Publishing: A work in progress BY ISABELLA RANALLO
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check my inbox and see a new email from The Malahat Review. They’ve decided not to accept the short story I’d sent for their consideration. They say one of the characters was unrealized. I had cut a significant section building his character at the suggestion of one of my professors. Getting my writing published seems impossible. There are currently eleven “Declined” submissions in my Submittable account, three “Received,” and two “In-Progress.” Zero “Accepted.” I made it my goal to have my writing published this year. I methodically sent my work off to well-known Canadian literary magazines: PRISM International, Room, Contemporary Verse 2, Arc Poetry, filling Station, The Malahat Review, and CAROUSEL. It is still a work in progress. It’s hard not to get disheartened as the politely worded rejection emails pile up. Is my writing not good enough? Or is it good, but not the kind of writing literary magazines are looking for? I should send out a new batch of submissions tonight. I should self-publish and become the next Rupi Kaur. I should give up. This is a frustration likely familiar to hopeful writers. Fortunately, it is also a conundrum Vancouver Island University’s Creative Writing (CREW) professors have experience with. Professor Robert Hilles has published hundreds of poems in literary magazines since 1977. While the first
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wordworks | 2022 Volume I
magazines to showcase his writing are now “defunct,” he has been published in established magazines such as Event from his early career through to today. “I always tell students when they connect with an editor at a magazine to keep submitting their work there,” he said. Hilles doesn’t want writers to be dejected by negative responses. “Expect to be rejected by ten magazines for every one you get accepted by,” he said. “I also tell students to keep submitting. I recommend starting with magazines in your immediate community.” Sonnet L’Abbé, Chair of VIU’s Creative Writing and Journalism Department, first had their poems published when they were a student at York University, in the school’s magazine. After their undergraduate degree, they received many rejections until their work was accepted in Fireweed, a feminist magazine. But even then, L’Abbé worried they were being pigeon-holed as a woman writer, not just a writer. Their mentor, an established writer at Guelph University, sent L’Abbé’s writing to The Malahat Review. L’Abbé was shocked when the magazine accepted it. “Who you know [is] just as important,” they reflected. In 1999, L’Abbé won the Long Poem Prize at The Malahat Review. Without that, they think their first poetry book would not have been possible. L’Abbé is now on the poetry editorial board of The Malahat Review. When reading submissions, they are looking for memorable, “compelling thinking”
