Submissions & Markets

I would have spent a whole session on this if I had had it. What follows is what I would tell a student of mine if they asked me, over coffee, how to begin.

The Submission Process — General

Step by Step

1. Finish the piece. Then put it away for at least two weeks. Then read it again.
2. Revise. Then read it aloud. Then revise again.
3. Have one trusted reader respond. Not a workshop. One reader whose taste you respect.
4. Identify markets. Poets & Writers, Duotrope, Submittable’s discovery tools, the CLMP directory, the tables of contents of magazines you already read.
5. Read the magazine first. One or two issues, at least.
6. Read the submission guidelines. Follow them exactly.
7. Format conservatively. 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced for prose, single-spaced for poetry.
8. Write a brief, plain cover letter. Three sentences. Do not summarize the work.
9. Send. Most journals use Submittable. A small reading fee ($3 to $5) is common.
10. Log it. Keep a spreadsheet: title, date, journal, fee, status.
11. Wait. Submit elsewhere. Response times range from days to a year.
12. When you receive a rejection — send the piece out within twenty-four hours to another market.
13. When you receive an acceptance — write a warm thank-you, withdraw from other journals, celebrate, then write something else.

A Sample Cover Letter

Dear Editor,

I am pleased to submit my [poem / story / essay], “[Title],” for your consideration in [Magazine Name]. The piece is [word count] words. It is a simultaneous submission; I will notify you immediately if it is accepted elsewhere.

My work has appeared in [one or two journals if applicable, otherwise omit]. I live in [city] and teach English literature.

Thank you for your time and for the work the magazine does.

With best wishes,
Your Name

The Universal Dos and Don’ts

The Statistics, Honestly

I have rounded these from editors’ interviews, journal annual reports, AWP panels, and the trade press over many years. They are conservative.

What Gets Published Most

• Poetry is the most-published literary genre by raw count. More than 2,500 active English-language literary magazines exist worldwide, and most accept poems.
• Short fiction is published by most of the same journals in smaller volume per issue (3–8 stories versus 15–40 poems).
• Memoir and personal essay have grown enormously. The personal essay is among the most-read forms online; the book-length memoir is one of the strongest categories in trade publishing.

What this means: rejection is the average outcome of any individual submission and it is not a verdict on the work. A poem rejected by fifteen journals and accepted by the sixteenth is not less good. It is the same poem.

Submitting Poetry

How to Submit

• Send 3–5 poems together.
• One poem per page. Single-spaced.
• Lead with the strongest. Editors often read the first poem and decide.

What Poetry Editors Want

• A poem that earns every line. No filler.
• A voice that does not sound like every other poem in the slush pile.
• An ending that is not a moral.
• Music. Read aloud, the poem should sound like itself.
• Some surprise. The image you did not expect.

Reasonable First Markets for Poetry

• Rattle — accessible, large readership, no fees.
• The Sun — readers’ writing and poetry, beloved by general readers.
• Poetry Magazine — the field’s flagship; aim high.
• Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, The Cincinnati Review.
• Smaller online journals: Cherry Tree, Tar River Poetry, SWWIM Every Day, Rust + Moth, The Adroit Journal, Frontier Poetry, 32 Poems.
• Local literary journals in your home state.

Chapbook & First-Book Contests

• Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Award
• Black Lawrence Press Chapbook Competitions
• The Walt Whitman Award (Academy of American Poets)
• The Yale Series of Younger Poets — first book; the oldest American literary prize.
• The National Poetry Series

Submitting Short Stories

How to Submit

• One story per submission.
• Word counts vary. Most journals want 1,000–7,500 words.
• Flash fiction (under 1,000 words) is its own market: SmokeLong Quarterly, Wigleaf.
• Double-spaced, 12-point serif, page numbers, header.
• Open with a strong first paragraph.

What Fiction Editors Want

• A first page that pulls them in.
• A clear protagonist with a clear desire by page two.
• Sentences that show the writer can write a sentence.
• An ending that earns itself — not a twist.
• A story that fits the magazine.
• Honesty over cleverness.

Reasonable First Markets for Short Fiction

• Tin House Online, The Threepenny Review, One Story, Story Magazine, American Short Fiction.
• Online: Joyland, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Hobart, X-R-A-Y, Necessary Fiction.
• Contests: The Missouri Review Editors’ Prize, The Iowa Review contest.

Submitting Memoir

Memoir lives in two markets: the personal essay (1,500–5,000 words) and the book-length memoir (60,000–90,000 words).

Reasonable First Markets for Personal Essays

• The Sun — accessible, accepts work from new writers.
• Brevity — flash nonfiction (750 words max), prestigious, free.
• River Teeth, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, The Rumpus.
• Modern Love (The New York Times) — extremely competitive but reads every submission.
• Longreads, HuffPost Personal, Narratively.

The Book-Length Memoir — Query & Proposal

1. Finish a complete draft.
2. Write a one-page query letter: a hook, a 200-word summary, a brief bio, a comparable-titles paragraph.
3. Prepare a book proposal: overview, chapter outline, author bio, marketing/platform statement, sample chapters.
4. Research agents at Publishers Marketplace, Manuscript Wish List, QueryTracker.
5. Query in batches of 10.
6. If you receive an offer, take a week to consider and inform other agents.

What Editors Are Actually Looking For

1. A voice. The single thing editors most often say they are looking for.
2. Work that fits the magazine. Most rejections are about fit, not quality.
3. A first page that is alive. The slush reader has 200 manuscripts on a Tuesday evening.
4. Specificity. Concrete nouns. Named places.
5. Surprise. An ending they didn’t see coming.
6. Honesty over cleverness.
7. Restraint. Earned emotion, not performed emotion.
8. Professionalism. Proper format. Brief cover letter.

What Editors Are Tired Of

• Dead grandparents introduced for symbolic weight.
• Workshops dressed up as stories.
• Dystopias whose politics are vague.
• Personal essays that arrive at therapy-speak conclusions.
• Poetry that mistakes line breaks for line work.
• Cover letters longer than the submission.