A Beginner's Guide to Lit Journal Submissions 📰✨
my thoughts on research, guidelines & sharing work - welcome back to The Slush Pile!
I hope this Issue 09 of The Slush Pile finds you well because we’re kicking it off with the celebration of a huge milestone: we’ve officially surpassed 100 newsletter subscribers! I want to thank everyone who’s been here since the beginning, anyone who’s just subscribed, and anyone who stumbled across the newsletter by chance. I’m incredibly grateful to you all for the support and love for my work and words.
This month, I wanted to write yet another guide for us writers, this time focusing on how to submit your creative work to literary journals and magazines. While I can’t guarantee your work will get published, hopefully, this will give you the knowledge you need to make every submission undeniably professional, well-researched, and ready to potentially be published. (Shout out to my friend and fellow writer Ori for inspiring this idea!)
First, I want to acknowledge both the excitement and setbacks of publishing—while it’s always exciting to see my work in print, I have to remind myself that the number of accolades and publications a writer receives does not define who they are, let alone how much writing they can produce on a day-to-day basis. Capitalism has often made my writing practice feel like a business, a crowd-pleasing game, a way to prove myself when I don’t need to, much more than a means to my creative survival and joy. I have to remind myself constantly that writing is still writing, regardless of whether or not it’s shared and consumed.
Given this, let’s talk about how you can begin or continue your submission journey: the research, the reading and writing and editing, and finally, the pressing of that big “Submit” button.
Finding journals to submit to
If you’re not too familiar with any lit journal out there, it’s best to do a little research beforehand to get acquainted with the landscape and find the best fit for your work. This can be done via Submittable, Twitter, Instagram, or even a cold Google search. I’m slowly moving away from Submittable (mostly because of the frequent reading fees and financial barriers) but it’s a great starting place to look for journals using their genre, fee, and deadline filters.
However, I’m finding that social media is a great additional resource for finding lit journals, since I like to look at which ones the writers I like are following. And as soon as I find a journal I like, I get recommendations for other journals with similar vibes, opening up even more possibilities. One tip I’d especially recommend is looking in the acknowledgments of books by authors you admire and the bios of writers you know or stumble across in your research to find even more names of good literary journals where they may have published individual pieces.
But of course, that begs the question: how do you know if a journal is a good fit for your work, respects the writers it publishes, seems like a positive and active presence in the lit journal community, and is a trustworthy publication? Here a few questions to keep in mind:
Is there an easily accessible masthead and a mission statement? The best journals will have this information upfront for writers to read on their website and/or social media pages. As a potential submitter, you have the right to know who is on the team reading and considering your work, and what exactly the journal is looking for.
Is the work they’ve previously published similar to my own? Obviously, you don’t want your work to be a carbon copy of anyone else’s but it’s important that both you and the journal’s team could potentially envision your work alongside others they have previously published. It helps to at least skim the journal and make a short list of pieces with similar themes or premises or vibes—you’ll be using these later in the cover letter!
Is their vibe/color scheme/goal something I resonate with? I can tell a lot from a journal based on the design of their website and socials: how they use color, how they organize their posts, how accessible they make their font and format. Even the type of language they use in their guidelines can either raise green or red flags for me, so be sure to learn as much as you can from what they’re presenting to you.
Is the journal committed to featuring writers from diverse and marginalized backgrounds? This is a HUGE factor when I choose where to submit my work, and this is mostly for older, more established journals. If I search around and find only white, male writers being published (or feel that certain writers are being tokenized), I immediately know that it’s not a place where my work would be welcome or considered, that it’s not a place where the voices of writers of marginalized voices are valued or considered literary material. Why should I waste my time arguing against it when I could just move on and place my work with a journal that is actively seeking writers like me?
