Why You Should You Submit Your Work to Literary Journals
Develop a writing plan.
The first time I published anything, it was a short story in a literary journal. This was back in the 1990s when they had journals primarily in print. So, when I got this hard copy Xeroxed bonded set of papers that included my work, I was over the moon.
But then, the reality set in. Probably five people read my story, and I never got any feedback. And I had fifty rejection slips mailed to me before then I was still smarting from.
After that, journals mainly moved online, except for the most prestigious ones on paper and the Internet. Emailing submissions was relatively easy to do and free. So, I got many short stories published in various journals.
After a while, I stopped submitting my short stories.
Part of it was because I was working on my dissertation. I was also freelance writing nonfiction. I had several other passion projects too. I published a memoir in print and as an ebook. I edited two anthologies.
All that time, my husband, a writer, published in numerous literary journals. But it didn’t occur to me to do so until I started publishing on Medium.
