Advice for Those Submitting to Literary Magazines

As of today, I have published one story, and that was in a university literary magazine. I have no idea why this happened. If you go to the menu on the right hand of your screen, you will find a link to "Passerby." Maybe you can answer that question.

Meanwhile, The Irish Times published How to get published in a literary magazine: ‘Whatever excites you will excite us’, an interview with Lisa McInerney, editor of the Stinging Fly.

 My work is wonderful, but what are they actually looking for. What if I don’t fit in?

People “sending us something they think we want to read, rather than something they wanted to write”, is a common mistake, says McInerney. “Lack of passion or conviction is easily spotted.” Instead she says, “We’re keen to read new stories, novel extracts, poems and essays, but we have no restrictions on subject, theme or voice. Whatever excites you will excite us. I’m drawn to a beautifully-crafted sentence in a piece of work I couldn’t have written myself.”

Got it. I think… Be passionate, be myself, craft beautifully. Is there an ideal length?

“We always say a piece is as long or as short as it needs to be,” says McInerney, which isn’t as concrete a piece of advice as you might be looking for. “An unusually long piece might take up the same amount of pages as work from two or three other writers,” she continues. “So we’d need to be sure it’s worth the weight.”

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