Getting Published: Read Before Submitting

If you’ve been monitoring my 2010 reading list, you probably think I’ve stopped reading. But I’ve had my nose in literary journals these past few weeks.

I’ve not spent much time with lit journals before. Now, the more I read them, the more there seem to be of them. They fold into one another, publicizing each other, feeding upon one another.

I’ve discovered some authors and poets I’d like to read more from (Jim Story, John Garmon), some turns of phrase that will remain lodged in my memory (“we knit ourselves / around the moments we are given” from Richard Levine’s “Near Extinction,” and this from Patrick Carrington’s “Prayer Is Just Another Poker Game You Walk Home from Naked”: “Let’s cut to the chase—miracles are out / of the question. Unfold your hands. Stop / looking up. Hasn’t he had enough / chances to do something huge? Say uncle, / say I’m done with you for good. … / If you must look up, look up / his sleeves.”), and then there was Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s “Guinea Pig” (scroll to the very bottom of the screen) that locked me in by the 5th line and reduced me to tears by the 19th.

I’m no expert on the matter, but after spending so much time with these journals, I have two pieces of advice for Lull readers who are yearning for publication:

1. Make sure the journals you submit your work to publish the kind of writers you want to be associated with. Are you impressed by their writing? Would you be proud to mention their names? Are they the company you’d like to keep? They’re a reflection of you and your readers.

2. Look for journals that are aesthetically pleasing. That is, well-designed and well-produced. Why submit your best work to a production process that’s destined to mangle your words before reaching readers?

Though I prefer all text to be error-free, accidents happen. And I know how they can happen during production. But when every few pages of a publication contain typographical blunders, as did many of the journals I perused, I no longer enjoy reading the content. And I’m baffled: What self-respecting editors or writers would allow their labors of love to be marred by errors? What happened to their standards?

[For the record, Lull is not edited. My posts are an exercise in speed and letting go. Let me know if you start seeing too many goofs and I’ll slow down.]

I found this quote in The Fretboard Journal (even if you know nothing about guitars, this is a tremendous read in a well-executed design), and I believe it’s a mission we should all strive for:

“Approach every task as though it were the moment that will define you.”
—Jol Dantzig, guitar designer

[Art: Mary Cassatt’s Woman Reading in a Garden and Vanessa Bell’s Portrait of Virginia Woolf.]