I can't tell you the various ways it's gratifying to read this piece, Naomi. First of all, it always feels extremely vindicating to get ANY attention for my fiction (in your terms, you read all the way to the end!), but it's another experience to be read in the way you hope to be read. As I told you, your tales were a direct inspiration for my story, even moreso than the Tony T connection (that people pick up on more quickly).
I agonized over where to submit this story. I wrote it basically in a single day and thought it was the best story I'd written. I worried that The Baffler wasn't a 'good enough' journal for it. But after reading the fiction section, I realized that they meant business. I actually liked the stories there, which is vanishingly rare. Another inspiration for writing was the work of Jasper Nathaniel, who reports from the West Bank, which gave me frankly the rage I needed to write directly about these topics. He writes sometimes for The Baffler, and I felt like their editors would understand what I was doing. J.W. responded very quickly and accepted the story.
I completely agree with your linking this issue to having a peer group. If you can't find the other writers who you see as your equals, with similar concerns and work that impresses you and makes you jealous, then writing fiction will be a very lonely affair!
Just to say, I don't read short stories very often, but I read yours after you linked it in response to Naomi's other piece. It was engrossing and I think for me that was in large part because the turns were so unexpected. And the matter-of-fact tone was in such tension with the shock of those turns and the events inside them -- the contrast between the tone and the material content worked really well, I thought. That was even perhaps where the story was most alive for me, in that gap. But I'm not a critic and like I said, I don't read short stories really, so maybe this is all a bunch of blubbering. What I think is really cool is that I read a story in an external publication and then can just respond to its author, here, with my reactions. I mostly read works by people who are already dead, so this is a refreshing change! lol.
I recently finished a short story I have been working on for a long time. Never having submitted or published before, I sprayed and prayed to 20-30 journals open to submission at the time drawn from a few of those lists that rank journals based on various awards won. I had the good fortune to have it accepted by a university backed journal probably a tier down from Missouri Review and AGNI--occasionally places some award winners, but not a ton and has published authors I have actually heard of, but not for a long time. My excitement at my first publication has been tempered somewhat by the fact that the story won't be available online. So, unless I hit the lottery and it gets published in an awards anthology or something, the audience for this story will be limited to the editors, some people I know (though not that many since I won't be able to just pass a link around) and the other authors and presumably people they know (to the extent they look at other stories besides the one by their friend).
Now, is the audience for any literary short story (save for ones in Harper's or the New Yorker) ever much larger than that? Probably not. But it's still somewhat depressing that it will be essentially inaccessible for spontaneous discovery by anyone. It's almost like I've agreed to have this story I am very proud of to be buried in exchange for the ability to say I have been published somewhere selective. I have my next story out for submission now and have followed the same sort of process for submission, but I'm wondering if I would find it much more gratifying to be published somewhere with an actual online presence--even if it is not necessarily considered as "prestigious" or wins as many awards--so that I'd better be able to indulge in the fantasy of it having a life of its own beyond my immediate circle after publication.
I've had this thought too -- that I'd be giving up quite a lot to publish something that will only be available in print form. So I share your feeling. That said, I know someone who feels oppositely -- that she'd much rather have a story published in a print-only journal than otherwise.
I guess the sweet spot (outside of ones that probably aren't actually pulling from slush piles anyway) would be print magazines with a vigorous online presence animated by the sense of passion Naomi describes. I wish actual circulation and views numbers were more accessible. It'd be interesting to see if more people actually read something in a place like X-R-A-Y than say, a place more prestigious/producing more award winners like Michigan Quarterly.
I read "The List," and I completely disagree with your take. It starts off as interesting and politically ambiguous, but by the end it is extremely clear in its condemnation of Israel, the IDF, and diaspora Jews who support Israel. It doesn't seem surprising or courageous for a left-wing journal to publish that story in the current cultural environment. I do agree that it was written in a very readable and engaging style that reminded me a lot of your tales.
Other than that, I will take this piece to heart. I am sometimes guilty of reading magazines in a mercenary, calculating way rather than in an attempt to identify and learn from my most talented peers.
