George, I wanted to add two other ways to frame rejection:
a) the journal has been inundated with submissions and must regretfully reject good material, or
b) the piece doesn't seem compatible with the issue the editors are putting together.
(Some editor likened assembling an issue of a journal to putting together a menu for a dinner--an amusing metaphor I try to keep in mind.)
I keep a file of the encouraging rejections I get--the ones that say, in essence, "You almost made it in to our pages this time; please send more"--and, when it's time for me to submit, I start with those journals.
When I got my first two acceptances, I was elated--surely, I thought, additional acceptances were just around the corner! I'm still waiting, and I'm still trying.
Why? As you aptly put it,
"I cherish the idea of something that I wrote going out in the world and having a positive effect on someone else’s day."
I’ll always remember sitting down at a bank and looking up to see an article I wrote for the local newspaper taped up above the bank manager’s desk. She thanked me for whatever it was and
I have my 3rd book coming out in February (a middle grade novel called BIRDY from Little Brown) and I have had to really compartmentalize (as George put it). I tend to get to excited and very much off track around publishing. I think I lost a full month of writing time when an essay i wrote appeared in the NYT ... I was very UP in anticipation, then woefully DOWN when life didnt change. Ever since then, I decided to guard the joy I get from writing against the vagaries of publishing. As Elizabeth Gilbert weote somewhere, try to assess your value as a writer by your dedication to craft rather than publishing. Look, obviously I like to get published too, and it does take forever (or so I've found it) but its still worth it to me. I dont know how old you are. I got my mfa at 49 and my1st book came out at 52. Im 61 now with my 3rd book. Im playing the long game I guess, and you can too. My father published his first book at 69 and it won a big award and gave him.about 10 years of great fun
I'm 63. Yup, the long game. (I have an undergrad writing major, no MFA, but I've been writing since I was in middle school.) I had some poems published in journals over the years, but my first fiction was published 20 years ago. It's been all short fiction, though I have a novel draft and a plan for a novel-in-flash. (My oldest daughter has a non-fiction book coming out from a major publisher this spring, so that's a source of joy, but I've also watched her endure the ridiculously long process of publishing . . . in the midst of a nation that's self-immolating.) That's so interesting that the rush of publication derailed the work for you; the flip side is the silence from editors flattening one's desire to write at all. Thanks for sharing.
Ahh I love “I decided to guard the joy I get from writing”. I needed this today. Turning 50 this year and feeling mid life crisis-y. Have added Birdy to my TBR, thank you.
I wanted to add your book to my TBR pile on Goodreads, but I don't see it listed... You have a spectacular bio, by the way, so I'm guessing the MFA was the icing on the cake after what looks like a pretty amazing career. Was the MFA what pushed you to write novels?
Getting published is wonderful, and I have four stories coming out this year (for which I’m actually being paid), but what I value more—and rarely receive—is a response from readers. When I first sent out stories (and went through years of rejections), getting published *became* what I wanted. (Though what initially led me to write was the thought, “I want to create the feeling that that writer created.” That was still at the heart of the work.) I quickly found, once published, that what I truly desire is to hear someone’s response to what I’ve written; relatedly, I want to then participate in that response, to see the story as detached from me (which is easy given the time between composition and publication; I hardly remember what I’ve done), so that I can say, “Yeah, I like that part, too” or “That’s such an interesting thing to notice!” I do get to do that sometimes. Publication can make that happen, but it more often feels as if stories go out into a soundless void. So my thought for “A” is that she consider what she wants *from* publication, because there are a host of ways to connect through writing that don’t run through the mainstream publication route, and sometimes—or perhaps often—the mainstream route doesn’t provide what it seems to promise. Wishing her the best.
This. Exactly this. Published stories go into a soundless void. You expressed what has always bothered me. While I am happy to have a story published, I wish I could know how it is received by the readers. I don't want workshop criticism - there is a different place for that - but it sure would be fun to have someone write "I liked how your main character stood up for herself." Or whatever. So while it is true that I want an audience and being published ostensibly gives me one, what I really want is applause and a standing ovation!
I'll settle for a slow golf clap and an "I enjoyed that." It does help that I have a beta reader who is very much on my wavelength; he gets specific not only with helpful criticism but also by identifying what he likes, the writerly things he notices that work for him. It's like an architect having a fellow architect say, "I like the use you made of that repurposed timber for softening the look of that wall." I want readers to enjoy the story, but I especially like when someone is attentive to how I pulled it off.
