description and “some” action. Where was it?

I reread the story and let it sit for a week. For me, time is an important revision tool. You come back to a piece with many assumptions forgotten, much like a new reader. More than once, I’ve reread a rejected manuscript and thought, “Rightly so.” Problems jumped out at me, but this short-short wasn’t one of those.

Having been taught to show not tell, I looked at elements in the story that were supposed to show. What I was showing didn’t seem to be coming across, if the feedback was any indication. I brought back a few of the story elements I had cut earlier. This also involved reordering some material to smooth progressions and connections. I had waffled over much of this earlier in the drafting process and had opted for a more streamlined piece, leaving much lurking but unsaid. Now, I was putting some of these things back in.

The story is resting again, like dough. We’ll see what rises with the next rereading, as well as the next steps in the submission/feedback process. Maybe these revisions have gone too far, and I’ll need to dial them back again. We’ll see.

Contests vs. general submissions for fiction, poetry, nonfiction: Economics & odds in publishing

July 30, 2019 / melissaolsonpetrie / 1 Comment

Chicago World's Fair federal building (2) - clean copy

Vintage postcard: Federal building at night, Chicago World’s Fair 1933

I’ve rarely entered writing contests. At $20 to $30, most entry fees seem too high. Granted, some publications do ease the sting by sending you a copy of the issue containing the winning entries or a year’s subscription, but still…

When you could pay a $3 reading fee for 10 general submissions versus one $30 entry fee for a contest, the economics win. The return on investment for contest entries often seems too low.

Million-dollar contests

My view of contests was reinforced when I read about the Writer’s Digest contests in Jane Friedman’s book, The Business of Being a Writer. “When I worked for Writer’s Digest, the revenue from competition entry fees approached a million dollars a year,” writes Friedman. “The number of contests was a budgeted line item in the revenue forecast, and if the projected number was not achieved on time, the contest deadline was often extended to collect more entries.”

This gave me a new perspective on contests that announce they’ve extended their deadlines. Are they just trying to bring in a certain amount of money?

It also led me to do some math in my head—seldom a good thing—when an announcement for the Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition popped into my inbox.

For this contest the regular entry fee is $30. I figured that to generate $1 million, the contest would need more than 33,000 entries distributed over the nine categories. Yes, the contest offers a $5,000 grand prize and several other higher-dollar prizes, but when I recently saw this year’s short story winner my first thought was, So that’s what a hundred-thousand-dollar story looks like (at least in terms of entry fees).

Here’s what I was thinking (mistakenly):

$1,000,000 (approximate entry fees)
÷ 9 (the number of categories)
$111,111 (entry fees per category)

NOTE: This assumed that all categories received a ninth of the entries, or about 3,703 entries, at $30 apiece.

Okay, upon further examination, my math was really wrong because the Writer’s Digest competitions website also lists separate competitions for self-published books, popular fiction, short short stories, self-published ebooks, and poetry. These other contests must be part of the organization’s revenue projections, and I’ve only been looking at the Annual Writing Competition.

The one number I may be close to right on is that $1 million in contest revenue would require more than 33,000 submissions at $30 apiece, not counting expenses for prizes, administration, honorariums for judges, and so on. Nonetheless, the odds of winning or placing among 33,000-plus submissions doesn’t give me any sense that the odds may ever be in my favor, no matter how good or bad my writing is.

I apologize for picking on Writer’s Digest, but their contest just happens to be the one I read about recently. I don’t think their contests are alone in being a “profit center,” to quote Friedman again. I also doubt their odds are unusual among big contests.

Better odds in local and regional contests

When considering contests, I look for better odds. I’ve found this in local and regional contests, especially those held by nonprofits. These contests may attract a few hundred entries instead of thousands.

For example, the annual Wisconsin People & Ideas contests for fiction and poetry received 69 fiction entries and 585 poems in 2014 (the most recent year that I could find reported entry numbers for). The odds were much better for fiction (1 winner in 23), whereas the poetry odds were much tougher (1 winner in 195).