I read it as the main character selling his soul to the IDF, which is depicted as either paper-pushing or atrocities, in exchange for a tan, abs, career advancement, and swagger. The author's disgust with the character's choices came through very clearly to me.
Well if he sold his soul, he got a great return. Would the character have been better off sitting around mopey and friendless in Boston? The only part that felt overdetermined was the pain from his circumcision scar—I would’ve cut that, but it’s understandable that he wanted to wink to the reader and say this guy is bad actually.
He even more fully realizes himself by sucking the other guy's dick!
There is critique of IDF and the abject attraction/repulsion that the dispora has for Israel in the story, but that's just critique via depiction, frankly.
I will have to type a shorter comment than I would like (baby sleeping in my arms and making my fingers go numb), but this essay is spot-on. Also, as a former editor for three different lit mags (and a reader for several more), I have seen up close how a magazine's internal culture can poison its relevance. An editor is better off having less help from readers (in some cases) in order to maintain a better, more curious internal culture. In the age of gen AI, I have no idea how anyone can break through a standard open submission call ... perhaps there should be a return to SASE.
Can you explain what it means to be a reader for lit mags? And offer any additional behind the scenes insights that might be useful? I didn't realize lit mags used readers. Is it for both fiction and nonfiction submissions? And do readers read everything that comes in, or was there initial filtering? Recognizing that the sleeping baby might wake up any time!
Concur--although as a small nitpick I'd say for nonfiction, it sort of depends on the kind of nonfiction you're writing (as well as the journal). There are a lot of places that publish essays/creative nonfiction (I have published in a very few of them), and while I'd say they do, subtly, have their own styles, "here's my essay about coming to terms with my dead dad through a list of library school classes" isn't a thing I pitched anywhere before the many years I spent writing it.
Terrific piece. As a former co-editor (with Elizabeth Kaye Cook) of a small literary mag, I can say that it helped my understanding of why I wasn't getting published more regularly. As a result, I always encourage newer and/or disgruntled veteran writers to read for a lit mag. In our case, of course, we ultimately got fired from these roles, but that turned out to forge our values in fire. I do think we should at least glance at the publication before submitting, or get notes from a fellow writer about what the mag tends to publish. We're in a very weird moment where it's still prestigious to have lit mag publications, but the new upstarts that you mentioned are also publishing exciting writing. I think we do ourselves a disservice not to pursue all of them. Related, I can say that my poems that are in the current issue of The Drift were accepted out of the slush pile and the editors have been great to work with (and thank you for sparing the poetry section in your recent write-up!) Everything else I've ever published has come out of the slush pile, so thanks to volunteer readers everywhere!
I relate with this piece in so many ways! I started submitting stories to magazines last year and did not get accepted anywhere. I know there's an audience for my stories, but it's not among the people I know, and I'm not quite sure how to find them. I've tried publishing some of them directly on Substack, and the feedback cycle has been quick. But I'd like some feedback from peers I respect as well, so this year I've been trying to read more fiction by others and find writers I like online. I really liked some of your tales, and Spencer Nitkey is another writer I like here. (Would it be okay if I shared a link to one of my stories here?)
I've also been reading short stories by "The Greats" (the Chekhov article I'm working on is a product of that), and I feel the same —that there's a lot to learn from them, but there's something about writing in the present time that can be learned better from peers who are going through the same process.
The last few weeks, I've been pitching some non-fiction journals, thinking "well, if the fiction isn't getting through, maybe I can at least get some editorial feedback on my essays." But I resonate with what you say here. I really need to spend more time reading the journals before pitching them.
I love this sort of content, thanks for publishing it. I'm sharing an experience that runs contra to your advice on nonfiction, here: "But with nonfiction it’s different. You write the piece for the journal."
I wrote a nonfiction critical essay on literature because I had an idea that I wanted to get out. I’ve been submitting the essay to various journals, including one you reviewed in your series. I won’t name them since I’m still being considered, but they responded with praise for my writing and ideas and a request for a revision. The revision would bring the piece more in line with their typical house framing, but they didn’t say: “look at our other essays and make it more like those.” Their request was made in terms of strengthening the piece on its own terms. (I think they’re right, by the way). I’m doing the revision, and though their revision request wasn’t an acceptance, it was quite encouraging and I’m very hopeful, because this would represent a huge door being opened for me. (I just started writing last year, at a ripe older age.)