He and I both have a habit of emailing or sending notes via social media to writers whose work we've liked: Voices speaking out of the dark to someone who spoke to us from out of the dark.
A musician I respected a great deal told me he especially liked when a listener didn’t just shake his hand and say “beautiful concert” but also pointed out a particular thing they liked.
I was thinking about this only minutes ago in relation to music, as I was listening to an old episode of Andrew Hickey's A History of Rock Music in 500 songs podcast. In the episode about "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," Hickey talks about the state of popular music record sales, how singles ruled the roost from the '50s to '64, with songs coming out, selling whatever they were going to sell right away, then vanishing—as a piece of short fiction appears in one venue at one time and then blinks out. But a confluence of forces, including the rise of the stereo album, led to there being songs that stuck around longer, maybe just sitting forever lower in the charts, and thus becoming seen less as a disposable commodity (though that rapid turnover had also led to rapid musical evolution across that decade). Whether it's the performance of a moment or something that gets lodged in the culture's eye and ear, though, it's still good to have that "recognition"—not of oneself, but of the shared experience.
In 2024 I self published my debut after shopping agents and publishers who liked my book but didn’t sign me. I had a great experience and would do it again! The response from my readers was terrific, I’m now in third printing. All very encouraging, and it keeps me going!
I developed a marketing and promotion plan. This included creation of a website, I wrote pitch letters and sent them to libraries and book stores. I was offered two televised interviews - scary - but worthwhile. I spent much of 2024 on the road at book fairs, library and book store events. The speaking events lead to more requests for readings in 2025. I expect the activity will wind down in 2026, but it was wonderful to meet readers and share stories.
I've never even attempted to publish any fiction, but I've published a number of scholarly articles or chapters over the years, along with essays aimed at a wider audience and lots of reviews. (And, many years ago, what had been my dissertation.) There was a point, right about the time I got tenure, when I realized that I was too worried about making things perfect and instead just needed to send a few things out. The one thing that is certain is that if you never submit anything, you won't be published. And if you do, the worst thing that happens is someone writes back and says, "No thanks." That's always tough for a couple of days, but one gets over it.
Also, the truth is that lots of dreadful stuff gets published. That sounds like strange comfort to offer George's correspondent: "Don't worry, if all that awful material gets published, someone will publish your story too!" But there is a more optimistic spin to put on it: often, your writing is better than you think it is. You just need to give someone else a chance to tell you so.
Excellent advice. There's another path though, especially for older writers who are just beginning--and that is posting your writing on Substack. It's best to have a writers' group or at least someone who can be a reader prior to sending work out into the stratosphere.
Publishing is great and it's something to strive for but it takes a long time for an answer and having a story in a journal that has 15 other stories may not mean that everyone who subscribe to that journal will actually read your story.
(An aside--I once had a story accepted after 9 months and then it took another 6 months to get issued. And that's the good tale. The other is that after a year of waiting, I never got a response. That's the bad tale.)
Yes, join a writer's group. Trusted writers with sharp minds. Pose the question: what do you like most about the story? What do you like least, what needs more work? what is the weakest part of the story. I found this to be fun, almost as fun as publishing.
When I was in my 20s, I thought I would publish something, anything, and then I would get an agent, a book deal, etc. (with a goal of writing for children). I got my first story excepted when I was just about to turn 30. My sister was getting married, and I had no date for the wedding, but I was over the moon about my story, and my soon-to-follow fame and glory. They published the story about five years later. I had sent them a letter explaining that, in the course of waiting for that publication, I had met a man, gotten married, and now had a new name for the byline. When I finally got the issue and my pay, I was delighted. The check was their "$25 minimum payment" because, as they paid $.25 a word, my alphabet story would have otherwise gotten me about $6.50. Seeing my words in print beside a beautiful illustration, that was pure joy, and worth every minute of waiting and working my day job.
I like the idea of working on the submission project once every two weeks. I find it so tedious. I enjoy the part about reading through different lit mags to see what they are like. But it's still a crap shoot that this or that one would like my stories. Then the tedious part of actually submitting. Granted, it's fairly easy using Submittable; a little less easy is submitting to mags that accept via email. Funny - in writing this out it's clear that all of this "work" is really quite simple and not onerous at all. Just tedious and my ADD doesn't do tedious!
