Glimmer Train Family Matters Competition Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their Family Matters competition. This competition is open to all writers for stories about family of any configuration. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to Marian Palaia [pictured] of San Francisco, California, who wins $2500 for “Wild Things.” Her story will be published in Issue 106, the final issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

2nd place goes to Peter Parsons of Riverside, California, who wins $500 for “Elvis, Alive and Limping.” His story will also be published in Issue 106 of Glimmer Train, increasing his prize to $700.

3rd place goes to Emily Lackey of Amherst, Massachusetts, who wins $300 for “Trust.” Her story will also be published in Issue 106 of Glimmer Train, increasing her prize to $700.

Here’s a PDF of the Top 25.

Deadlines soon approaching!

Final Fiction Open: February 28
This is Glimmer Train’s final Fiction Open. First place wins $3000 plus publication in the journal, and 10 copies of that issue. Second/third: $1000/$600 and consideration for publication. This category has been won by both beginning and veteran writers - all are welcome! There are no theme restrictions. Word count generally ranges from 3000 – 6000, though up to 28,000 is fine. Stories may have previously appeared online but not in print. Click here for complete guidelines.

Final Very Short Fiction Award: February 28
This is Glimmer Train’s final Very Short Fiction Award. First place winning $2000 plus publication in the journal, and 10 copies of that issue. Second/third: $500/$300 and consideration for publication. It’s open to all writers, with no theme restrictions, and the word count range is 300 – 3000. Stories may have previously appeared online but not in print. Click here for complete guidelines.

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2018 Zone 3 Literary Awards

Each year, Zone 3 considers all poems, essays, and stories accepted for publication in the journal for their Literary Awards. Zone 3 editors choose the winners, each of whom receives $250 and publicaiton.

The fall 2018 issue includes the fiction and nonfiction winners, while the poetry winner was published in the spring 2018 issue.

Poetry
"Immigrant Prayer" by Ethan Chua [pictured]

Nonfiction
"Mea Culpa, My Monster" by Carrie Shipers

Fiction
"Halleujah Station" by Randal O'Wain

The reading period for submissions and the Literary Awards is August 1 - April 1.

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Giving Up on Lit Mags

I often run across commentary related to writers' frustrations with submitting to literary magazines, running into the Wall of Rejection, and rants against The Establishment perceived in many long-stading publications/academically-connected journals. Often, new publications are started by writers attempting to break down the barriers for other writers, promising to give consideration to those totally-unknown authors as well as those who do not come with a highly-acclaimed workshop/colony/MFA pedigree. Stick around literary publishing long enough, and the repetitions become easy to sort, but nonetheless, heartfelt and real for those going through them for the first time.

Anette Gendler, in her post "The Year I Gave Up Submitting to Literary Magazines" in Women Wrters, Women['s] Books, took a look at her publishing record a few years back, "As 2015 drew to a close, I reviewed my submissions log and noted that 25 submissions to literary magazines had yielded zero acceptances." After considering the usual self-blame ("not enough effort, I should have submitted more"), Gendler considered her record for the years prior: 32 submissions/0 acceptnaces; 68 submissions/0 acceptances.

For many reading this, I know the first thought: Maybe she's just not that good.

Consider her previous publication credits: Bella Grace, Washington Independent Review of Books, Tablet Magazine, Thread, Wall Street Journal, and, for a period of time before this 'dry spell': Flashquake, South Loop Review, Under the Sun, Bellevue Literary Review, Kaleidoscope, Natural Bridge, and Prime Number Magazine.

She's been published. She just wasn't seeing the results that would encourage her to continue banging her head against that Wall. Yet, she asked herself, "Could I abandon the mothership?" She did, and instead, "I focused on the publications whose work I truly admired and loved to read, and that’s where I kept submitting."

The result? "It’s not that suddenly all my work gets accepted, but the rate is much higher," Gendler writes. "I now look at my submissions in terms of publications I want to get into. I think about what I could write for  them."

After reading Gendler's commentary and seeing it had been a few years, I wondered, "Where is she now?" with her stance on lit mags, so I reached out to her to ask.

"My approach has pretty much stayed the same since then," she wrote, "I don't submit to literary magazines anymore. Not doing so was essentially a course correction for me. Literary magazines are just not the right market for my work, even though I write literary nonfiction and memoir."

As well, since that time, she has published her first book, Jumping over Shadows: A Memoir. Ironically, a lit mag editor, having read her post, asked her to submit something for their journal. She did, and they published The Flying Dutchman, an excerpt from her book.

 

 

 

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Chattahoochee Review :: Lost and Found

The Fall/Winter 2018 issue of The Chattahoochee Review is themed on "Lost & Found." Editor Anna Schachner [pictured] writes in the editorial: "In many ways, this issue's special focus of 'Lost and Found' is an homage to the writing process itself - the many slivers of ourselves we concede when we write and  the inevitable discovery via writing. That emphatic 'and' is important because it suggests an organic progression: that to lose something is to also create space to find something else, not just in writing, but in our thoughts, our expectations, our relationships. So many of the submissions we received seemed to concur, as did so many of the pieces ultimately chosen and featured herein."

Contributors include Cooper Casale, Margaret Diehl, John Hart, Lindsay Stuart Hill, Raina Joines, Timothy Krcmarik, David Rock, Sophia Stid, Brian Phillip Whalen, Jennifer Wheelock, Erica S. Arkin, John Brandon, Kieran Wray Kramer, Michele Ruby, Kevin Wilson, Ginger Eager, Jennifer Key, Caitlin McGill, Marilyn F. Moriarty, Raul Palma, and Rachel H. Palmer.

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Good Story Checklist?

The Greensboro Review Editor Terry L. Kennedy writes in his introduction to issue #104 about trying to determine what makes "a good story" and the idea of creating a checklist for submissions:

"A checklist for 'a good story' might make my editorial deliberations easier, but it wouldn't be good for my staff or for the magazine. And I'm not so sure readers really want exact restrictions on a story, not anymore. What if a story has a memorable setting but there's no plot, nothing happens? A la Seinfeld. Where does that leave us? There are too many intangible aspects with which to blur the lines. . . I guess what I'm working my way around to is this: it's not that I'm incapable of creating a checklist as that I don't really believe, in my editorial heart of hearts, that I should. In the end, the best stories might just be the ones that do the things we thing a short story writer shouldn't attempt. But by doing them well, they win our hearts and make us shout, 'This one; this is the one!'"

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Defining Creative Nonfiction, Or Not

In her editorial to The Fiddlehead's Autumn 2018 issue, "Whatever We Need It To Be," Creative Nonfiction Editor Alicia Elliott opens the publication's first "all creative nonfiction issue" with a story about presenting on a panel with three other CNF writers. Asked the opening question: What is Creative Nonfiction?, "All four of us exchanged a look. I laughed nervously, as I tend to do when I’m not sure how to answer a question. The seconds passed."

It's not that they weren't prepared for the question, Elliott explains, or hadn't joked about the challenge of defining the form. "Unfortunately," she tells readers, "I still don’t have a very good definition."

But, like so many of us, she goes on to share, "Ever since I fell into Creative Nonfiction a few years ago, I’ve been enthralled by the genre’s possibility, its malleability, the way it requires you to push beyond what’s in front of you and see what’s hidden underneath."

This all-CNF issue, with works chosen from over 600 submissions should indeed provide us all with a broadened understanding of CNF, as Elliott hopes, but at the same time, "ironically, will probably make defining CNF as gloriously fuzzy for you as it is for me. That's okay, though. It's part of the genre's charm."

Read the full essay here.

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