Q. I really want to start sending some of my poetry out to literary journals to where I might find a home for my work. However, I’m not even really sure where to get started. Any suggestions?
A. The wonderful thing is that you have an entire virtual world of literary magazines at your fingertips on the Web. Even a decade ago, you had to purchase print copies of journals to get a feel for the editors’ preferences. Or, maybe you scoured second-hand bookstores looking for the occasional literary journal that landed on the shelves — that’s what I did as a poor graduate student. And, I picked up some literary magazine gems for 80 cents or less that still sit on my bookshelf.
The not-so-wonderful thing about the Internet though is that it can be a little overwhelming to begin looking for magazines that might be a good match for your work. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
1. Check out PW.org (Poets and Writers magazine) and NewPages.com. They’re veritable treasure troves of links to literary magazine websites, small presses, contests, grant and residency opportunities, calls for manuscripts and chapbooks, and the like. In one shot, I’ll choose five to 10 literary magazines to explore. In doing so, I learn which magazines might be good fits for my work, and which are most likely not. I also have the chance to read published poetry, which introduces me to new poets and also allows me to see what sort of work is being accepted at journals I admire. If I “connect” with a journal, I sign up for its newsletter or blog feed, and then follow it on Facebook and Twitter. Connecting to journals via social media is a great way to stay up to date on contests, deadlines and more.
2. Check out Duotrope.com. Note: This site does come with a nominal fee, but I’ve been using it since late fall and find it invaluable. Basically, Duotrope houses up-to-date information about nearly 5,000 publishers of fiction, poetry and nonfiction, including interviews with lots of journal editors to give you the inside scoop on what they really want from their writers. You’re able to neatly log what journals you’ve submitted to, and then you should update your listings when you receive acceptances or rejections. What’s really neat though, is that when you login your responses – along with everyone else who’s using the site – Duotrope compiles these responses to offer you pretty accurate statistics on the most challenging markets and the ones with the fastest response times, for example, to further help you decide where you want to submit. (Check out Minerva Rising’s entry and interview with Editor Kim Brown on Duotrope.)
3. Sign up for daily doses of poetry. There are sites that curate poems for you daily and some will even deliver them right to your inbox. You can check out PoetryFoundation.org, Poetry.org and VerseDaily.com, for starters. This is another great way to discover new poets – often, if you read their bios, you can see where they’ve been published and perhaps discover some new literary magazines you want to explore in the process.
Photography: Karen Kleis