I have had ten or so stories published so I know that some people out there like my stories, and most rejections have been kind and encouraging. It's just that I would rather write than spend ten minutes figuring out where to submit.
Amy, I agree it's tedious, and dispiriting too. But those encouraging recommendations really help, don't they--concrete evidence that our work has made a positive impression.
I think that, for me, I figured I had to take some short cuts because I started writing when I was already over 80. However, I had already (in my life) been involved in creative pursuits with a certain amount of success professionally (music, fine art photography, and am even now still practicing as a psychotherapist - another art form) and when I started writing I got some very positive feedback from some very accomplished writers (one who's had 16 books published) whose writing I respected and admired. This was huge. So I kept writing (I also was having fun) and decided that I didn't have enough time to look for an agent or seek out publishers, so I'd publish myself. In 2025 at the age of 86 I self-published 2 small books, "From There to Here: An Alphabet Memoir," and "From Here to Beyond" also memoir-ish collections of short pieces having to do with my life, who I am, experiences and qualities. I have a friend who helps authors self-publish after being published herself by one or more of the "Big Five," but didn't like the experience because of the lack of control (having to deal with editors and not being able to have a say in the cover). The expense was not exorbitant because I provided the art for the cover myself, my daughter, a professional designer, designed the cover and tweaked the format for which I used Vellum. I don't know if it will ever sell hundreds of copies, but I have almost 3000 subscribers on Substack, a bookstore locally has agreed to carry the first book (haven't approached them with the second yet), and my grandchildren will know something about their grandmother (I never knew any of my grandparents and neither of my parents would talk about their parents, so I know very very little about any of them!). If you start as late as I did, it's doubtful that you'll have 30 or 40 years to hone your craft, put your work "out there," but if what you want to do is publish and you don't have a lot of time to pay your dues by submitting and getting the inevitable rejections before being accepted, you might consider self-publishing.
I recently found this rejection letter from Meanjin (Melbourne University AUS):
"Dear Anne, Your story met with some favour here in our office. I don't see a place for it just now but you might try me again with something in the new year when I'm thinking about next year's issues. ed."
Several decades have passed since then and I never sent another story as music took over my life and I wrote songs and made records instead of finishing stories. But always in the back of my mind I hoped to be able to send another story to Meanjin. I just looked them up a few minutes ago and saw that they just published their FINAL ISSUE three months ago after 85 years of publication. As Sandy Denny sang, 'where does the time go?' Sad. :-(
I’ve racked up only rejections so far. They hurt, but they also give me renewed admiration and respect for other writers who do get published, even ones whose work I don’t care for. This or that author that isn’t my cup of tea is someone else’s. It’s a tremendous accomplishment. There are aspects of getting published that kind of overwhelm me. As a socially anxious person, being somewhat of a public figure, being interviewed and such those really aren’t parts of getting published that appeal to me. What is rewarding about getting published is I imagine that knowledge that a story you made has been a wild ride for someone, made them laugh or ponder, or forget their troubles for a while. I know that when a story does any of those for me as a reader that it’s a real treat, the result of a likely long hard but rewarding process.
First, let me say how much I love GS’s definition of becoming a better artist. Second, however, let me say I think his answer stops short by suggesting that manuscripts go unpublished because they don’t work/are not good enough. I think the grounds for rejection are broader—e.g. not sufficiently commercial, not part of the zeitgeist, too arcane, insufficiently propulsive—and that these rationales applied to turn down excellent work can feel like assaults on one’s creativity and craft. A writer’s decision to shop their work must depend on their ability to endure rejection on these bases as well. They may be unfair, but these barriers are a reality in the publishing market.
Good points. I spent a career writing proposals to provide technical services to private and government clients. A piece of advice from a client that stayed with me: “We get many excellent proposals - you all know your subject - so we are looking for ways to turn you down. No necessarily because we don’t think you have good ideas but because we can only select one firm. Don’t stop submitting proposals.” This may be analogous to editors and publishers and their decisions to accept/reject what you write.
I know plenty of writers who have started later in life and simply like writing, maybe showing it to a few people (like me), but who have no ambition to get published. I think it comes down to your personal goals and what makes you happy. My goal is to continue to grow as a writer, to improve, to understand the craft's nuances. Shooting for publication pushes me to produce my best writing. Since turning to creative writing a couple of years ago, I've submitted 13 times and been accepted twice.
