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Storytime: Poetry Submission

Hello Poetteers,

In the beginning of my poetry career, I had done a few poetry submissions. After doing those few submissions I saw their appreciation for my work and stuck with their magazines. I eventually stopped doing new submissions. Even after the old ones, I stuck to closed their doors. At the end of 2016, I picked up the poetry submissions again.

All the poetry submissions were to literary journals. I never submitted to small presses. For a while, I didn't find ones that seemed trusting. Once I found a small press it makes me feel better to recognize an author they have published. I may start sending to presses. It's best to find them through Poets Market, P&W, etc.

I’ve heard bad stories about poetry submissions. It never happened to me but then one caught up to me. I found a new literary journal and it was the first one I saw with the theme that it had. It's hard to find literary journals with that theme. I'm not mentioning which journal and theme for the sake of their privacy.

I revised a poem of mine and submitted to them. After emailing me saying my poem has been accepted they promised to send me a link when it will be live. Weeks have gone by and I never got the link. I had to go on their website to search for my poem. After finding it they had a different author listed for the poem. I reached out to them to bring up the misprint to their attention. I heard back quickly and was told she would forward my concern to the main editor. I never heard back. Again I had to search for it myself. They did fix it. And I didn't reach out to thank them because I didn't think they should get one for never having gotten back to me.

What do you think of the situation? 

Stay inspired, 

Fida 

Comments

Crystal Collier said…
Not all publishers are equal. My old adage is to always do your research before submitting. If they're bad, there will be at least a handful of complaints online somewhere.
Fida Islaih said…
I'll remember to do more thorough research next time I submit my poetry. Thank you for reading!

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