Yesterday I got a 13 day rejection from Fabula Argentina. However, it came with a nice message: This is a lovely, sensitive piece well done with three-dimensional characters. And it's definitely one of the better gay stories we've received and read. However, our magazine likes to pride itself in publishing pieces that are different or unexpected in some way or that step outside the box. And we especially go for good humor, which not many magazines publish. Sometimes we select a piece that's a little more ordinary in the story line but that has a strong voice or resonance and touches the reader. So, while your piece is very good, it kind of skirts around all those spots, not quite rising high enough to push it over the top of the bar in any one area. But that's just us. Your piece is still a fine one that deserves to be published somewhere.
Have you ever withdrawn your submission after it was accepted? I submitted somewhere last year and it was accepted for publication for the END of last year. I haven't heard anything back regarding its publication. No one has responded to my email, submittable message, or facebook message.... on their FB, some one else asked earlier this month when the publication was coming out. It makes me think the journal is no longer active....?
Not formally, but I’m kind of in the same situation. I had a non-fiction piece accepted for an anthology about a year ago. Soon after, in June, an advert went up on their website saying the anthology would be published ‘this month!’ Almost a year later, that same advert is still up, but no sign of the anthology. At first, when I chased they wrote on Twitter ‘coming soon!’ But after that, they wouldn’t reply to any emails or tweets. A few months ago I got in touch with someone else who had originally been tagged on Twitter as being in the anthology. She said she was also having no response to messages. Frustrated, she copied them into a tweet asking if anyone had heard anything. This was about 2 months ago now. No reply. About a month ago I replied to it and said ‘presumably this is now not going ahead and we can submit our pieces elsewhere.’ Again, no response from the publication. It’s irritating, isn’t it?
It would be to me. It's just good manners to make sure everyone is informed of progress, or something more serious. On the other hand, if they were canned (to use the US colloquialism) then the people involved might not have been given a chance to inform those obliquely involved that their work was no longer in play. It's possible you are sending your emails to a computer stuck in a cupboard somewhere that is no longer connected to that email account. Or any number of similar scenarios.
So today I found out I was shortlisted for a recent Writing Magazine short story competition. I’ve been trying for a while, and when I found out I had made the shortlist I asked how many are shortlisted. They said no more than 5%. According to the website, there was a winner, a runner up and 8 shortlisted, so there must have been at least 200 entries. I’m quite pleased to have made the top 10.
I have a short question: in case "your" story gets accepted into a magazine, is it professional for a writer to request to make some minor changes on a manuscript like if he or she wrote "left" but really wanted to write "right"? Or is this something that is not done?
There is a whole editing process and exchange once a story is accepted. There is time to make changes, however, I would wait and follow the editor's lead on this. The story you submitted is the one they accepted. After a story is accepted, it's not the time for the writer to be making big changes on their own. That said, if you've only submitted the story and are still waiting for a response, you can withdraw it and resubmit the story using your revised version. Sorry, but I don't really know what you're getting at with the "left" and "right" thing.
I think Fletch just wanted to know if he wanted to change a word that could easily have been switched by accident when it was written.
Well, I guess it would depend on the editor and the change. But I would ask why this change is really needed if the story was accepted unless it's something brought up by the editor. No editor is going to want you to send them a new document that is the latest version of a story that you mention you want to throw at them right after they've accepted a different version. I think it's important to be as easy to work with as possible. When someone is paying me for a story, they are in the driver's seat as far as I'm concerned. I still say if you really want to make changes, pull it and resubmit before you get a response.
Yos...as you said... I just endured this very same rigmarole... ...but I zipped through the 2018 draft and it read breezier than the hyper-observed version languishing on the hard-drive. ‘Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom,’ said my Mum, or some version of...
Hey guys -- The Raymond Carver Short Story Contest just opened via Carve Magazine. Anyone thinking about giving it a shot?
Have we got a month? Yeah - l’ll play.. Remember I posted you one of their seminars and they were all eleven years old...undergraduates w squeaky voices...East coast at least ..no offence yoke
@matwoolf -- Let's do a trade before we submit if you're up for it. I'm working on something new. Maybe two weeks it'll be ready. Are you writing something new or do you have something ready?
For one moment I thought you wrote, 'short', at the end of that, and I was lining one up, then I re-read it. '...stuff a mushroom'? The mind boggles. It looks like I am going to be put on furlough at my place of work until the end of may, after Easter that is. If that happens I might actually get the chance to write. I say might on both counts, see what happens. Hope you guys out there are safe and healthy?
I’m working from home whereas my wife has been given 3 weeks paid leave. Shame it’s not the other way round as she is really bored and depressed, she doesn’t really have hobbies. Whereas I am sick of work and just want time off to write!