I had my own coaching/consulting business for years, so I'm used to marketing and rejection. I think there's a legitimate concern that your writing can lose the spark when writing too closely for the market. I like being recognized and seeing my name in print, but I remind myself to not take it all too seriously and write whatever the hell I want.
For me, being published is about engaging with a community. You read the writers; the writers read you. (None of us are just readers anymore, are we?) And then maybe you chat about it.
So ... Being published in your tippy-top places is great and may get you a lot of readers (or none). BUT I think there's also something to be said for publishing in "smaller" spots that tend toward niche audiences--because those readers are likely to read your piece and possibly even engage with it by writing to you. So something like Pnyx magazine might not be on your radar, but if you write a story that happens to hinge on things ancient Greek or Roman, send it to them--it's a smaller readership than Paris Review, sure, but they go to the magazine precisely for that kind of story, and they will read. You can even try Taco Bell Quarterly, but they seem to have a big backlog (go head, make a joke about that).
Who knows what the barndoor is happening with publishing and the age of AI. So finding your people feels more urgent to me now than making a splash in a big-name magazine.
But I will admit--that is very nice too.
I started to have more fun with it all (and more publications) in the last year or two, when I decided that it *should* be fun, and I started to look around for good magazines publishing work I like, not necessarily to big fanfare.
I’m a published author (2 novels) and a professional screenwriter with regular assignments but I still say when asked that my working life is 90% rejection. Publication and production is very important to me as I always write for an audience or a reader. I want it out in the world. One rule I have (and I don’t always stick to it myself!) is you’re allowed one day, 24 hours, to feel depressed about a rejection or a project that gets pulled/cancelled - lick your wounds, complain about the injustice of it, be bitter, be angry, feel sorry for yourself, then get over it and get back to work because you will eventually so why wait? Nothing you write is ever a waste of time. Everything you write - every project you embark on - makes you a better writer and that’s the goal, at least it is for me.
I appreciate this post. I’ve not been published for my fiction, but have for some non-fiction. I’ve written a handful of short stories — one of them is the best thing I’ve ever written. I’ve so far been met only with rejection. (It’s a long story — 13k+ words, and no, I won’t be trimming it. It is as it should be. Just because the publishing world isn’t able to make space for it as it is doesn’t mean the story could or should be shorter.) I ask myself often whether I should, to use the questioner’s analogy, be a personal chef who only cooks for myself and my friends. Writing is a passion, I won’t give it up even I never get published. But man, yeah… I would love to get this dang story published. Who knows!
Rick, I feel your pain--I'm working on a story that right now is about 7,000 words, and it keeps growing. It's exciting, but I'm wondering when it will be done, and where I might send it.
Here is what I've found:
Story magazine accepts work up to 25,000 words.
American Short Fiction has "no set guidelines" about length.
The Chestnut Review, I think, publishes chapbooks.
LitMag caps submissions at 15,000.
The Rejoinder (an intriguing online journal that publishes long work serially) is open to looking at longer work.
Agreed—It’s frustrating trying to place a longer story. Once a highly respected editor of a well known literary magazine told me that for them, it’s a question of managing pages. 5000 words was sort of their sweet spot and anything longer generally had to be that much better. They could, for example, publish one 7000 word story or two shorter ones. I know you don’t want to cut, but if you ever reconsider, Matt Bell’s book Refuse to Be Done has ideas, like cutting weasel words. He cut something insane, like 25% (?), of a novel using techniques like that. Best of luck with this!
Rick, forgive this belated reply to your post, but today I learned that CutBank's annual chapbook contest is open until May 31, and that they accept prose manuscripts up to 35 pages long.
I started writing late as well. I was extremely lucky that two of my stories have been printed. I find it extremely stressful to send things out. This year, I'm going to try to make it more routine.
George, I wanted to add two other ways to frame rejection:
a) the journal has been inundated with submissions and must regretfully reject good material, or
b) the piece doesn't seem compatible with the issue the editors are putting together.
(Some editor likened assembling an issue of a journal to putting together a menu for a dinner--an amusing metaphor I try to keep in mind.)
I keep a file of the encouraging rejections I get--the ones that say, in essence, "You almost made it in to our pages this time; please send more"--and, when it's time for me to submit, I start with those journals.
When I got my first two acceptances, I was elated--surely, I thought, additional acceptances were just around the corner! I'm still waiting, and I'm still trying.
