Tag: Submissions

The High Line extension, before the renovations
Writing About Writing

The Path Ahead

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The High Line extension, before the renovations
Photo by Pamela Weis – The High Line 2013

Writing goals are difficult for me to make. I tend to have multiple projects moving about in my head (and on my computer) at once and I don’t like pinning myself down to anything too specific or rigid. Last year, my only goal was to submit short stories 100 times (In other words, among the 15 or so stories I had ready for submission, I wanted to submit them, in total, 100 times). And I got close. In the end, those subs resulted in four acceptances. Two of those were published last year and two will be published this year. I’m very excited about the two coming up. And just last week I received my first short story acceptance of 2026. Hooray!

So, do I have a goal for this year? Yeah. The same one. I want to hit 100 short story submissions. Some I may only submit five or six times. Others I may submit twenty times. It all depends on the markets that fit the stories, how long they take to respond, whether they accept simultaneous submissions (i.e. sending to more than one publication at a time), how many are acceptances, how many stories I can get into shape, etc. Many variables here. But I got super close last year so I think I can do it this year.

I’d also like to finally pull together a short story collection. And I’d like to get a second draft going of the novel I wrote last year. And I want to get the final draft of the novella I workshopped with my critique group last year. And…yeah. It’s always a lot.

In the meantime, here are details on one of the forthcoming publications: Dim Shores will be releasing Suffering the Other, an anthology that will benefit the Transgender Law Center and National Immigration Project. My story, “An Abomination,” is one of my more philosophical yet grim tales. I’ll be sure to post the link to the anthology when it’s available for purchase.

On a final note, I had a lovely surprise about a month ago. Ellen Datlow, who is one of the great editors of horror fiction, compiles the annual anthology, The Best Horror of the Year. She also publishes a recommended reading list after the final selections for the anthology have been made. I did not make the final anthology, but I did make the recommended list and wow, what a huge honor! It was my 2024 story in Not One of Us Magazine, “Did You Pay for This Room?” I’m proud of that little story. It will definitely show up in my short story collection, once I manage to get it finished (and published).

Writing About Writing

Sweet Acceptance

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Last summer, I got my first short story acceptance. The feeling of “oh my god, they like me” was so overwhelming that it actually kept my ego churning along at a healthy clip for several weeks. Because let’s be real. After several years of submitting stories without any responses of “yes we like this and want to buy it” well, it can be hard to keep the faith. Such a small thing, acceptance for a short story. Just a little story. No big deal. But it was a big deal. It is. It still is. And since then, I’ve had one more acceptance. And now one of those two accepted stories has been published. It exists in the world on a printed page in a tiny journal that only a select group of readers and writers have ever heard of and I could not be more thrilled. I’m so fucking proud of my little story. And I’ll be proud when the other one comes out, which hopefully will be soon. And I’ll keep sending in my little stories to little magazines because this is how it works. Being a writer in today’s world.

Decades ago there were many fewer little magazines. And they were not so little. They had huge audiences. But there was no internet. And maybe fewer writers. Definitely fewer writers in terms of absolute numbers. The whole damn population was smaller. We’ve really outgrown this space we take up. But here we are, still writing. Still trying to get published.

I sometimes envy the writers of “back then” but then I think, no, I would have probably lived a very different life as a woman during those earlier times (pick your pre-internet decade). With fewer choices. Probably with several children that maybe I did not really want. Finding the time to write and submit stories to the few magazines out there would have been a luxury that I could not afford.

So despite the low pay and the vast numbers of other writers and the unlikelihood of ever actually being able to make a living doing this thing I love, I’ll keep going. And if I can just get one of those lovely “yes we like you” notes now and then, I’ll be good.

Oh…here’s where you can find the now-published short story, which, by the way, is called “Did You Pay for This Room?” It’s a horror story about a bitter middle-aged woman on a train and the strange child she meets there, and appears in Not One of Us, Issue #78.

Old door, Tribeca, NYC, 2018
Writing About Writing

Rejections Are Opportunities

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Old door, Tribeca, NYC, 2018
Photo by Pamela Weis – Old door, Tribeca, NYC, 2018

It’s not that it hurts so horribly, getting a rejection, or a “decline,” which I think is a bit softer, but it does sting a tiny bit. I appreciate the kindness of the letters I have received so far, and there have been only three, so it’s not like I am racking up tons of “NO”s just yet, but I know it’s coming. I will inevitably have a huge email folder overflowing with gentle rejections. Hopefully those will be semi-balanced by a handful of “YES”s. I believe they will. Eventually. The doors are not closed to me forever. And there are many doors from which to choose.

Finding the right fit for my writing is one of the most difficult parts of this process. There are so. many. journals. Some have been around for decades, others are new and eager to discover new authors. I have no vanity about where I am published. I’m happy to try whatever feels right. While it would be nice to have a “recognizable name” on my list of credits, that is not why I am doing this. And that is something I need to remember. It’s easy to get caught up in the process of submitting, revising, submitting, revising, submitting. It’s easy to focus on where I should plant my flag. It’s easy to read short stories by others who are published and say, yes that is something like me. Or no, that is nothing like me. Or, how in the hell did that get published? Or, how can I ever write that well? I sometimes have to remind myself that I am doing this–the writing part–because I love it. It makes me feel whole. It is not helpful to compare my writing to that of anyone else’s. And most of the time I am good at pushing those thoughts out of my head, but they are sneaky. A writer will produce a particularly gorgeous sentence or paragraph and I think, damn, I wish I’d written that. Could I have written that? No, of course not. It did not come from my brain. What are the odds of the exact same sentence, phrase, or paragraph coming from more than one person’s brain? I mean okay, if it’s something like, “I ate dinner,” or “Life is hard,” then sure. But if it’s something like, “The nose on that man reminds me of a ski slope I crashed on a few years ago,” or “It’s best to check your vegetables halfway through roasting to make sure you’re not turning them into shriveled bits of carbon,” it’s unlikely anyone else would write those exact same words in that exact same order. I don’t know the odds. I’m not a statistician. I studied theater and anthropology. The point is, we each have our own voice. Part of this process is not only finding that voice, but embracing it. Loving it. Finding comfort and challenge and inspiration in it.

I keep writing a new short story every week, more or less, so I don’t have a lot of time for more revisions and more submissions, but that’s okay. I don’t want to get too caught up in that aspect of being a writer. It’s important, of course, and it is a goal, but it’s not what drives me. I suppose it’s different for everyone, but for me the most important part is just doing it–every day, even if I feel distracted or frustrated or if Shuri cat is crawling all over me and I have to type with one hand. It’s worth it.