I can’t claim my experience reflects a rule of any sort, but I think the reality is that there probably aren’t rules, not in the sense you’re laying out, which is that you must write a piece for a specific journal. Though maybe there is in general, and this particular journal is more open than the rest.
Pretty much all of the university-based literary magazines were founded by passionate nutcases (that’s a compliment) but many (most? nearly all?) of those magazines have become more and more muted with each new generation of editors. I know of a few university literary magazines where the faculty editor is directly in charge but, by and large, the magazines are run by students. One would think that students would be more nutcase than faculty but that is not the case.
At least for genre writers, getting big magazine publishing credits is important, also you get paid for them. Not submitting to a journal that might like your stuff seems like pre-rejecting your own work.
Back in the day the Scientologists sponsored science fiction writing contests which some people avoided due to moral qualms, but I don’t think there’s anything like that now.
I wonder how many classic stories — especially classic pulp stories — were published in magazines that were bad? William Atheling (Blish) seemed to think magazines went in and out of goodness, even in and out of obscurity, depending on editorial direction and resources.
The peer-group point lands hardest. What’s changed is that the club is now visible: you can read someone’s work, tell them it’s good, and reach them all in the same afternoon. Half the writers I’ve learned most from this year started as a comment I left on a Sunday. The old advice assumed your peers were behind a wall, and they’re not anymore, which makes not bothering harder to forgive. Myself included.
I can't tell you the various ways it's gratifying to read this piece, Naomi. First of all, it always feels extremely vindicating to get ANY attention for my fiction (in your terms, you read all the way to the end!), but it's another experience to be read in the way you hope to be read. As I told you, your tales were a direct inspiration for my story, even moreso than the Tony T connection (that people pick up on more quickly).
I agonized over where to submit this story. I wrote it basically in a single day and thought it was the best story I'd written. I worried that The Baffler wasn't a 'good enough' journal for it. But after reading the fiction section, I realized that they meant business. I actually liked the stories there, which is vanishingly rare. Another inspiration for writing was the work of Jasper Nathaniel, who reports from the West Bank, which gave me frankly the rage I needed to write directly about these topics. He writes sometimes for The Baffler, and I felt like their editors would understand what I was doing. J.W. responded very quickly and accepted the story.
I completely agree with your linking this issue to having a peer group. If you can't find the other writers who you see as your equals, with similar concerns and work that impresses you and makes you jealous, then writing fiction will be a very lonely affair!
Just to say, I don't read short stories very often, but I read yours after you linked it in response to Naomi's other piece. It was engrossing and I think for me that was in large part because the turns were so unexpected. And the matter-of-fact tone was in such tension with the shock of those turns and the events inside them -- the contrast between the tone and the material content worked really well, I thought. That was even perhaps where the story was most alive for me, in that gap. But I'm not a critic and like I said, I don't read short stories really, so maybe this is all a bunch of blubbering. What I think is really cool is that I read a story in an external publication and then can just respond to its author, here, with my reactions. I mostly read works by people who are already dead, so this is a refreshing change! lol.
Same with me here, brilliant story man
I recently finished a short story I have been working on for a long time. Never having submitted or published before, I sprayed and prayed to 20-30 journals open to submission at the time drawn from a few of those lists that rank journals based on various awards won. I had the good fortune to have it accepted by a university backed journal probably a tier down from Missouri Review and AGNI--occasionally places some award winners, but not a ton and has published authors I have actually heard of, but not for a long time. My excitement at my first publication has been tempered somewhat by the fact that the story won't be available online. So, unless I hit the lottery and it gets published in an awards anthology or something, the audience for this story will be limited to the editors, some people I know (though not that many since I won't be able to just pass a link around) and the other authors and presumably people they know (to the extent they look at other stories besides the one by their friend).