Why? As you aptly put it,
"I cherish the idea of something that I wrote going out in the world and having a positive effect on someone else’s day."
Yes!
I’ll always remember sitting down at a bank and looking up to see an article I wrote for the local newspaper taped up above the bank manager’s desk. She thanked me for whatever it was and
I thought “So it does matter.”
I have my 3rd book coming out in February (a middle grade novel called BIRDY from Little Brown) and I have had to really compartmentalize (as George put it). I tend to get to excited and very much off track around publishing. I think I lost a full month of writing time when an essay i wrote appeared in the NYT ... I was very UP in anticipation, then woefully DOWN when life didnt change. Ever since then, I decided to guard the joy I get from writing against the vagaries of publishing. As Elizabeth Gilbert weote somewhere, try to assess your value as a writer by your dedication to craft rather than publishing. Look, obviously I like to get published too, and it does take forever (or so I've found it) but its still worth it to me. I dont know how old you are. I got my mfa at 49 and my1st book came out at 52. Im 61 now with my 3rd book. Im playing the long game I guess, and you can too. My father published his first book at 69 and it won a big award and gave him.about 10 years of great fun
I'm 63. Yup, the long game. (I have an undergrad writing major, no MFA, but I've been writing since I was in middle school.) I had some poems published in journals over the years, but my first fiction was published 20 years ago. It's been all short fiction, though I have a novel draft and a plan for a novel-in-flash. (My oldest daughter has a non-fiction book coming out from a major publisher this spring, so that's a source of joy, but I've also watched her endure the ridiculously long process of publishing . . . in the midst of a nation that's self-immolating.) That's so interesting that the rush of publication derailed the work for you; the flip side is the silence from editors flattening one's desire to write at all. Thanks for sharing.
Ahh I love “I decided to guard the joy I get from writing”. I needed this today. Turning 50 this year and feeling mid life crisis-y. Have added Birdy to my TBR, thank you.
I wanted to add your book to my TBR pile on Goodreads, but I don't see it listed... You have a spectacular bio, by the way, so I'm guessing the MFA was the icing on the cake after what looks like a pretty amazing career. Was the MFA what pushed you to write novels?
Getting published is wonderful, and I have four stories coming out this year (for which I’m actually being paid), but what I value more—and rarely receive—is a response from readers. When I first sent out stories (and went through years of rejections), getting published *became* what I wanted. (Though what initially led me to write was the thought, “I want to create the feeling that that writer created.” That was still at the heart of the work.) I quickly found, once published, that what I truly desire is to hear someone’s response to what I’ve written; relatedly, I want to then participate in that response, to see the story as detached from me (which is easy given the time between composition and publication; I hardly remember what I’ve done), so that I can say, “Yeah, I like that part, too” or “That’s such an interesting thing to notice!” I do get to do that sometimes. Publication can make that happen, but it more often feels as if stories go out into a soundless void. So my thought for “A” is that she consider what she wants *from* publication, because there are a host of ways to connect through writing that don’t run through the mainstream publication route, and sometimes—or perhaps often—the mainstream route doesn’t provide what it seems to promise. Wishing her the best.
This. Exactly this. Published stories go into a soundless void. You expressed what has always bothered me. While I am happy to have a story published, I wish I could know how it is received by the readers. I don't want workshop criticism - there is a different place for that - but it sure would be fun to have someone write "I liked how your main character stood up for herself." Or whatever. So while it is true that I want an audience and being published ostensibly gives me one, what I really want is applause and a standing ovation!
I'll settle for a slow golf clap and an "I enjoyed that." It does help that I have a beta reader who is very much on my wavelength; he gets specific not only with helpful criticism but also by identifying what he likes, the writerly things he notices that work for him. It's like an architect having a fellow architect say, "I like the use you made of that repurposed timber for softening the look of that wall." I want readers to enjoy the story, but I especially like when someone is attentive to how I pulled it off.
He and I both have a habit of emailing or sending notes via social media to writers whose work we've liked: Voices speaking out of the dark to someone who spoke to us from out of the dark.
A musician I respected a great deal told me he especially liked when a listener didn’t just shake his hand and say “beautiful concert” but also pointed out a particular thing they liked.
