Submission Season

It’s autumn, officially.

Unofficially, it’s submission season. This time each year literary journals open their gates to accept a flood of poems and stories from hopeful writers.

It’s the best of times (publication!) and the most trying of times (rejection!). Lots of hurry, lots of wait.

I like poet Bruce Cohen’s take on the submission process. It’s funny, telling and true:

I wish I could tap together my ruby red L.L. Bean slippers and post questions to a Wizard of Oz Poetry Editor so I could unravel the esoteric truths and mysteries about what factors, what esthetics, he really considers when deciding whether or not to accept my poems, what the deal breakers are. . . .

Read the full essay (from Rattle, Spring 2009) here.