Submitting Short Stories to Literary Magazines

Before You Send Anything

The moment you finish a short story, there is a particular itch: the urge to send it out into the world that very afternoon. Resist it for a day or two. The writers who place work most consistently are rarely the fastest off the mark; they are the ones who read the guidelines properly, prepare a tidy manuscript, and then post it off with quiet confidence.

Literary magazines receive hundreds of submissions a month, often read by a handful of volunteers on their commutes. Your job is not to impress them with cleverness but to make their job easy. A story that arrives in the right format, at the right length, with a courteous covering note, has already cleared one small hurdle before a single sentence has been judged.

Read the Guidelines as Though They Matter

They do matter, and they are usually short. Every magazine publishes a submissions page, and almost every rejection that stings has its roots in something that page already told you. Read it twice, then read it again with your story open beside you.

• Word count. If the window is 1,000 to 4,000 words, a 4,300-word story is not "close enough".
• Simultaneous submissions. Many places welcome them, provided you withdraw immediately if the story is taken elsewhere. Some explicitly forbid them. Find out which kind you are dealing with.
• Formatting. Font, spacing, and whether they want your name on the document or removed for anonymous reading. Follow both instructions exactly — the second is easy to forget.
• Reading periods. Plenty of magazines close for months at a time. Sending in July to a journal that opens in September wastes everyone's energy, including yours.
• Themes and issues. If they are assembling a themed issue on coastlines or insomnia, your story about neither can wait for the general window.

Reading two or three back issues before submitting is not strictly required, but it is the single best way to know whether your work belongs there. If your gentle domestic story would sit oddly beside their taste for experimental flash, save yourself the wait.

The Cover Letter and the Clean Manuscript

A cover letter should be brief, warm, and utterly free of apology. Three or four sentences will do: the title, the word count, a line about previous publications if you have them, and a word of thanks. Editors are not looking for a performance. They are looking for a professional who has done their homework.

Address it to the fiction editor by name if the guidelines give one. If not, "Dear Editors" is perfectly acceptable. Do not explain what the story means — if it needs explaining, the manuscript is not ready. Do not mention that your mother loved it, and do not ask for feedback in the first email.

Formatting is where care shows. Use a standard serif font at a readable size, double-space the body, and put the title, your name, and your word count at the top of the first page. Indent new paragraphs, or space between them, but be consistent. Read the whole thing aloud once before you attach it; the ear catches repetitions the eye skips over.

Tracking Submissions Without Losing Heart

Once the story is out, keep a simple record. A spreadsheet works, and so does a notebook kept beside the kettle. Note the magazine, the date sent, the expected response time, and the outcome. When three months have passed, you will know exactly where you stand and can decide whether a polite query is reasonable.

Waiting periods are long, and that is normal rather than personal. Six to twelve weeks is common; some journals take longer. Use the waiting time well. Start the next story. Send this one somewhere else if simultaneous submissions are permitted. The writers who eventually find homes for their work are usually the ones with several pieces circulating at once, so no single rejection carries too much weight.

Building a Cosy Corner for the Work

Submission is a strange, hopeful business, and it goes better from a comfortable chair. There is a real pleasure in arranging a small home library that supports the writing life — a shelf of the magazines you admire, spines out, close to hand. Reading the journals you submit to is not homework; it is the warmest kind of research.

Keep your submission records, a favourite pen, and a stack of recent issues within arm's reach. When a rejection arrives, and some will, sit in that corner with a cup of tea and read one poem or one short story you love. Then send the piece out again. The ritual matters more than the sting.

Nothing here guarantees publication. What it does guarantee is that when an acceptance finally lands, you will have earned it properly — with patience, good manners, and a manuscript that respected the reader from the first line to the last.