Anyone submit to this and get results? The official winners will be posted on July 1, but hopefully they'll notify entrants before that, esp. if they've been rejected.
Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers
- Thread starter Julie Worth
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Not to this one, but I submitted a few stories to their ordinary calls for stories.
Theyre always very nice about letting me know theyve not accepted 'em this time. *sigh*
If you submitted your story online, you should be able to check the status online - have a look at their website.
Theyre always very nice about letting me know theyve not accepted 'em this time. *sigh*
If you submitted your story online, you should be able to check the status online - have a look at their website.
Yes, I do that, but it's annoying have to do it everyday for months. (Having that feature is both good and bad!)
Oh. Yes, every day is a bit... often.
They send an email once they're done, in the mean time, I agree there's not much one can do except fret and eat chocolate / popcorn / ice cream & start a new relationship to take one's mind off things.
They send an email once they're done, in the mean time, I agree there's not much one can do except fret and eat chocolate / popcorn / ice cream & start a new relationship to take one's mind off things.
Oh. Yes, every day is a bit... often.
They send an email once they're done, in the mean time, I agree there's not much one can do except fret and eat chocolate / popcorn / ice cream & start a new relationship to take one's mind off things.
Literary journals are tough to crack, so it's best not to put all your eggs in one basket.
Although many of them say they won't accept multiple submissions, sometimes you sort of have to because otherwise it could take a decade to get published (or rejected). The odds that two are going to pick up a story at the same time are small because each magazine looks for different things in the literature they print. I recall one journal that said that it didn't accept multiple submissions and that they would take between six-nine months to respond! That's not really a reasonable time to ask a writer to wait.
I sent out a story to about five journals at a time (including Glimmer Train a couple of years ago.) I worked on the story for a year and a half and also had a writer-in-residence at a Toronto library give me some feedback, which was incredibly helpful and uplifting.
Glimmer Train turned the story down, but eventually it was published by another literary journal. That was thrilling, but it's also good to remember that these journals are often volunteer run and you have to be very, very patient. Patient for a reply, patient for an acceptance, patient for the magazine to publish, patient to receive your contributor's copies or honorarium...
Best wishes!
Tina
I was a finalist last fall.
I don't know if my spam filter intercepted the notification or what, but I didn't find out until a friend saw my name on their website.
They do have that online thing, but keep writing--after a while you'll just forget about checking it.
I don't know if my spam filter intercepted the notification or what, but I didn't find out until a friend saw my name on their website.
They do have that online thing, but keep writing--after a while you'll just forget about checking it.
Tell me about it. I submitted to them for the first time in April (one of their open submission months). The confirmation email I got back said I would hear something within 16 weeks. I would like to just put it out of my mind, but with that online submission tracking, I feel compelled to check at least once a day.
No different than checking the snail mail box, I guess, but for some reason it feels different - every time I log on to check the status I feel slightly guilty, like I'm feeding an addiction or something!
It is. Well. It can get a bit obsessive.
Send out lots of stuff, staggered, that way, you have a bit of movement & dont get so fixated on just the one story.
TBH, I do occasionally submit to Glimmertrain because it's free & it's very handy & easy, & the pay would be great if they did accept it... but they have turned down so much stuff by now that then got accepted elsewhere (my story that go on the Carver longlist, for crying out loud!) that I'm really only doing it to keep my oar in, as it were. I'm not expecting them to accept it. (Of course in a hidden corner of my mind, I still hope...) But that way, I can then kinda forget about the submission & get on with my life.
If you submitted your story online, you should be able to check the status online - have a look at their website.
I submitted a story the normal way and this online status checking was a mixed blessing. Was checking the status 15 times a day a little too much?
No. If they say no simultaneous submissions, then do not send simultaneous submissions. Unless you like collecting rejection slips in record time, and love having editors reject your stories without reading them.
Just because it takes you such an incredibly long time to write a story is no reason to inflict this on editors and other writers. And if all you're doing is sitting around waiting for six to nine months, it's usually pointless. You should be writing at least six to nine other stories during this time frame.