I was thinking about this only minutes ago in relation to music, as I was listening to an old episode of Andrew Hickey's A History of Rock Music in 500 songs podcast. In the episode about "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," Hickey talks about the state of popular music record sales, how singles ruled the roost from the '50s to '64, with songs coming out, selling whatever they were going to sell right away, then vanishing—as a piece of short fiction appears in one venue at one time and then blinks out. But a confluence of forces, including the rise of the stereo album, led to there being songs that stuck around longer, maybe just sitting forever lower in the charts, and thus becoming seen less as a disposable commodity (though that rapid turnover had also led to rapid musical evolution across that decade). Whether it's the performance of a moment or something that gets lodged in the culture's eye and ear, though, it's still good to have that "recognition"—not of oneself, but of the shared experience.
Very wise advice. And congratulations!
Thank you!
Definitely.
In 2024 I self published my debut after shopping agents and publishers who liked my book but didn’t sign me. I had a great experience and would do it again! The response from my readers was terrific, I’m now in third printing. All very encouraging, and it keeps me going!
I developed a marketing and promotion plan. This included creation of a website, I wrote pitch letters and sent them to libraries and book stores. I was offered two televised interviews - scary - but worthwhile. I spent much of 2024 on the road at book fairs, library and book store events. The speaking events lead to more requests for readings in 2025. I expect the activity will wind down in 2026, but it was wonderful to meet readers and share stories.
How did you promote your work?
I've never even attempted to publish any fiction, but I've published a number of scholarly articles or chapters over the years, along with essays aimed at a wider audience and lots of reviews. (And, many years ago, what had been my dissertation.) There was a point, right about the time I got tenure, when I realized that I was too worried about making things perfect and instead just needed to send a few things out. The one thing that is certain is that if you never submit anything, you won't be published. And if you do, the worst thing that happens is someone writes back and says, "No thanks." That's always tough for a couple of days, but one gets over it.
Also, the truth is that lots of dreadful stuff gets published. That sounds like strange comfort to offer George's correspondent: "Don't worry, if all that awful material gets published, someone will publish your story too!" But there is a more optimistic spin to put on it: often, your writing is better than you think it is. You just need to give someone else a chance to tell you so.
Excellent advice. There's another path though, especially for older writers who are just beginning--and that is posting your writing on Substack. It's best to have a writers' group or at least someone who can be a reader prior to sending work out into the stratosphere.
Publishing is great and it's something to strive for but it takes a long time for an answer and having a story in a journal that has 15 other stories may not mean that everyone who subscribe to that journal will actually read your story.
(An aside--I once had a story accepted after 9 months and then it took another 6 months to get issued. And that's the good tale. The other is that after a year of waiting, I never got a response. That's the bad tale.)
On a different note, I once got a rejection after 3 days... which didn't feel very good either... it's like they couldn't wait to reject it.
I beat you...I once received a rejection after 6 hours. I really had to laugh.
I just can’t stop laughing at that — they couldn’t wait to reject it. It’s not funny but the way you said it is very funny.
And I was fine with that... better a strong reaction than a "meh."
Yes, join a writer's group. Trusted writers with sharp minds. Pose the question: what do you like most about the story? What do you like least, what needs more work? what is the weakest part of the story. I found this to be fun, almost as fun as publishing.
Love this idea. Thanks Toby!
When I was in my 20s, I thought I would publish something, anything, and then I would get an agent, a book deal, etc. (with a goal of writing for children). I got my first story excepted when I was just about to turn 30. My sister was getting married, and I had no date for the wedding, but I was over the moon about my story, and my soon-to-follow fame and glory. They published the story about five years later. I had sent them a letter explaining that, in the course of waiting for that publication, I had met a man, gotten married, and now had a new name for the byline. When I finally got the issue and my pay, I was delighted. The check was their "$25 minimum payment" because, as they paid $.25 a word, my alphabet story would have otherwise gotten me about $6.50. Seeing my words in print beside a beautiful illustration, that was pure joy, and worth every minute of waiting and working my day job.
Happy to hear of your success and hope that it continues for decades to come. Writers should support each other.
Thank you, happy to hear of yours, too. And yes, I heartily agree. That's really why we're all here, isn't it?
I like the idea of working on the submission project once every two weeks. I find it so tedious. I enjoy the part about reading through different lit mags to see what they are like. But it's still a crap shoot that this or that one would like my stories. Then the tedious part of actually submitting. Granted, it's fairly easy using Submittable; a little less easy is submitting to mags that accept via email. Funny - in writing this out it's clear that all of this "work" is really quite simple and not onerous at all. Just tedious and my ADD doesn't do tedious!
