Publishing: A work in progress

BY ISABELLA RANALLO

I 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 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” that stays with them. “That’s what’s delightful.” An immediate red flag would be writing that spreads hate.

L’Abbé encourages student writers to create work “that’s on par with [the writing] you love most.” Don’t change how you write to fit a particular magazine. Find presses that publish writing similar to yours. Having the right person that will connect with your work is key.

CREW, English, and Film Studies professor Jay Ruzesky has been on The Malahat Review’s editorial board since 1989 and has seen the changeover from paper to electronic submissions. Before the switch, the magazine used to accept only about 3 percent of submissions. While it’s quicker and more efficient for everyone, Ruzesky guesstimated The Malahat Review receives two to three times more submissions since moving online, especially from writers outside of Canada. As a result, he said, “a lot of good material gets rejected.”

Ruzesky doesn’t want the numbers to dissuade hopeful writers. Rejections will happen, “not necessarily because [the writing’s] not good, just that there’s not room for it,” he said. “Someone will accept [your writing] eventually if you keep submitting.”

He recalls how he submitted some thirty poems to literary magazines before he got his first acceptance from Event. He says that those rejections made finally being accepted feel even better.

Ruzesky stresses that momentary recognition shouldn’t be the end goal. How a writer will look back on their writing—published or not—and how they feel about it is more important. At the same time, he believes it’s vital to keep submitting to literary magazines. It sustains the entire writing community. Presses need writers as much as writers need them.

Publishing professor and former editor at Room and Arc Poetry Joy Gugeler said that reading the magazines you submit to is “essential.” She said Room, The Fiddlehead, and subTerrain receive more submissions, making them harder to get into. On the flip side, there is less competition in genre-specific magazines such as On Spec (sci-fi), the “untested territory” of up-andcoming presses, and magazines that publish emerging writers, such as CAROUSEL and The Capilano Review.

“Always [keep] things in rotation,” she advised. The long reading period is one reason for that. On top of that, the acceptance stats can be scary; sometimes only twenty to fifty are accepted out of 1,000 submissions.

“Be aware of the odds,” Gugeler said. “Be a gentle audience to yourself. Don’t count yourself out of the game when initially rejected.”

The key may be simply “[outlasting] your competition […] Lots of people give up,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a magical formula. Just sweat equity.”

There are general guidelines to keep in mind when submitting your work. Send a variety of writing: one to two short stories, or up to five poems, depending on individual magazines’ submission guidelines. Simultaneous submissions (sending the same piece to multiple magazines) are okay; just remember to alert the other presses you’ve submitted to if it gets accepted elsewhere.

Stay organized: remember what you sent where, and when. Submittable, the platform most literary magazines use, does this work for you automatically.

Responses can take up to, or sometimes over, six months. Be patient: submissions are usually read by a volunteer team with their own jobs and responsibilities. If a rejection email is accompanied by feedback, take it seriously, but consideration doesn’t necessitate another round of edits. There isn’t an expectation to reply to rejection emails.

Even though it was still a “no,” there was something new about my latest rejection email from The Malahat Review. It was the first time I had received personalized feedback from any of the presses. Seeing the editor use my characters’ names reignited something within me.

I’ve received another rejection email in the time since I started writing this article, but I’ve also sent out five more submissions. In other words, one more rejection and five more submissions closer to being accepted.

An extended version of this article was originally published in The Navigator Student Press at thenav.ca/2021/10/13/publishing/.

Isabella Ranallo has loved writing ever since age four when she stole a sheet of her mother’s office paper to write the first page of a story about ten kids stranded on a desert island. She is a third-year creative writing student at Vancouver Island University and Arts Editor at The Navigator Student Press.