It only takes a long time if you are an incredibly slow writer. When this is the case, the fault is yours, not that of an editor, other writers, waiting periods, or submission guideline.
And you really contradict yourself here. The very fact that different magazines usually do look for different things means simultaneous submissions almost never work. All they do is gunk up the works and tick off editors.
I submitted a story several years ago. I received a very nice rejection letter, with a hand-written note saying that they liked the story and the style, but...and that I should definitely send more.
So, of course, I never did.
So, of course, I never did.
I don't "inflict" anything on editors until it is a polished diamond. I polish, polish and polish - endless re-writing. It takes the time that it takes. Getting published in a lit journal is no easy feat and I'm glad I took the time necessary to do it right. It's a great credit and I'm happy to have it. According to the editors that picked up my story, they publish less than 5% of what is submitted. That means your work better be in great shape.
If others can do it in less time, good for them. Editors in-boxes are filled with junk that has been rushed.
I am not saying pile out dozens of submissions at once. I am saying (and this has been backed up by other published writers) that you could spend a decade submitting one story if you wait out the full waiting times. And if a magazine doesn't respond, what would you do - wait forever??
As for different magazines having different submission guidelines, I don't waste my time or editors submitting what isn't suitable. A story may suit more than one magazine, and I do my research before I submit anywhere.
You're pretty hostile, and I'm not interested in your further "opinions." Get to work on your own writing if you do not agree with my suggesions.
Ouch. I'll grant that you should research editors/journals before submitting to them, but I don't think it's wise to advise writers to become conveyor belts and pump out stories once a month just for the sake of sending them out to one editor. If an editor says no simultaneous submissions, then it's best not to send them a simultaneous submission. However, when I worked in the acquisitions department of a publishing house, we really didn't care if the submissions we received were simultaneously submitted elsewhere. We were bugged when we got manuscripts that had absolutely nothing to do with the material we published, but that was a simple issue of research.
Right
Right; researching the publication is important so you don't waste editors time and your own stamps. And it is very true that more publications are now allowing multiple submissions, as they know writers can't wait the better part of a year just to hear they've been rejected.
When choosing where and how often to submit, I found I had to strike a balance between what was fair to the publication and what was fair to me as a writer. Rejection letters I got trickled in very slowly, over the course of about a year, and a few magazines didn't respond at all.
As for being able to write literary-quality stories at the rate of one a month, that's a feat even Alice Munro would probably find difficult.
I'm surprised Jamie-whatisname could call my writing process "unbelievably slow" when s/he has no idea about the research, re-writing and revising that went into the process. And...the most important thing (for me, anyway) putting aside the story to work on something else, then coming back a while later to look at it with a freshened perspective. That's hard to do when your pumping out stories like canned goods in a factory.
Right; researching the publication is important so you don't waste editors time and your own stamps. And it is very true that more publications are now allowing multiple submissions, as they know writers can't wait the better part of a year just to hear they've been rejected.
When choosing where and how often to submit, I found I had to strike a balance between what was fair to the publication and what was fair to me as a writer. Rejection letters I got trickled in very slowly, over the course of about a year, and a few magazines didn't respond at all.
As for being able to write literary-quality stories at the rate of one a month, that's a feat even Alice Munro would probably find difficult.
I'm surprised Jamie-whatisname could call my writing process "unbelievably slow" when s/he has no idea about the research, re-writing and revising that went into the process. And...the most important thing (for me, anyway) putting aside the story to work on something else, then coming back a while later to look at it with a freshened perspective. That's hard to do when your pumping out stories like canned goods in a factory.
I was just at the web site and they're listening the top 25 winners and finalists for the 2006/2007 Very Short Fiction Award. is this what you were waiting for, Juile?
Ahem--hey, don't confuse me with that other guy...
Right...I like your postings much better!
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I question something about Glimmer Train that many people don’t seem to notice. As far as I can tell, (at least from their “about us” page) is that other than their own contest neither of the sisters have worked in publishing and they don’t appear to be the authors of any books. I don’t believe they’re a scam and at least they are a paying market, but I just thought I’d bring this up as something interesting. Yet again, maybe they have published and just haven’t stated so on their site, but I think that would be important to mention.
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