I have had ten or so stories published so I know that some people out there like my stories, and most rejections have been kind and encouraging. It's just that I would rather write than spend ten minutes figuring out where to submit.
Amy, I agree it's tedious, and dispiriting too. But those encouraging recommendations really help, don't they--concrete evidence that our work has made a positive impression.
Wow. Amy lucky you!
ten or so stories published over ten or so years. I'm happy but I want all my stories published!
I think that, for me, I figured I had to take some short cuts because I started writing when I was already over 80. However, I had already (in my life) been involved in creative pursuits with a certain amount of success professionally (music, fine art photography, and am even now still practicing as a psychotherapist - another art form) and when I started writing I got some very positive feedback from some very accomplished writers (one who's had 16 books published) whose writing I respected and admired. This was huge. So I kept writing (I also was having fun) and decided that I didn't have enough time to look for an agent or seek out publishers, so I'd publish myself. In 2025 at the age of 86 I self-published 2 small books, "From There to Here: An Alphabet Memoir," and "From Here to Beyond" also memoir-ish collections of short pieces having to do with my life, who I am, experiences and qualities. I have a friend who helps authors self-publish after being published herself by one or more of the "Big Five," but didn't like the experience because of the lack of control (having to deal with editors and not being able to have a say in the cover). The expense was not exorbitant because I provided the art for the cover myself, my daughter, a professional designer, designed the cover and tweaked the format for which I used Vellum. I don't know if it will ever sell hundreds of copies, but I have almost 3000 subscribers on Substack, a bookstore locally has agreed to carry the first book (haven't approached them with the second yet), and my grandchildren will know something about their grandmother (I never knew any of my grandparents and neither of my parents would talk about their parents, so I know very very little about any of them!). If you start as late as I did, it's doubtful that you'll have 30 or 40 years to hone your craft, put your work "out there," but if what you want to do is publish and you don't have a lot of time to pay your dues by submitting and getting the inevitable rejections before being accepted, you might consider self-publishing.
Brava!
I recently found this rejection letter from Meanjin (Melbourne University AUS):
"Dear Anne, Your story met with some favour here in our office. I don't see a place for it just now but you might try me again with something in the new year when I'm thinking about next year's issues. ed."
Several decades have passed since then and I never sent another story as music took over my life and I wrote songs and made records instead of finishing stories. But always in the back of my mind I hoped to be able to send another story to Meanjin. I just looked them up a few minutes ago and saw that they just published their FINAL ISSUE three months ago after 85 years of publication. As Sandy Denny sang, 'where does the time go?' Sad. :-(
Bummer! But glad to hear you've found joy in other spaces!
I’ve racked up only rejections so far. They hurt, but they also give me renewed admiration and respect for other writers who do get published, even ones whose work I don’t care for. This or that author that isn’t my cup of tea is someone else’s. It’s a tremendous accomplishment. There are aspects of getting published that kind of overwhelm me. As a socially anxious person, being somewhat of a public figure, being interviewed and such those really aren’t parts of getting published that appeal to me. What is rewarding about getting published is I imagine that knowledge that a story you made has been a wild ride for someone, made them laugh or ponder, or forget their troubles for a while. I know that when a story does any of those for me as a reader that it’s a real treat, the result of a likely long hard but rewarding process.
First, let me say how much I love GS’s definition of becoming a better artist. Second, however, let me say I think his answer stops short by suggesting that manuscripts go unpublished because they don’t work/are not good enough. I think the grounds for rejection are broader—e.g. not sufficiently commercial, not part of the zeitgeist, too arcane, insufficiently propulsive—and that these rationales applied to turn down excellent work can feel like assaults on one’s creativity and craft. A writer’s decision to shop their work must depend on their ability to endure rejection on these bases as well. They may be unfair, but these barriers are a reality in the publishing market.
Good points. I spent a career writing proposals to provide technical services to private and government clients. A piece of advice from a client that stayed with me: “We get many excellent proposals - you all know your subject - so we are looking for ways to turn you down. No necessarily because we don’t think you have good ideas but because we can only select one firm. Don’t stop submitting proposals.” This may be analogous to editors and publishers and their decisions to accept/reject what you write.
Yes.