If my work was accepted, would I be proud for it to be featured in this journal? And I don’t just mean name-wise; while it’s great to have work published in bigger journals that have name recognition in the community, it’s always good to consider if you’d be excited to share your work if it was published in a certain publication. A good idea is to search the journal’s name on Twitter to see if they’ve been involved in any discourse or if anyone has shared experiencing a less-than-stellar publishing process with them in the past. You really never know what you might find! At the end of the day, it’s most important to ask yourself why you want to submit to a particular journal, what draws you there, and what makes it a good fit for you and your work.
As you search, open up a document or spreadsheet and write out a list of lit journals that catch your eye. Make a note of:
important calls for submissions
upcoming submission deadlines, including themed submissions
website and social links
pay rates, if any
what pieces of yours you might want to submit
If you want to save a deadline for later, be sure to make a note of it in a way you’ll remember. I like to write down important dates like this in my submission tracker spreadsheet, everyday planner, Google Calendar, and/or iPhone calendar, but find the method that works best for you!
Reading the journal guidelines
This might be the most important step in the whole submission process. From personal experience as the editor-in-chief of a literary journal myself, I can tell you that it’s easy to reject work that doesn’t follow the clear guidelines laid out on our website and social media accounts. Depending on the publication, there’s a wide range of how strict the guidelines will be but it makes it easier on everyone to simply follow them.
Pay special attention to every line. Journals can be forthcoming about every detail, down to the font and font size they prefer, how they accept submissions (whether Submittable or email or another platform), what genres and file type(s) they accept, if they need content warnings, and if writing must adhere to a certain theme. You may not have control over the outcome of your submission but you certainly can make every aspect of your submission perfect to the letter. Don’t make it easy for editors to reject you!
Writing the cover letter
There are many schools of thought on how to write the perfect cover letter for submission but my rule of thumb is the simpler, the better. Across the board, I’ve found that literary journals don’t really need to know about the writing process behind the piece, and much less about the writer’s intended goal or purpose or interpretation of it. Unless the guidelines say differently, it’s best to let the piece speak for itself without bogging the cover letter with paragraphs of information. You can also make it as formal or not as you’d like; I’ve seen writers submit letters with fancy headers that include all their contact information, and others that make it a plain Word doc. Either way, all you really need is three parts:
a brief opening paragraph! here you can thank the journal (preferably the editor(s) if you can find a name) for the opportunity to submit, name the titles and word counts of your submissions, and include one piece they’ve published that you read and genuinely enjoyed. It’ll help if it’s thematically similar to your own but don’t feel obliged to spell this out for the editors, as this will come across as too forward.
an author bio! (we’ll get to this in a bit)
a final thank you and salutation! I’m a huge believer in saying thank you multiple times during this process: when you submit, when you get rejected or accepted, and when it’s published. Remember, editors are volunteering their time, energy, and labor for free, so it’s important to show your gratitude for the work they do, whether or not you benefit from it. Positive interactions can often be worth much more than the publication itself!
To make the submission process even more seamless, create a basic template that you can you copy, paste, and personalize for each submission. This will save you a great deal of time because you want to strike that balance between being personal to each journal and not spending days putting together a single submission, especially if you don’t get anything in return. Make it as simple for you as possible, all while keeping in your unique voice and genuine enthusiasm for the publication.
Still stuck? Here is the cover letter template that I use for every submission!
Including the author bio
This is a great time to return to the guidelines and see what the journal is searching for in terms of your author bio. They might request a certain word count or specific information, so it’s important to pay attention to that. If you don’t have an author bio or don’t know how to write one, here is a list of things to potentially include:
your name
your pronouns
your hometown/country or city where you’re based
your identity markers (ethnicity, race, sexuality, gender, disability)
your writing genre(s)
no more than 3 of your recent or relevant publications, if any (if you are an unpublished author, feel free to mention this in the cover letter! journals love publishing first-time writers)
no more than 3 of your relevant awards/honors, if any
your website and/or social media handles
an interesting factoid about yourself (include this for publications you feel are more open to humor and lightheartedness)
It’s a good idea to have a doc with different versions of your bio somewhere that’s easy to access. For me, I always have my one-sentence, 50-word, 100-word, 250-word, professional, playful, and full extensive bios ready to copy and paste on my computer whenever I need them. If the guidelines don’t specify any guidelines for the author bio, feel free to include as much or as little information as you want. For inspiration, look around at the bios of other writers and try to mimic the same basic format. Generally, the purpose of the author bio is to showcase who you are without sharing your full life story. If people want to know, they’ll research you further!
