Submissions

Staff Post, Bianca Peterson: The Ins-and-Outs of the Content Coordinator

Bianca Peterson

Content CoordinatorWhen I first received the position of content coordinator for Superstition Review for the fall 2013 semester, I only knew the basics of the position: that I’d be logging content submissions and that I was chosen for it because I have good attention to detail. Only when the semester began did I come to understand the full scope of the position and the various skills I would need to acquire. Along with logging the incoming submissions into spreadsheets, I would likewise be required to send proofs to contributors and build the web pages for each new issue. A considerable number of hours in those first few weeks as a full-fledged intern were spent learning the ins-and-outs of programs like Google Spreadsheets, Submittable, and Drupal. However, the biggest scare for me was that a content coordinator must possess a working knowledge of basic HTML—a skill I knew absolutely nothing about.

Fortunately, a friend came to my rescue with a two-inch thick book providing descriptive, step-by-step guides on how to write and read HTML coding. He bookmarked which chapters I would need to study and, after a few weeks of work, I found myself growing in comfort with the idea of coding. Despite the initial scare it provided, it turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the position. While scanning lines of code looking for errors and the causes of weird spacing or character issues is certainly long and grueling work, there was something satisfying about knowing I contributed to making the magazine look professional and clean.

As a whole, the role of a content coordinator does involve much detail work. Logging submissions requires a close eye with tracking changes in the editors’ votes on submissions, catching duplicated submissions, and watching for withdrawn ones. Building the content pages by far requires the most detail work, especially with longer submissions of fiction and nonfiction—my particular responsibilities include fiction, art, and interviews. Imagine reading a block of text consisting of a single long paragraph with no page breaks or indents in search of a particular set of words or characters—this roughly describes the process.

I also want to stress the responsibility and amount of trust between the content coordinators, the editors, and our founder that comes with the position. As content coordinators, we are trusted to log submissions on a consistent basis in order to keep up with the votes and decisions of the editing interns. Likewise, we are trusted with the responsibility of making sure the submitted content is spaced and formatted properly and that the building of the issue itself is completed before the launch date.

The year I’ve spent interning for Superstition Review has been a experience I will never forget. It has provided me with the opportunity to hone skills I possessed prior to the internship and obtain a substantial list of new ones, including a working knowledge of basic HTML. Furthermore, the skills I obtained through interning with Superstition Review will assist in future career endeavors, as I hope to find work at a publishing company or literary magazine after completing my degree. Tedious as some of the work might feel—especially after spending a few hours double checking editor votes or correcting code—it is very rewarding work and I’m delighted to have been chosen for the position.

Julie Matsen: What Makes Me Stop

Julie Matsen

Julie MatsenThe external process is simple enough. An aging laptop fires up Submittable at my treadmill desk. I begin walking, and I wait for a story to make me stop.

Whether I stop reading or stop walking is up to the author.

Of course, the nuances of reading nonfiction submissions for a lit mag like Superstition Review are more complex than that. For one thing, I am not the only one making the decisions. I am one of four editors who work with nonfiction, including two professors and two student editors.

The other editors and I look for a variety of things that make us feel strongly about a piece. Whether those strong feelings are positive or negative are discussed at our weekly meetings, where we make decisions about the fate of certain pieces. We tell each other what made us want it, what made us dislike it, what kept us going until the end of the piece. We decide, as a group, whether to accept a piece right then and there or to ask for certain revisions.

Most of the time, when we want to accept a piece, we email authors and ask them for the latter. Copy edits and typos seem to be the main concern, and we occasionally get formatting issues. We try not to accept pieces with major flaws.

Every so often, there comes a story that breaks my heart.

Sometimes it’s wonderful as it is, and we are prepared to accept it with or without revisions. When we email the author, the response is less than what we wanted: Simultaneous submissions are pulled out from under us by faster editors. We are told that the story is no longer available.

