Final FINAL October submission on submit my poems to journals (monthly) on 43 Things

RuthG raises a toast for a fruitful 2010!

submit my poems to journals (monthly) (read all 107 entries…)

Final FINAL October submission 2 months ago

Somehow I happened onto another contest that seemed worth trying, & the postmark (or electronic sub) deadline was tomorrow. So even though I was out lateish at an event tonight, I stayed up late afterward to choose a set of poems & submit them.

In the poetry category of this contest, a submission constitutes up to 10 pages of poems. I chose five poems, & in a departure from my normal MO, three of them are being considered elsewhere. This contest permits simultaneous submissions, & the timing should work out fine for notifying its organizers if one of these is accepted in the other venue first.

Now I really really am done with October submissions. Unless some other irresistible deadline pops up . . .

Oct 08, 10:04PM PDT | 20 cheers

Comments:

FloatingPoint

what is the longest you've ever had to wait

to get a response to a literary submission?

Ruth? Anyone? I’m in the 10th month of waiting at two periodicals.

Oct 09, 01:38PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 1 cheer

RuthG raises a toast for a fruitful 2010!

Years ago

there was one journal that NEVER responded to my submission—but I was too shy, & probably too busy, to ever ask them about it.

A few years back I’m pretty sure that another journal took more than a year to send a rejection. I don’t have a record of that because I wasn’t yet using Duotrope.com.

This past year, as I noted, one journal took nearly 10 months to respond, but its answer was yes, for a change.

Are you in Goodreads? I’m in a poets’ group there & will post your question to some folks who submit their work very regularly.

Here, I hope that SallyKitt & SimplyStacey will see this & respond too.

Oct 09, 01:49PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 7 cheers

SimplyStacey Happy New Year! Happy New Decade!

Duotrope

I just learned about its existence the other day!!

I don’t know how long is the longest I’ve ever waited for a response…I am just now getting in the swing of sending poems out again…after years and years of not doing poetry.

Today I submitted online to Virginia Quarterly Review. My first online poetry sub. It’s nice not to spend the postage, but it feels a little weird cause I’m not completely sure it went through…they don’t have a “your submission received” automatic email or anything…

Oct 09, 02:52PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 10 cheers

RuthG raises a toast for a fruitful 2010!

Yay!

Congrats on submitting! I love online submissions, but some of them are definitely more confidence-producing than others.

Glad you discovered Duotrope. It is really the only reason I can be so regular with submissions. I’m too scattered to be consistent with tracking on my own. Plus it has helped me to discover many interesting journals.

Oct 09, 03:05PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 3 cheers

SallyKitt "Action is the antidote to despair" - Joan Baez

I haven't used the tracking much

Sounds like you like it. I used to have a little cross referenced file box with white cards for the journals and pink cards for the stories. sigh.
I haven’t submitted anything in a long while.

Oct 22, 01:34PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 1 cheer

I like it a LOT, - RuthG

To you, Ruth? - SallyKitt

Heh - RuthG

Challenge accepted - SallyKitt

RuthG raises a toast for a fruitful 2010!

Here's a response

from a good poet who submits a LOT:

I had one journal that never answered at all. Emails, both to the journal and to the editor personally. Snailmails ditto. I finally wrote them a formal letter of complaint and withdrew my submission.
In fact, I’ve several times, after sometimes a year or more, and having all queries ignored, officially withdrawn my stuff.

I’ll ask her if she knows how long she has ever waited before actually receiving a reply.

Oct 09, 03:37PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 3 cheers

FloatingPoint

that's all interesting

I think I’ll give them until the end of the long weekend (Canadian Thanksgiving) and then ask again.

I think the main reason I’m so restless about this is that in one of the poems, just before sending it out, I changed a key word in the poem. Since then, I’ve been thinking, “No – mistake. It should be the way it was prior to that impulsive revision.” I’d withdraw it, but what if they actually like it that way, and are considering it? and off my thinking goes in various convoluted loops about how to handle improbable, hypothetical situations. It’s like being 13, for god’s sake.

Oct 09, 04:13PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 2 cheers

RuthG raises a toast for a fruitful 2010!

Here's a reply from someone else

I waited 2 years and received a thanks but no cigar reply. I have been in a few situations similar to the ones described where after what feels like forever there has been no reply, and I’ve withdrawn my submission. I actually had that happen with a submission that was accepted somewhere else about 1 year after I submitted it to the first journal. Even though I was confident they did not want the poem, I still sent them a formal withdrawal.

I’m thinking that you’re right, FP: between 10 months & a year is the time to withdraw one’s poems, or at least to start submitting them elsewhere. If you don’t get an acceptance in the next few days, it’s your chance to weigh that one key word & make a peaceful decision about which one to use when you send out the poem again. The important thing is for YOU to really like the poem as it reads when it’s published—as it WILL be, I have no doubt.

Oct 10, 12:15PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 2 cheers

FloatingPoint

I think it's probably time, then.

I’ll enquire after these poems again, and if they aren’t in a short-listed stack, I’ll withdraw them. It seems a lot more likely that someone has just fallen far behind than that they are short-listed.

Thanks, Ruth, and if you do happen to get more responses, it is interesting to read them.

Oct 10, 12:53PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 2 cheers

Another tale of woe - RuthG

Here's a great response - RuthG

like that 4 month boundary idea - FloatingPoint

You're probably saying "enough already!" - RuthG

Maybe you should submit to Tar River Poetry next! - RuthG

5 days? - FloatingPoint

SallyKitt "Action is the antidote to despair" - Joan Baez

I've also experience the no-response response

Although I did wait a long time for a couple of near-misses to wind their way through the editorial process.

I’ve read that it’s okay to write to them and respectfully double check that they received your submission and that all is well. I’ll bet you sent them an SASE so it’s really not okay for them to just let you hang hang hang.

Oct 22, 01:32PM PDT | Respond to this 1 cheer

razz51

It's a lack of civility

I see it everywhere. A submission deserves an acknowledgment, even if only a form letter. A job app deserves the same. Really, is an email saying, “Thanks, but no thanks” so hard?

Oct 11, 03:50PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 5 cheers

RuthG raises a toast for a fruitful 2010!

Of course you're right

They could even put their standard rejection notice in an e-mail that they BCC to all the rejected poets. No big deal.

Oct 11, 05:27PM PDT | Respond to this 3 cheers

FloatingPoint

OMG! OMG! OMG!

After a long, long string of rejections (after a previous run of mixed acceptances and rejections), a good journal accepted one of my poems.

I’m unspeakably relieved, and less… ashamed!

Oct 27, 10:41AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 7 cheers

RuthG raises a toast for a fruitful 2010!

Oh hurray!!!!!!!

Is this one of those held for more than 10 months?

Yay! I’m so pleased for you!

Oct 27, 10:44AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 2 cheers

FloatingPoint

yes, it was one of the long-term ones!

I could pass out from sheer relief.

I had successfully pried my fingers off hope again and ceased fretting about it after the spasm here. I’d come to the conclusion I was going to stop sending work out as it can be distracting and waste energy that could be going straight to the page and into my writing.

Of course, I am now cringing at every single word choice and phrase and convinced that if I just had more time with this (fully matured) poem, I could make it more worthy. This is more of a general anxiety thing than actually having any specific ideas. It’s a work in the real world, and unlikely to be perfect, and apparently it is good enough. Breathe, self.

Fortunately, the editor didn’t choose the poem where I have definitely decided to revert that one word to a previous version’s.

I’m too happy to work now!

And thank you for your help, Ruth. I really
appreciate it.

Oct 27, 11:12AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 5 cheers

RuthG raises a toast for a fruitful 2010!