I know plenty of writers who have started later in life and simply like writing, maybe showing it to a few people (like me), but who have no ambition to get published. I think it comes down to your personal goals and what makes you happy. My goal is to continue to grow as a writer, to improve, to understand the craft's nuances. Shooting for publication pushes me to produce my best writing. Since turning to creative writing a couple of years ago, I've submitted 13 times and been accepted twice.
I had my own coaching/consulting business for years, so I'm used to marketing and rejection. I think there's a legitimate concern that your writing can lose the spark when writing too closely for the market. I like being recognized and seeing my name in print, but I remind myself to not take it all too seriously and write whatever the hell I want.
Love this comment, Leo.
For me, being published is about engaging with a community. You read the writers; the writers read you. (None of us are just readers anymore, are we?) And then maybe you chat about it.
So ... Being published in your tippy-top places is great and may get you a lot of readers (or none). BUT I think there's also something to be said for publishing in "smaller" spots that tend toward niche audiences--because those readers are likely to read your piece and possibly even engage with it by writing to you. So something like Pnyx magazine might not be on your radar, but if you write a story that happens to hinge on things ancient Greek or Roman, send it to them--it's a smaller readership than Paris Review, sure, but they go to the magazine precisely for that kind of story, and they will read. You can even try Taco Bell Quarterly, but they seem to have a big backlog (go head, make a joke about that).
Who knows what the barndoor is happening with publishing and the age of AI. So finding your people feels more urgent to me now than making a splash in a big-name magazine.
But I will admit--that is very nice too.
I started to have more fun with it all (and more publications) in the last year or two, when I decided that it *should* be fun, and I started to look around for good magazines publishing work I like, not necessarily to big fanfare.
I’m a published author (2 novels) and a professional screenwriter with regular assignments but I still say when asked that my working life is 90% rejection. Publication and production is very important to me as I always write for an audience or a reader. I want it out in the world. One rule I have (and I don’t always stick to it myself!) is you’re allowed one day, 24 hours, to feel depressed about a rejection or a project that gets pulled/cancelled - lick your wounds, complain about the injustice of it, be bitter, be angry, feel sorry for yourself, then get over it and get back to work because you will eventually so why wait? Nothing you write is ever a waste of time. Everything you write - every project you embark on - makes you a better writer and that’s the goal, at least it is for me.
I appreciate this post. I’ve not been published for my fiction, but have for some non-fiction. I’ve written a handful of short stories — one of them is the best thing I’ve ever written. I’ve so far been met only with rejection. (It’s a long story — 13k+ words, and no, I won’t be trimming it. It is as it should be. Just because the publishing world isn’t able to make space for it as it is doesn’t mean the story could or should be shorter.) I ask myself often whether I should, to use the questioner’s analogy, be a personal chef who only cooks for myself and my friends. Writing is a passion, I won’t give it up even I never get published. But man, yeah… I would love to get this dang story published. Who knows!
Rick, I feel your pain--I'm working on a story that right now is about 7,000 words, and it keeps growing. It's exciting, but I'm wondering when it will be done, and where I might send it.
Here is what I've found:
Story magazine accepts work up to 25,000 words.
American Short Fiction has "no set guidelines" about length.
The Chestnut Review, I think, publishes chapbooks.
LitMag caps submissions at 15,000.
The Rejoinder (an intriguing online journal that publishes long work serially) is open to looking at longer work.
Good luck!
Agreed—It’s frustrating trying to place a longer story. Once a highly respected editor of a well known literary magazine told me that for them, it’s a question of managing pages. 5000 words was sort of their sweet spot and anything longer generally had to be that much better. They could, for example, publish one 7000 word story or two shorter ones. I know you don’t want to cut, but if you ever reconsider, Matt Bell’s book Refuse to Be Done has ideas, like cutting weasel words. He cut something insane, like 25% (?), of a novel using techniques like that. Best of luck with this!
There are places that love long stories. Stick to your dream.
https://one-story.com/
I think their guidelines are 3K-8K.
Rick, forgive this belated reply to your post, but today I learned that CutBank's annual chapbook contest is open until May 31, and that they accept prose manuscripts up to 35 pages long.
Here is a link:
https://cutbank-online.squarespace.com/genre-contests/
I started writing late as well. I was extremely lucky that two of my stories have been printed. I find it extremely stressful to send things out. This year, I'm going to try to make it more routine.