Virtual LitSpot: Duotrope's Digest - Where Writers Can Find and Track Markets for Submissions

I've been very impressed with Duotrope's Digest, a site that features fiction and poetry markets and allows you to track your submissions online. From what I've been able to tell with some experimenting, the site includes every fiction and poetry market that's listed in 2010 Writer's Market Deluxe (Writer's Market Online), plus more markets. It includes both paying and non-paying markets. Its online submission tracker is very helpful and reduces the amount of time I have to spend making spreadsheets to track where I've sent what. I can easily find out how often a market publishes, how long they take to respond, how much they pay, etc. The site makes it easy to keep track of deadlines and closed versus open submissions periods, and it reminds you when it's time to follow-up with a market because their usual response time has passed.

The only criticism I have of the site is that it doesn't include non-fiction markets (I guess that would get very cumbersome with all the how-to websites and magazines that run cooking articles, etc.-- but I'd think it could at least include markets that accept creative non-fiction/ essays, for those of us who write in these creative genres). It also doesn't include contests, I guess because there's usually a submission fee and it doesn't include markets that you have to pay a reading fee to submit to. So, for instance, if you look for Glimmer Train Stories on Duotrope right now, it will show it as "Temporarily Closed" although it is open for its fiction contest.

Overall I think Duotrope is tremendous resource to help writers submit and publish their work, and I can't believe it's free! I plan to donate to it soon since I use it so much and I find it to be such a valuable service. I haven't bought the 2010 edition of 2010 Writer's Market Deluxe (Writer's Market Online) yet because I haven't needed it (except that I'll probably need it for creative nonfiction markets) -- so maybe I'll donate the $40 that Duotrope saved me on that book!

Click here to go to Duotrope's Digest

Or, buy Writer's Market 2010:

Persistance Pays Off: One Story Sent to Twenty-Five Markets!

In the Fall 2003 issue of Glimmer Train Stories, writer Carol Roh-Spaulding is interviewed. She had this to say about her first published story:

"I sent the first story I wrote to the Beloit Fiction Journal. I actually sent it out to twenty-five different places... I knew there was no way more than one place would want the story. And they took it--that was my first publication and it felt wonderful."

Wow. I'm proud of myself when I send a piece out to five literary journals at once. Now I'm going to start aiming high like Carol Roh-Spaulding. It's inspiring that her first piece was published, and I know it wasn't beginner's luck, but good writing and persistence.

Boloit Fiction Journal doesn't even pay. I think I'll stop limiting my first-round of submissions to journals that pay. Most of them don't pay much anyway, and I think that seeing something I've written in print is satisfaction enough.

Virtual LitSpot: Literary Rejections on Display

Feeling down about a recent rejection letter? Visit Literary Rejections on Display, where misery loves company. This blog features real-life rejections from both famous and aspiring writers and features everyone from Kathryn Stockett, whose best-selling novel The Help was rejected by almost 60 agents, to the blogger himself. If this site doesn't lift your spirits when you're feeling like you'll always be met with rejection and never the ever-elusive acceptance, then, sorry but I don't know what will!

Back on the Submission Circuit

I've heard back from three of the five literary journals where I sent my creative non-fiction piece "Coach K" in September. All three were rejection slips. My fiance suggested changing the name of the piece because apparently there's a well-known college football coach or something named Coach K and it might be confusing. I also thought I could shorten it some (from about 5,000 to 4,000 words) and that that might improve its chances. A few days ago I sent out the latest version of the piece, called "Cadence," to three more literary journals. I'm crossing my fingers.

I also finished a short story called "The Olympia Fiasco," about the wedding industry, and entered it into a fiction contest and submitted it to one other literary journal. Soon I plan to send it to many more places.

I was reading an author interview in Glimmer Train Stories with Carol Roh-Spaulding (it was an old issue -- Fall 2003) who said that her first short story was published, but she thinks it's because she sent it to twenty-five different markets!

Author/ Attorney Louis Auchincloss Dies

The New York Times reports that Louis Auchincloss died on Tuesday night at the age of 92, due to complications from a stroke. His life was dedicated to literary pursuits despite a time-consuming "day job." Auchincloss had two careers: he was a full-time lawyer and a prolific writer. In his legal career, he specialized in trusts and estates for wealthy clients. In his writing career, he chronociled the lives of wealthy elitists living in mid-twentieth century Manhattan. Both careers reflect his life: he himself was a man of money and power who lived his entire life in New York City.

The NYT article discusses how Auchincloss managed to publish "more than 60 books of fiction, biography and literary criticism" despite being a full-time attorney for most of his life. "I think my secret is to use bits and fractions of time," Auchincloss is quoted as saying in an interview. "I trained myself to do that. Anybody can do it. I could write sitting in surrogate’s court answering calendar call."

Auchincloss' father was an attorney, but when used to visist his law offices, he said he was filled with gloom by "those dark narrow streets and those tall, sooty towers." He went to college at Yale, where he published stories in the literary journal, of which he later became President. He "yearned for a literary life." His first book was rejected by Scrivners and he decided to become a lawyer like his father, thinking that "a man born to the responsibilities of a brownstone bourgeois world could only be an artist or writer if he were a genius." He went to the University of Virginia Law School and then joined the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell.

