This online edition of THE
WRITER'S DIRECTORY is a free resource for poets and short story writers.
The planned print edition of THE WRITER'S
DIRECTORY is much larger, listing over 500 publications
of every slant and ambit imaginable: from the pulp resurrection Plots With Guns
to the women's mag PMS:
Poem, Memoir, Story. Naturally you would like to reach a readership
of millions including posterity and get paid handsomely. THE WRITER'S DIRECTORY lists The New Yorker
and Harper's and The Atlantic
Monthly as a matter of course. It also includes smaller paying reviews
such as Glimmer
Train and The Threepenny
Review and One Story.
Many such publications claim, however, to publish just 1 or 2 percent of
submissions received. Submitting a work to several editors at once is a
wise practice. Some don't allow it - every listing in THE WRITER'S DIRECTORY indicates the
editor's preference regarding simultaneous submissions, if known - but it
is still wise to send your work to different places in rapid succession.
Online publications figure large in the directory, as in contemporary letters.
Andrei Codrescu's Exquisite Corpse,
for example, has been proudly perverting the course of American literature
since 1983, first in print and now online. Dave Eggers's McSweeney's
routinely pops avant-pop in the avant. Both are read carefully by editors
of major anthologies. The eclectic Nthposition thrives
online, publishing "everything too unusual, marginal or unorthodox to appear
elsewhere." Some online publications are faring so well they have begun
paying contributors - see the Absinthe
Literary Review. The flash-fiction magazine Vestal Review
began online though it is now published in a limited print edition.
All editors urge prospective contributors to read a sample copy before submitting.
Whenever possible THE WRITER'S DIRECTORY
online edition offers a link to an online order form. However we
recognize if editors do not that this is highly impractical. Though one
sample issue of a given publication costs only $5 or so, submitting to 20
or 30 publications as you should if you are serious can become very costly.
Several years of continual rejection will not only wizen your soul with
despair but leave you writhing in penury.
THE WRITER'S DIRECTORY offers this
modest advice: buy debut collections of short stories and poetry chapbooks
by young authors you like. (Later collections tend to contain more solicited
material). Read the acknowledgements and publication histories. For example,
if you buy Bending Heaven by Jessica Francis Kane,
you can glean some idea what the editors of the Michigan
Quarterly Review and the Missouri Review favor, as well as Salt Hill. Or
you might prefer On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction by
Karl Iagnemma, wherein you will learn the tastes of editors at The Paris Review
and Zoetrope:
All Story and elsewhere. The Virginia
Quarterly Review appears in many such books including the two mentioned
above, so you may infer that the editor is exceptionally open to good new
writing. Indeed, the VQR has recently undergone several changes making it
one of the best-paid and most supportive venues around for both new and
established writers (see VQR's FURTHER
NOTES).
Each listing indicates the reading period of the publication in question.
It is indicated nowhere but should be understood that editors who read submissions
at all during summer read more slowly. Also, because editorial guidance
of these publications is subject to frequent change, the names of editors
are not generally listed. Of course the directory user will know better
than to submit to the addresses listed herein at random, and will follow
the SUBMISSION GUIDELINES and FURTHER NOTES links in every entry to determine
other information essential for submitting. Not to do so would be an expensive
and stupid mistake since every publication has its own quirks and fancies,
and failure to conform means rejection.
There are other directories. They are smaller. They are costly. Their online
editions are user-hostile. THE WRITER'S
DIRECTORY online edition is and will remain free and easy to use.
Future improvements may include tech enhancements and new sections such
as GRANTS & FELLOWSHIPS and CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS and so on. Please
with your comments, corrections, and suggestions. Thank you, and good luck.