Friday Speak Out!: Journal Submissions as a Path to Success

By Ellen Birkett Morris

When I publish a book or chapbook, people are often curious about how I built the collection, got the confidence to send it out and built an audience interested in reading it. My answer is by submitting to journals and getting work published there. I’ve used literary journals as a training ground, as motivation, to market test my work, and as a stamp of legitimacy and a way to build my reputation as a writer.

There’s so much I’ve learned reading journals. The more I’ve read, the better I’ve become at reading like a writer, with a critical eye on how a story comes together. When a story really works for you, ask why. How has the writer used word choice and imagery to illuminate character and drive plot? Did they pull you in at the beginning and leave you with a satisfying ending?

When you read like a writer, your journal subscription can become a mini-MFA illuminating craft and showing you new ways to write. Be sure to read the editor’s letter at the beginning of each issue because they often comment on why they picked the stories in that issue. You can get a feel for what editors are looking for at various journals. While styles may vary you can begin to see what published stories have in common, and gain insight into elements of craft and style and where your work might fit best.

Journals can also be a wonderful place to read new work, exciting work. You will see certain writers published over time, see their prose develops and get ideas about which writers you might want to take classes with.

Lit journals can be great motivators. Finding calls for submission and answering those has helped me get to work. Use submission deadlines and calls for themed submission as “assignments” to help fuel your writing. I even keep notes in my calendar about which journals are open when and work to have new material to share when submissions open.

Getting published in journals has offered much needed encouragement as my skills have grown. I began writing as a poet, taking classes, reading a lot of good poetry, and letting myself write badly before I got better. When I got a number of poems together, I mustered the confidence to send my work to journals. I started with smaller journals and got a big boost when one of those lit mags published a poem and nominated it for a Pushcart Prize.

I also “test market” my work through submission. When I think a piece is ready, I send it to five or six journals. If they reject the story, I will take another look and work to re-vision the story. In that way I was able to build enough short stories to develop my 2020 collection Lost Girls. The publisher at my small press could see from my journal publications that I was a serious writer.

Now that I have added novels to the mix, I seek out stories that might be best told in an expanded form. My novel Beware the Tall Grass began as a short story “Landing Zone Albany” published in the journal Upstreet in 2016. I greatly expanded the story and added a second point of view character. Many revisions and eight years later, the novel won the Donald L. Jordan Literary Prize and was published by Columbus State University Press. I am sure my list of journal publications helped me when it came to judging whether I was a serious writer.

Writing is hard, and submitting your work and facing rejection can be painful. Let literary journals educate you, motivate you, deepen your work and cement your reputation as a writer.

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Ellen Birkett Morris’s debut novel Beware the Tall Grass won the Donald L. Jordan Award for Literary Excellence, judged by Lan Samantha Chang. She is the author of Lost Girls: Short Stories, winner of the Pencraft Award. Morris is also the author of Abide and Surrender, poetry chapbooks. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, and South Carolina Review, among other journals. Morris is a recipient of an Al Smith Fellowship for her fiction from the Kentucky Arts Council, and grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Elizabeth George Foundation. Her essays have appeared in The Keepthings, Newsweek, Next Avenue, AARP’s The Ethel, Oh Reader magazine, and on National Public Radio.
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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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