He joined the Navy during World War II, which is when he wrote his first novel that was to be published. The Indifferent Children was published by Prentice-Hall in 1947, at which time Auchincloss was practicing again with Sullivan & Cromwell. He published this book under a pen name, Andrew Lee, because his mother thought it was "vulgur" and would destroy his legal career. It met with success, however, so he kept writing and publishing. It seems that Auchincloss' pursuit of writing was in some way tied to external rejection or acceptance, because he was dissuaded early on with the rejection of his firt novel, but enthused by the success of his first published novel, which spurred on many other short stories, essays, and novels.

He took three years off from practicing law to dedicate himself to writing, and then went to work for another Wall Street firm, Hawkins, Delafield & Wood. He wrote that at some point he stopped thinking of himself as a lawyer or a writer, and was "simply doing what I was doing when I did it." His novel The Education of Oscar Fairfax, published in 1995, is partly autobiographical and is a story about a "well-born Social Register type who abandons his dream of a literary career to join his father’s law firm."

I have been making it a habit to write for at least an hour (I aim for an hour and a half) every day, before or after work. If Auchincloss could write all of this while also being a lawyer, a husband, and serve on several committees for the city of New York, I can certainly keep writing. Next time I want to complain about being both a lawyer and a writer, I'll look to Louis Auchincloss for inspiration!

A Biography of Louis Archincloss:

Wake Up Call: First Rejection Letter for Coach K Arrives

I've been waiting to hear back from the five literary journals to which I sent my personal essay/memoir piece "Coach K" almost a month ago. I received an email from Creative Nonfiction inviting me to view their website and receive a discount on a subscription. Although it was obviously a form email, it included my name and the title of my piece, which gave me hope. It said they take up to six months to respond, though, so I went back to waiting.

Every day I check the mail to no avail. Except last night, after getting home from a bar with my fiance and one of our friends, my fiance checked the mail for me and there was an envelope from Alaska Quarterly Review. Sure enough, it was a rejection letter. :( A standard form one stating that my work does not meet their needs at this time. Someone did write "Re: Coach K" and "With Thanks" on it, which was a nice little gesture, but I didn't even notice that until this morning I was so bummed, which the alcohol didn't help, so I just tossed the letter to the side and pouted. I just wanted to go lay in bed and cry. I had to smile, try to ignore it (I did whisper to my fiance that I got a rejection letter -- he looked genuinely surprised and crestfallen, which was sweet, and then he said something funny like "Those fools are stupid for not recognizing your talent!") and play Beatles Rock Band.

Lately I'd been thinking more and more about whether I could ever leave the law to be a writer, and if so, when. I had been joking wih my sister while I was in PA over the weekend that if I were hit by a car and bleeding to death on the side of the road, I wouldn't think about my legal career, accomplishments, downfalls, etc. at all. I'd think of my family and friends and then I'd think, "I never got to publish a book! I didn't spend enough time writing!" We were laughing and she was going, "Help me officer, I'm bleeeeeeeeding and I just want to publish a book!" But then on Wednesday after I returned home I was actually involved in a scary car accident in which my tire blew out on the highway on the way from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. I thought I was going to die but I walked away completely fine. I called my sister and told her we shouldn't joke about me being in a car wreck! But since then I've had this eery feeling, like life is trying to tell me something.

Of course, last night, when I received the rejection letter, my first thought was, "Good thing I have a good day job!" It would be really hard, if not downright impossible, to rely on writing to pay the bills. And I do enjoy my job and the law. So maybe life is trying to tell me to continue to write and pursue publication as much as I can in my spare time (which is very limited) while being grateful for my legal career during most of my waking hours. ????

On the other hand, I know that rejection is just a part of the writer's life. Did I really think that the first literary journal that I sent my piece to was going to say, "wow, what a literary genius, we must publish her immediately!" I guess I kind of did. ;) But that obviously isn't very realistic.

For laughs, I enjoyed this cartoon on the stage of rejection that writers go through: From Writer, Rejected

The first of the "Daddy Issues" pieces - submitted!

I went through a period, last winter and spring, where it seems that all I could write were essays about my father! Even when I tried to write about a totally different topic, such as moving to Albuquerque or my brother's engagement, or a totally different person, such as my mother, there was my dad, popping his head into my piece! So I decided to just go with it and perhaps I can eventually compile all of these stories into a book called "Daddy Issues," or something!

The short memoir pieces featuring my father seem to flow easily, and everyone in my writer's group always likes them. So I just revised one of the pieces, called "Coach K," which deals with my relationship with both my father and running, and decided to send it off for publication. It's nearly 5,000 words long and includes a lot of personal snippets. I've been toying with taking out a lot of the personal stuff and focusing on the running aspect of it--how I was pushed into running by my father at a young age, and always hated it, but now as an adult, I love it--and sending it to Runner's World, one of my favorite commercial magazines, or some other magazines for runners or women, that might pay pretty well. But, as the hostess of my writer's group bluntly pointed out (she's pretty blunt, that's what we love about her!), it's not like I'm a starving writer who needs to live off my writing, so why not send it like it is to literary journals that don't pay much? In its present state, that's where it would best fit, because it's more of a memoir, and more about me, than it is a piece about running, for any other runner out there.

I was reading a blog yesterday that said something like, you should always send out your piece to at least 5 markets at once. So, I chose five literary journals from Writer's Market--mostly alphabetically, narrowed downs to the ones that accepted creative non-fiction--and off I sent my first piece about my dad that I'm trying to get published. I'm crossing my fingers!! And working on the next piece.