Sometimes authors don’t want to accept revisions, thinking their story is perfect just the way it is, as if the piece is a small child with a fragile ego. I understand the desire to hold on, the personal nature of someone telling you that your kid is going through a rough puberty. All of us are writers too. The thing is, if you want a story to reach that grown-up phase that is publication, you have to be willing to let it grow beyond you.

Other times, there are stories with so much potential hidden behind standard words, potential that I wish could just be pulled out through computer screens to make this piece a great one. By happy coincidence, these seem to be written by the authors who are willing to listen to their stories and to their readers. Standard sentences become elevated, stories get stripped down or built up (or both), and characters become flesh in print form.

Every so often, we get a piece that has simple words arranged in just such a way that I can’t help but stop walking. There are those essays that make me understand my mother, with her squamous cell cancer scars and her books on estate laws, a little better. There are essays that gives me a glimpse past my father’s stoic face at his own father’s funeral, singing baritone gospel songs in a minor key that were the favorite of the dead man at the front of the room. One essay in particular reminds me of a time when I got lost in Berlin, completely cut off from the one person in the group who actually spoke German besides the obligatory Danke schoen and Wo ist die… um… sprichst du Englisch?

Some of my favorite stories from this round of submissions have made me reflect on my own experiences, sharing a snapshot of the writers’ lives that is at once universal enough to be widely appreciated and personal enough to make me stop in my tracks and just read.

New Madrid: Call for Submissions

Superstition Review

Oct. 15 Deadline: Irish Famine-themed Journal Issue

There is still time to submit your work for consideration for the upcoming New Madrid issue, “The Great Hunger.” In keeping with Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh’s poem of the same title, the editors invite submissions that revisit the collective trauma of Gorta Mór, the great famine that occurred in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. We are interested in work that explicitly or implicitly addresses such questions as why the Irish famine resulted in profound and long-lasting social and cultural catastrophe, how the Irish developed coping mechanisms in the face of such devastation, and to what degree the famine became a hidden wound in succeeding generations of Irish and of those who emigrated from Ireland. The deadline is Oct. 15. More details on our website: newmadridjournal.org.

Guest Blog Post, Martin Ott: Submission Season

Martin Ott

Martin Ott‘Tis the Season

It’s September again, the time of year when thousands of hopeful writers hunch over keyboards with coffee breath and some nervousness, preparing their babies to go out into the world. Some of them will find good homes, but the vast majority will make their way back for some attention and TLC.

For more than twenty years, I have submitted fiction and poetry to magazines, anthologies, and online journals. In that time, I have published more than two dozen short stories and two hundred poems, received valuable feedback, and developed relationships with editors. I have also been rejected time and time again. I’d like to share some advice that might help prepare you for submission season.

Value Rejection

By my best estimate, I have had a submissions acceptance rate of approximately 2% over the past two decades. This means that I have also had more than 10,000 rejections. In my early days of submitting, the rejections filled more than one recycling bin. I used to save handwritten rejections, until even these became too numerous to keep in a drawer.

Success comes with rejection, and writers who take submissions personally are missing the point: readers and tastes evolve constantly at each and every magazine. I have placed work at magazines that have rejected me ten times or more.

Do Your Homework

Even if submitting is a number’s game, there are still things you can do to increase your odds. In any given year, I read twenty or so literary magazines to get an idea of what my peers are doing and to gauge the creative tastes of publications. I read submission guidelines carefully, and look at work on the magazine’s website that the editors have selected as representative work. Then and only then do I submit.

Now for Some Controversial Advice

There’s only one rule I break, something that other writers I know do as well. I occasionally submit work to magazines that don’t accept simultaneous submissions while I am submitting the same work to other places.

At writers’ conferences, I make it a point to talk with literary magazine editors that don’t accept simultaneous submissions. Many of them acknowledge that they know that most writers aren’t following this guideline, and many even privately agree with a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy.

You should still be careful if you take this approach. I place all publications into roughly five tiers. I only send out work a handful at a time to the top tier, and this is the only place I break the rule and send simultaneous submissions to (a few) magazines that have a non-simultaneous submission policy.