Now, is the audience for any literary short story (save for ones in Harper's or the New Yorker) ever much larger than that? Probably not. But it's still somewhat depressing that it will be essentially inaccessible for spontaneous discovery by anyone. It's almost like I've agreed to have this story I am very proud of to be buried in exchange for the ability to say I have been published somewhere selective. I have my next story out for submission now and have followed the same sort of process for submission, but I'm wondering if I would find it much more gratifying to be published somewhere with an actual online presence--even if it is not necessarily considered as "prestigious" or wins as many awards--so that I'd better be able to indulge in the fantasy of it having a life of its own beyond my immediate circle after publication.
I've had this thought too -- that I'd be giving up quite a lot to publish something that will only be available in print form. So I share your feeling. That said, I know someone who feels oppositely -- that she'd much rather have a story published in a print-only journal than otherwise.
I guess the sweet spot (outside of ones that probably aren't actually pulling from slush piles anyway) would be print magazines with a vigorous online presence animated by the sense of passion Naomi describes. I wish actual circulation and views numbers were more accessible. It'd be interesting to see if more people actually read something in a place like X-R-A-Y than say, a place more prestigious/producing more award winners like Michigan Quarterly.
I read "The List," and I completely disagree with your take. It starts off as interesting and politically ambiguous, but by the end it is extremely clear in its condemnation of Israel, the IDF, and diaspora Jews who support Israel. It doesn't seem surprising or courageous for a left-wing journal to publish that story in the current cultural environment. I do agree that it was written in a very readable and engaging style that reminded me a lot of your tales.
Other than that, I will take this piece to heart. I am sometimes guilty of reading magazines in a mercenary, calculating way rather than in an attempt to identify and learn from my most talented peers.
Is it? It kinda makes joining the IDF seem like a good move.
I read it as the main character selling his soul to the IDF, which is depicted as either paper-pushing or atrocities, in exchange for a tan, abs, career advancement, and swagger. The author's disgust with the character's choices came through very clearly to me.
Well if he sold his soul, he got a great return. Would the character have been better off sitting around mopey and friendless in Boston? The only part that felt overdetermined was the pain from his circumcision scar—I would’ve cut that, but it’s understandable that he wanted to wink to the reader and say this guy is bad actually.
He even more fully realizes himself by sucking the other guy's dick!
There is critique of IDF and the abject attraction/repulsion that the dispora has for Israel in the story, but that's just critique via depiction, frankly.
I will have to type a shorter comment than I would like (baby sleeping in my arms and making my fingers go numb), but this essay is spot-on. Also, as a former editor for three different lit mags (and a reader for several more), I have seen up close how a magazine's internal culture can poison its relevance. An editor is better off having less help from readers (in some cases) in order to maintain a better, more curious internal culture. In the age of gen AI, I have no idea how anyone can break through a standard open submission call ... perhaps there should be a return to SASE.
Can you explain what it means to be a reader for lit mags? And offer any additional behind the scenes insights that might be useful? I didn't realize lit mags used readers. Is it for both fiction and nonfiction submissions? And do readers read everything that comes in, or was there initial filtering? Recognizing that the sleeping baby might wake up any time!
One of your most helpful pieces.
I laughed out loud when you admitted that you didn't read the magazines you were submitting to!
And when I got to .... "The New Yorker, The Atlantic.... Some of these are quite good.."
That's hilarious 😆
Concur--although as a small nitpick I'd say for nonfiction, it sort of depends on the kind of nonfiction you're writing (as well as the journal). There are a lot of places that publish essays/creative nonfiction (I have published in a very few of them), and while I'd say they do, subtly, have their own styles, "here's my essay about coming to terms with my dead dad through a list of library school classes" isn't a thing I pitched anywhere before the many years I spent writing it.