The regular entry fee is $20, and cash prizes range from $500 to $100 for the first- through third-place, respectively. While both the odds and the potential ROI for this contest seem more attractive, entries are limited to Wisconsin writers.

NOTE: In addition to cash awards, the Writer’s Digest contest offers introductions to agents and other benefits that are difficult to place a cash value on. Similarly, Wisconsin People & Ideas, a publication of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences Arts & Letters, offers winners benefits such as a residency, publication in the journal, and a reading during the Wisconsin Book Festival.

Acceptance rates for general submissions

Acceptance rates of 1 to 2 percent seem common among many literary magazines, based on what I’ve read through the years.

In a 2016 Review Review article, “Is Duotrope Accurate? Ten Lit Mags Provide an Answer,” writer Jason Peck compared journal acceptance rates to what Duotrope users were reporting.

Here are a few of the acceptance rates literary magazines provided to Peck:

Colorado Review 1.06% acceptance rate
Flash Fiction Online 0.7% acceptance rate
Rattle 0.717% acceptance rate

Tahoma Literary Review regularly provides acceptance rates on a page titled “What We Pay (and how we do it).” For example, the fall/winter 2018 issue received 1,225 submissions, of which 25 were published, which is a 2% acceptance rate (if my math is correct). If you’re interested, the TLR website breaks the submissions down by category.

Final thoughts (for now)

In the end, contests may offer a bit more recognition, money, and perks, but their entry fees could quickly drain your budget for marketing your creative writing. On the plus side, contests offer a deadline, which may help push a project through to completion. Remember, however, that deadlines may be extended to attract more fee-paying competitors.

10 ways to access literary magazines before submitting: How to research markets for your writing

October 25, 2018November 2, 2018 / melissaolsonpetrie / Leave a comment

Vintage postcard: On the turn at Gulfstream Park Race Course, Hallandale, Florida

The warp speed way to exit the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts isn’t what you want, but writing that is poorly targeted may get just that treatment at literary magazines.

As a former fiction editor at Hayden’s Ferry Review, I remember the easiest (and most frustrating) rejections were the texts that weren’t in the universe of our submission guidelines: Literature written for very young children. No. Graphic sex and bestiality scenes with little story. No. Academic essays. No.

NOTE: See the Hayden’s Ferry Review website or Submittable portal for their guidelines. They’re currently seeking submissions for their “Magic” issue.

While university literary magazines run by graduate or undergraduate students may demonstrate changing literary tastes or themes from year to year, they seldom make wide swings away from a core mission. Therefore, it’s easy for the editors at almost any publication to see who submitted works for consideration without researching guidelines or reading published issues first.

Ignore the oft-heard advice “read an issue before submitting” at your peril. Here are 10 ways to access current literary magazines. Many ways to do this market research are free.

Printed sources

Strategies for getting your hands on recent publications include:

Sample issues: Many literary magazines offer online pay portals.
Book fairs: Associated Writing Programs and other writing conferences and festivals.
Newsstands: College and commercial bookstores.
Libraries: Current periodicals sections, especially at college and university libraries. (free)
Literary magazine offices: Many magazines exchange copies with their peers, but you may need to know someone on staff to gain access. (free)

Electronic sources

Exploring a magazine’s content continues to get easier through online options:

Web excerpts: Content may include pieces from current or past print magazines. (free)
Web-only content: In addition to excerpts from print issues, some magazines offer web-only content. Note the submission process and guidelines may be separate from that of the print issues. (often free)
Publication newsletters: Magazines such as Kenyon Review offer weekly newsletters that link to content currently available online. (free)
E-magazines: Print magazines may offer pdf versions that can be downloaded immediately. Prices for these e-issues tend to be lower, possibly noting the absence of printing and shipping costs.
Databases: Some literary magazines are indexed by databases available through college and university libraries. While some entries list only bibliographic information, others offer full-text files of individual sources (short stories, poems, essays, and so on). (free)

While reading an issue before submitting may help you target your writing efforts to more receptive publishers, the process also makes for good literary citizens. As much as you work hard and want your work to be read, other writers and publishers want the same thing.