Has this approach ever backfired? Yes. One time I missed out on publishing a poem in a top magazine and had to explain that I didn’t follow guidelines. When I weigh this against the high-quality publications I’ve placed my work in by accelerating the submission process, I consider it an acceptable risk. I’m certain that there are writers and editors who will disagree with me on this point.

I also strongly believe that every magazine and publisher should accept simultaneous submissions, particularly from those of us not submitting through our agents or emailing to a friend on staff. Since magazines work in an open marketplace, why not show the same respect to writers?

Define Your Submission Strategy

I tend to be patient with my submissions. I wait for my work to make its rounds from tier to tier, before submitting them more widely to lower tiers. One fiction writer friend has told me that she submits to eleven places at a time. Another poet friend confided that he once sent more than a thousand poetry submissions in a year.

At any given time, my work is in circulation from three to ten places, depending on the tier. In recent years I have stopped submitting to my lowest tier, as the quality of publications is now more important to me than the quantity.

Be Nice to the Editors

When you receive a rejection, don’t freak out and write back to an editor to explain why she or he is wrong. This is doubly true for feedback. Unfortunately, this is a rule that I have broken. It cost me placing a poem once in an anthology, when I didn’t like the edits I was getting, and I shot back a late night discourteous email.

I have received valuable feedback on my work, including on a short story The Policy that I published at Superstition Review. Some of the best comments on the story came from student editors, and their feedback made it better.

It might also not be the smartest idea to harass editors about why they haven’t taken a look at your work yet. Here is a great set of guidelines from Mixer Publishing that made me laugh:

Please wait at least one year before querying about your submission. If you need to withdraw your submission before that, our submission system will notify us of the withdrawal. We no longer respond to queries regularly due to the large amount of submissions we have and due to time restrictions. If we receive multiple queries from you or antagonistic emails, we will put you on an industry blacklist that we share on a secret database with the most powerful writers and editors in the world, who are all usually in a bad mood or hungover.

Tools for Submissions

I have used many tools over the years to manage my submissions. Currently, I use a combination of Duotrope, New Pages, and the CRWROPPS email list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CRWROPPS-B/.

One of my friends has built a “secret’ weapon that he calls the Database of Doom. It contains a custom-made spreadsheet of publications by tiers and submission windows. He lets me use the Database of Doom, as long as I am mindful of its powers. Talk to your writer friends about submissions and share tips.

When in Doubt, Submit

Many writers disagree about the right time to submit.  I think that a writer should wait until the piece no longer feels like a draft. However, when in doubt, my advice is to submit and submit some more. You may be surprised by the results (publication, feedback) and even rejection may tell you something about the quality of your work.

 

Call for Submissions: The Manila Envelope

Superstition Review
Manila Envelope
The Manila Envelope: A Literary & Art Online Magazine is looking for poetry, short fiction and short creative non-fiction as well as visual art (jpeg images) to include in our upcoming Fall Issue by the end of September; we also accept submissions on a rolling basis.
For information and to see our aesthetic preferences please go to http://www.themanilaenvelope.com.

Call for Submissions: New Madrid

Superstition Review

New Madrid, Winter 2013 Issue: The Great Hunger

The New Madrid editors invite well-crafted submissions of fiction, nonfiction and poetry for an upcoming theme issue, “The Great Hunger.” In keeping with Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh’s poem of the same title, the editors seek submissions that revisit the collective trauma of Gorta Mór, the great famine that occurred in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. For this issue, the Irish famine also serves as a touchstone for the exploration of issues of food scarcity today. Thus the editors invite contributions that investigate famines that have taken place outside Ireland, as well as submissions that address hunger as a contemporary phenomenon. Submissions will be accepted between August 15 and October 15, 2013. All contributions should be of interest to the general reader. Please do not submit scholarly articles. Visit www.newmadridjournal.org for further details on this theme, and to learn how to submit your work.