Terrific piece. As a former co-editor (with Elizabeth Kaye Cook) of a small literary mag, I can say that it helped my understanding of why I wasn't getting published more regularly. As a result, I always encourage newer and/or disgruntled veteran writers to read for a lit mag. In our case, of course, we ultimately got fired from these roles, but that turned out to forge our values in fire. I do think we should at least glance at the publication before submitting, or get notes from a fellow writer about what the mag tends to publish. We're in a very weird moment where it's still prestigious to have lit mag publications, but the new upstarts that you mentioned are also publishing exciting writing. I think we do ourselves a disservice not to pursue all of them. Related, I can say that my poems that are in the current issue of The Drift were accepted out of the slush pile and the editors have been great to work with (and thank you for sparing the poetry section in your recent write-up!) Everything else I've ever published has come out of the slush pile, so thanks to volunteer readers everywhere!
I relate with this piece in so many ways! I started submitting stories to magazines last year and did not get accepted anywhere. I know there's an audience for my stories, but it's not among the people I know, and I'm not quite sure how to find them. I've tried publishing some of them directly on Substack, and the feedback cycle has been quick. But I'd like some feedback from peers I respect as well, so this year I've been trying to read more fiction by others and find writers I like online. I really liked some of your tales, and Spencer Nitkey is another writer I like here. (Would it be okay if I shared a link to one of my stories here?)
I've also been reading short stories by "The Greats" (the Chekhov article I'm working on is a product of that), and I feel the same —that there's a lot to learn from them, but there's something about writing in the present time that can be learned better from peers who are going through the same process.
The last few weeks, I've been pitching some non-fiction journals, thinking "well, if the fiction isn't getting through, maybe I can at least get some editorial feedback on my essays." But I resonate with what you say here. I really need to spend more time reading the journals before pitching them.
I love this sort of content, thanks for publishing it. I'm sharing an experience that runs contra to your advice on nonfiction, here: "But with nonfiction it’s different. You write the piece for the journal."
I wrote a nonfiction critical essay on literature because I had an idea that I wanted to get out. I’ve been submitting the essay to various journals, including one you reviewed in your series. I won’t name them since I’m still being considered, but they responded with praise for my writing and ideas and a request for a revision. The revision would bring the piece more in line with their typical house framing, but they didn’t say: “look at our other essays and make it more like those.” Their request was made in terms of strengthening the piece on its own terms. (I think they’re right, by the way). I’m doing the revision, and though their revision request wasn’t an acceptance, it was quite encouraging and I’m very hopeful, because this would represent a huge door being opened for me. (I just started writing last year, at a ripe older age.)
I can’t claim my experience reflects a rule of any sort, but I think the reality is that there probably aren’t rules, not in the sense you’re laying out, which is that you must write a piece for a specific journal. Though maybe there is in general, and this particular journal is more open than the rest.
Pretty much all of the university-based literary magazines were founded by passionate nutcases (that’s a compliment) but many (most? nearly all?) of those magazines have become more and more muted with each new generation of editors. I know of a few university literary magazines where the faculty editor is directly in charge but, by and large, the magazines are run by students. One would think that students would be more nutcase than faculty but that is not the case.
Naomi, you just may have single-handedly convinced me to stop submitting to all those Reviews... I thank you for that 🫶🏼
At least for genre writers, getting big magazine publishing credits is important, also you get paid for them. Not submitting to a journal that might like your stuff seems like pre-rejecting your own work.
Back in the day the Scientologists sponsored science fiction writing contests which some people avoided due to moral qualms, but I don’t think there’s anything like that now.
Writers of the future still exists! I submitted many times in my youth :) https://writersofthefuture.com/enter-writer-contest/
I wonder how many classic stories — especially classic pulp stories — were published in magazines that were bad? William Atheling (Blish) seemed to think magazines went in and out of goodness, even in and out of obscurity, depending on editorial direction and resources.
Thoughts on that?
I have wondered about that a lot, those pulp magazines must have published a lot of crap along with the gems that have been saved from the ruin.
This is excellent, and teachable. I'm always looking for quick state-of-publishing essays I can share with students. Thank you for this!
The peer-group point lands hardest. What’s changed is that the club is now visible: you can read someone’s work, tell them it’s good, and reach them all in the same afternoon. Half the writers I’ve learned most from this year started as a comment I left on a Sunday. The old advice assumed your peers were behind a wall, and they’re not anymore, which makes not bothering harder to forgive. Myself included.