Reviewing your submission
Hitting the big “Submit” or “Send” button is tempting to do as soon as you finish putting your packet together but this is a great chance to read over everything you’ve just written and make sure everything is as perfect as possible. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sent off work for consideration and realized that I misspelled something in my submission or cover letter. Even worse is when you misspell the name of the journal!
To avoid this, read and re-read! Take one last look over your piece, cover letter (including your bio), contact information, and email, as needed. Keep an eye out for typos, misspellings, grammar mistakes, incorrect or inaccurate information, and any other errors. It also will help to read the guidelines one last time to make sure everything is up to standard. If you’re still unsure or nervous, ask a friend or fellow writer to look it over with fresh eyes! In a situation like this, it’s best to overprepare.
Tracking your submissions
Finally, you’ve sent off the submission and can let out a sigh of relief! Before you celebrate and/or move on to the next submission, however, make a note of the submission in a doc or spreadsheet, whether the same one where you were making a list of potential journals or in a fresh document. I personally prefer a spreadsheet since there’s a lot of information to remember. Here is what I like to include:
the name of the publication
the title and genre of the submitted piece
the date of the submission
the original deadline date, if any
the date or date range by which the journal should get back to me (this should be outlined in the submission guidelines)
any important notes
Here is a spreadsheet mimicking what my real submissions tracker looks like!
If you’ve reached the end of this extremely long newsletter, then hopefully you’re now a seasoned submission expert ready to send out your next (or first?!) piece of writing to a lit journal! This is by no means an easy or relaxing process and I applaud anyone who’s submitted their work and anyone who’s been published, whether once or a hundred times. Either way, please remember that you have the entire support of the writing community behind you—we all just want each other to succeed, be seen, read, celebrated, and uplifted!
P.S. Looking for even more submission tips? I recently invited my Twitter following to offer up the strategies they use to send submissions and get their work published. Simply click on the tweet embed below or click this link!
notes from the writer’s desk ✍️
my favorite recently pub’d pieces:
Ten Years Later, It’s Time to Celebrate “Mosquita y Mari”, LatinaMedia.Co
The Driver Era Live at The Fox Theater, Unpublished Magazine
Celebrating My Mexican Heritage Everyday Not Just During Latinx Heritage Month, HipLatina
updates:
STREAMING SERVICE: season two, the sequel to my self-published debut poetry chapbook STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv, IS NOW OUT! Digital and signed physical copies are available, as well as the option to bundle both chapbooks and receive a bookmark and sticker with every physical order! Order your copy today! Thank you as always for your support :’)
I am now a media mentor for Tectonic Media! If you are a young/aspiring journalist, I am available for consultation and mentorship on a variety of topics. Learn more about my areas of specialty and how we can connect here.
I’m collaborating with fellow poet Rosario Santiago for an exciting project in celebration of Latinx Heritage Month! Keep an eye on our socials for something very cool at the end of September ;)
resources:
Remember! If you want even more tips about how to submit to lit journals, check out this Twitter thread where I asked writers to offer their own strategies and tips! Enjoy!
Looking for book recommendations? Check out my Bookstagram and TikTok to keep up with what I’m reading and loving right now! On TikTok, you’ll also get more snippets of my everyday writing life and lifestyle/fashion content. See you there!
other stories i’m loving 📖
currently reading:
The Girls in Queens by Christine Kandic Torres
currently watching:
Bob’s Burgers S7
currently listening to:
“Glowing” by alayna
all my love,
sofía xx
this is so incredibly helpful, thank you so much !!