Lit Mag News

Welcome to our weekend conversation! Friends! I am in Tennessee this weekend, at the Killer Nashville Writing Conference. Nashville is a place dear to my writer heart because the last time I was here, in 2007, I also came for a writing event. I’d won Second Place in a contest run by The Tennessee Writers’ Alliance. They invited all the winners to attend an outdoor festival and read their work. It was super fun, and a little bit embarrassing. Why embarrassing?

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world. If you’ve submitted to literary journals before, you’ve likely seen them: paid critique offerings that promise editorial feedback on your work. These offerings vary widely in price, and their guidelines aren’t always equally detailed.

Good day! I come with a new editor interview, freshly in the books! Today I spoke with Nicole Lamy, Series Editor of Best American Short Stories. The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of print and online publications. A guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish.

Hey pals, me again. Just a reminder for today’s event: The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of print and online publications. A guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.

Welcome to our biweekly news roundup! Greetings Lit Magstronomers, I discovered a little tech hack this weekend that I wanted to share with you all. Did you know that you can listen to articles on Substack? At the top of many articles there is now a Listen button. So if you are feeling overwhelmed by how much there is to read on this platform, you can save all the articles that interest you.

Welcome to our weekend conversation! I’ve gotten a handful of questions recently. Typically I try to bunch reader questions together into an overall theme, as many small questions often fall under one large category—unfair contracts or delayed publishing schedules or what have you. I can’t quite see a connection among these readers’ questions, though, other than the fact that clear answers do not seem to readily exist. So I’ll handle them one by one.

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world. When I introduce the importance of concise, vivid language to my college oral communication students, I distribute a paper with two 130-word stories on it. “Edit both,” I say. “Then count the number of words left in each.” Typical responses for both are in the low hundreds, though occasionally an intrepid student will break the 75-word mark.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Beyond Lit Mags, a biweekly roundup of select news items from the literary world at large! Greetings Literati, Welcome! The “literary world” is a large and complicated place. Every two weeks I’m going to pluck a handful of stories to examine, which shed light on our times, trends, concerns, and hopefully bring a laugh or two.

Welcome to our weekend conversation! Sad truth: AI-generated writing is everywhere now. It’s in articles on prominent news sites, it’s in YouTube videos, it’s in the comments sections on articles and it’s in many articles here on Substack (in spite of this platform’s recent and controversial installation of Pangram, which enables users to verify whether an article, note or comments are human-written). (Hi, Pangram.

Hallo! I come with a new editor interview, freshly in the books! Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking with Wendy Lesser, Founding Editor of The Threepenny Review. The Threepenny Review is a quarterly review of the arts and society.