I Will Not Submit: on literary journal submissions
Welcome to the Sunday post.
I have a shelf that includes, among books I've written, the various print literary journals in which my work has appeared. The length of the shelf spans almost 25 years of publications.
Some of these journals are gone, haven’t been in existence for years, even decades. Some of these journals are stalwarts, having survived for decades, through the ups and downs of funding deficits, lack of subscriptions, strong subscriptions, lack of volunteers, social media razzmatazz, fine editors, lousy editors—I could go on and on. And these are just the print journals I’m talking about.
Let’s say I also have an invisible shelf, a floating shelf, virtual, of publications in online literary journals. These journals typically use platforms and databases like Submittable, or Duotrope (wtf is a ‘duotrope’ though), or some other methods of submitting such as bespoke but limited submission platforms whose names I can’t remember though I had to use them at one time or another.
Recently I saw a post on Bluesky about someone using Submittable who realized that writers no longer get an email notification when work is rejected or accepted. Now you have to log in to the website to see. Again. And again. Have you ever seen those tweets where people bemoan how long they have to wait for replies from literary journals? Or how they refresh a Submittable screen over and over, or they hang their hopes on how a submission goes from “Received” to “In Progress”?
Yeah—well, I’m done with that.
When I saw the post about having to manually check Submittable instead of relying on an email notification, I went to check Submittable, and lo, I had received a rejection—but no notification like the olden days. Even before I had seen the rejection, though, I had posted on Bluesky: Like I did with Facebook (2018?), Twitter (2023), and LinkedIn (lol, 2020?), I’m ready to completely dump my Submittable account.
In the last few years I’ve received a number of form rejections. In the past, I used to at least garner a personal rejection—a friendly wave, an extra few keystrokes that told me that my work mattered but just wasn’t right for the publication at that time.
As someone who has been on the editing side of a literary journal, I understand how this works. I’ve rejected people’s work who I know and believe in, simply because the journal didn’t have space, or a theme had been building and the work submitted didn’t quite fit. These are just two examples in which the work or the writer wasn’t at fault in not getting their work published.
I’ve also been a judge in several contests. I’ve read submissions for awards and writing residencies. In some of these cases the decision was not just up to me, but up for discussion with at least one other person if not a group of people. Again: not necessarily a fault of the work submitted if they did not win or get the prize.
In these situations, where there were groups judging a work, I’ve also witnessed banal reasons for a piece not winning or getting published—such as, one of the judges ate a bad lunch/was in a mood/never liked that writer to begin with. Not exactly ‘fair’ but also, what can you do. People are people, many disappoint, and not everyone is able to bring their best self to the process at any given moment. Shrug emoji.
I’ve had some interesting rejections in the last few years. I have stories, ones that I’m inclined to tell in person, a stiff drink in my hand, across the table from writers who understand and adhere to confidentiality. Then I have many lesser stories, like that of the journal that a few writers and my former agent had suggested my work was a “perfect fit” for. I received form rejections from the journal within one week. If only all journals replied that swiftly and decisively! My last (form) rejection took over six months; I am now in month eight of “In Progress” on another—my very last submission using Submittable, because I am done submitting.
I have nearly 30 years of experience being rejected/accepted. I’ve developed a thick skin over the decades. I was and am a supporter of initiatives like the one that drives the group Women Who Submit. I'm also in a position where I'm able to be more selective about my writing and its placement because I have a number of publications and books published--I am "somewhere" (as opposed to nowhere) in a "career" (in that I have income as a writer and can deduct taxes under the column of "writer") in the "literary arts" (that wide-ranging space). But I am done submitting. So what will I do, as a writer with work I wish readers would find, read, and engage with?
One way I’m dealing with it is by responding to direct solicitations for my work. Direct solicitation is, sometimes, a form of nepotism. The editors who have directly solicited work from me are usually people who have taught my books in their classes and workshops, have followed my work over the years, and in that time, we may or may not have become associates of some kind, and/or friendly with one another. Cool. I don’t mind this method of publication—they can always say no to what I submit, too.
What you read here is another way I’m dealing with it. I think of Mommy’s El Camino as a weekly zine. In the future you’ll see essays that were roundly rejected because, frankly, I still believe in them and I’m done with the dance of submitting. I have pieces that I can’t envision the right journal for—they’re often either “too” hybrid, or too long, and others are works in progress toward my larger book project that I don’t feel the need to appear in a journal to indicate that they’re worth reading.
The idea of deleting my Submittable account, like all the other social media accounts I’ve deleted, feels freeing, like I was in a long line of waiting to be seen and decided instead to skip away in an entirely other direction. Toward the forest! Maybe toward obscurity. We’ll see! In the meantime I’ll be retiring my Submittable account just as soon as the last little box goes from “in-progress” to “rejected.”
If you’re reading this now, you’re someone who has identified that the work that appears here has some meaning for you. You were willing to put your money on it. Thank you. I don’t take that lightly. As much as I can see that publishing newsletters can potentially add to an already fractured media landscape, I do hope that readers who find me are readers who are interested in skipping away toward the forest themselves, in their own fashion. I’ll meet you there.
I am in the forest now. Skipping.