Submit or Die in Obscurity

Submission Season

Ellen Goldstein

It’s chapbook submission season. Paper Nautilus’ Vella chapbook contest is open and Durham’s Backbone Press has an open reading period now. Are you a feminist of any gender? Submit to Gazing Grain. Tupelo’s Snowbound chapbook contest just closed. You think I would be tired of submitting to Tupelo as they have been rejecting me for years, but I revised my chapbook and hope springs eternal. Or maybe habits die hard. Pick your cliche.

Maybe you’re more of a contest person. Solstice Literary Magazine has a contest going on right now. They are a fantastic magazine out of Boston that is dedicated to publishing diverse voices. For years my poetry friends and I debated what kinds of work would be more successful in a contest. We thought loud and bold. My spouse (a fiction writer) is untroubled by the nuance and says, “Just submit already.” No comment.

Today Brevity opens its submission period for an issue on race, racialization, and racism. Write a flash essay up to 750 words on an aspect of race and maybe (squee) have Joy Castro read your work!

How do you figure out where to send your work?

 

 

Published by Ellen Goldstein

Ellen Goldstein is a writer and editor living in Southern Vermont. Ask her about science and poetry, writing creative nonfiction, or the use of an en dash, and she'll talk your ear off.

6 thoughts on “Submission Season”

    1. One of my younger friends received two personal rejections on her story. She asked me whether she should revise it or wait to see whether the other three places she had submitted to would say. I’m afraid I laughed at her (in a respectful way) and told her to send it out fifteen more places.

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  2. Wow, thought Murr was giving a lot away by saying his girlfriend’s EX-boyfriend published a book about her titled “Crane,” but then I tried to find it. It’s all Hart Crane, Stephen Crane.

    Anyhow, most Mondays, I check in at 2-4 websites that post markets. (Allison Joseph is just terrific in that realm). Allison. P&W. Winning Writers (no fee contests). I choose some and put them on a calendar divided into four columns: contests, journals, anthologies, books & chapbooks. If any time remains on Monday after all that checking and putting, I submit. Being a poet, I find that this helps pass the time that Murr seems bemused by.

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