Penumbra Magazine

Superstition Review

Penumbra MagazinePenumbra, the bilingual literary magazine based out of Madrid, Spain, is preparing to release its second issue in late May, 2013. The magazine was founded in the summer of 2012 at Saint Louis University-Madrid with the goal of  creating a space for contemporary writers in English and Spanish between the same covers, to bridge the gap between the English and Spanish-speaking communities both in Madrid and in the Americas.

The magazine operates on a shoestring budget, and is run by a band of hardworking, underpaid word lovers, including a handful of graduate students in English Literature. Recent fundraising reading events have taken place at a private apartment on the west-edge Paseo del Pintor Rosales, and at The Toast Cafe in Madrid. At these events, a combination of local and U.S.-based musicians performed in English and Spanish following readings of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

The first issue of Penumbra featured work from 44 writers and artists from around the globe; check the magazine’s blog for updates on the forthcoming issue. As of now, all content is available for free online or for sale in print. Penumbra also maintains a daily-updated Facebook feed, where fellow word gluttons are welcome to read, comment on posts, and interact with editors.

Despite the magazine’s international pedigree, the editors look only for quality when evaluating submissions—rather than actively seeking work with a multinational tinge, they hope to publish the best of what comes in, regardless of all other considerations.

To keep up with the magazine’s news, read submission guidelines, and enjoy the first online issue of Penumbra, click here. Visit the Facebook page here.

The Masters Review Call for Submissions; Deadline March 31

Superstition Review

The Masters ReviewEach year The Masters Review pairs with a guest judge to select the 10 best stories written by students in an MA, MFA, or PhD creative writing program. This year’s guest judge is AM Homes. The Masters Review aims to expose the best among emerging writers by producing fiction and narrative nonfiction that is progressive, diverse, and well-crafted. Only students who are currently enrolled are eligible, and we only accept work under 7000 words. For full guidelines and information please see our submissions page. Deadline for submissions is March 31, 2013.

For writers who are not in a graduate-level creative writing program and have not published a novel-length work, please consider sending us work for our New Voices category. New Voices is open year round and represents the work of emerging authors that we publish online. To submit, go here.

Fall Submissions Period September and October

Patricia Murphy

The editors and I met this week to discuss the reading process for fall and we’re all very excited to start viewing submissions. You can send Art, Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry to our Submittable account at http://superstitionreview.submittable.com/submit

I’d also like to tell you about the exciting changes this year at Superstition Review.

First of all, my job at ASU has changed so that my focus is on the magazine. All of those semesters of teaching two creative writing classes on top of being managing editor? Gone. I now work full time managing the editorial process of the magazine and mentoring 40 students a semester.

Another change is that we’ve made the internship a 1-year commitment. Students will be required to take a 300 level 3 credit hour training class that will make them eligible to take the 400 level 3 credit hour internship. I’m most excited about this change since it will give me the opportunity to show students all of the details of the editorial process. They will be better prepared and will gain valuable skills in literary publishing.

And the changes continue. We have a new iTunes U Channel where each Tuesday we will be posting podcasts of SR contributors reading their work. You can subscribe to it here, and enjoy our first three podcasts of the series: http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/superstition-review-online/id552593273 Many thanks to John Martinson, who initiated the Channel as his summer project.

We also have expanded our presence on social networks. We’ll be blogging every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, and we will update content daily across our other networks. We have a cool new Tumblr page built by our nonfiction editor Harrison Gearns.

Blog: http://superstitionreview.asu.edu/blog/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/superstitionreview
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/111992497499045277021/about
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Superstition-Review-4195480/about
Tumblr: http://superstitionrev.tumblr.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperstitionRev

And finally, to celebrate our 5th Anniversary, we are doing a total redesign of the magazine for Issue 10. We’re giving the site a fresh, modern look and we’re migrating all of the content to Drupal. We’re happy to access all of the robust navigation tools that will make it easier for our readers to browse through our 500+ contributor pages.

So we hope you’ll: submit your Art, Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry; subscribe to this blog where we’ll post editorial updates and literary news; and subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes U. We’re looking forward to an exciting fall and we sure hope you’ll join us.