Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Lorri McDole's avatar

I can't believe how much great information you packed into this post! Are you really just one person? I'm going to be digesting this for a long time. Re: footnote #6, in early internet days I saw a back and forth (that the editors obviously didn't realize could be seen by just any yahoo) where one of them laughed about being overwhelmed with the slush pile and just sweeping it into the garbage can. And of course it stung because I had subbed to them and never heard back. I chalk it up now to them being young and I do think most editors today work hard at being good literary citizens. Here's the kicker: you mentioned this person in one of your posts and it all came back to me! As always, the world is big and the world is small!

Expand full comment
Melissa Coffey's avatar

Woh, Ben ... My head is spinning with all the lit journal lists. I think I may have drooled a little on my laptop. Thanks again for all the resources.

So many lit mags ... so little time! My goals with publishing in lit journals are:

1. I'm one of the slew of writers trying to build up my repertoire of published poetry so I can be one of a slightly smaller slew with a published chapbook. The first time I tried submitting a chapbook I had no lit journal credits for the selected poems. It was a fail. Now I have a number of journal-published poems & I'm hoping for a better outcome.

2. Author bios with lit journal creds in them are also great if you're trying to nab feature perfomer slots in your local poetry /spoken word community. I'm going for that too.

3. I wanted to be a princess when I was 5. Since that didn't pan out, lit journals credits make me feel just a teeny bit famous.

Expand full comment
122 more comments...

No posts