John Woodington The official site for the author.

Black Warrior Review RejectionPosted by John Woodington on August 10th, 2010

Contrary to the ominous, depressing tone of the title of this post, I’m relatively pleased with the rejection letter I received from Black Warrior Review for a short story of mine.  It appears as follows:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe this is the standard rejection slip from BWR.  This is the next step up.  “We were interested in it,” they say.  And I say yay.

Unless someone replies and says that this is in fact the standard rejection slip.  Then I will look very sad.

Or maybe scared, as can be seen in this picture of me looking outside at the pounding rain:

Updating Submissions in ProgressPosted by John Woodington on May 28th, 2010

So we’ll try a little experiment here.  In my last post I mentioned that I had updated my short story “Memorial” into a much better story, and was subsequently bummed out that I had already submitted the non-updated version to many of my top tier locations.  13 of 17 of those submissions have been rejected, but 4 are still out there in review.  So I thought I might query those four places and see if they would let me send them the updated version of the story, since they had not yet reviewed the initial non-updated version I had sent them in March.  Those venues are:

• American Literary Review
• American Short Fiction
• Black Warrior Review
• The Carolina Quarterly

I emailed these four fine literary magazines asking if I could send them the new version of the story.  I’ve never tried this before, so I really don’t know what to expect.  They could all shoot me down, or they could say, “ah, what the heck, send us the new draft.”  I’m hoping for the latter, obviously.

edit 6-1-2010: Black Warrior Review allowed me to submit the updated version of the story, and so now I like them more.  Updated story sent.

edit 6-3-2010: American Literary Review said I could resubmit, but I’d have to wait until October to do so, since their reading period is currently closed, and anything I sent to them now, even a submission update, would automatically be sent back by their interns.  That’s cool.  I had them withdraw the original submission I’d sent them and will send them the updated one in October, as long as it has not already published by then.

Jasper Tilson is Riding the Slow TrainsPosted by John Woodington on April 18th, 2010

My short story “Jasper Tilson” is now published at Slow Trains.  You can read it by clicking the following link:

Jasper Tilson at Slow Trains

I’m really excited to finally see this story in print.  I have to thank Slow Trains for publishing it.  I have to thank Deanna Lepsch and my wife for reviewing it not too long ago, and giving it the last few nudges to get it publication ready.  Finally, I must thank Allyson Loomis and everybody else in my 2006 Creative Writing Seminar at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire for reading and critiquing the initial draft.  This story would be sitting in a computer folder right now if not for the help of all of these people.

Thank you.

Jasper’s Galleys Are Proof(ed)Posted by John Woodington on April 13th, 2010

Just a quick post to let y’all know that I received the galleys from Slow Trains for my short story “Jasper Tilson,” which will be online in a week or so, and it looks very nice.  For those of you who can’t imagine what galleys would look like for a story that will appear on the Internet, basically it is just the formatted web page that the story will appear on when it is released.  Slow Trains sends me a hyperlink to the as-yet-unpublished page, and I go read through it, let them know if there are any mistakes or corrections (I didn’t find any) and they they make any suggested changes (if they want to), and then it gets published onto the Internet.  Pretty cool process.  Usually I just get an email (sometimes not) that a story is now online, without giving me any chance to review it.  So thank you Slow Trains for at least making me feel a little like a real author by giving me the chance to proofread my story once more before it goes out to all the people of the world.

I’ll link to the story here when it is published.

By the way: why do they call the proofs of a story “galleys”?  That makes me think of seafaring adventures.  Let me know if you know so we can all know.

Getting Published in The New Yorker is not Impossible (mathematically)Posted by John Woodington on December 4th, 2009

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my reference to getting published in The New Yorker magazine (or, more accurately, not getting published in The New Yorker).  It seems a lot of people want to know what the odds are of this particular magazine actually accepting a short story or poem for publication from a writer who can not be recognized just by their last name (i.e. Wolff, Updike, etc.)  So I thought I’d do some digging.

On the wonderful Duotrope’s Digest website, they have a robust list of various statistics on every imaginable literary publication, and The New Yorker is, of course, one of them.  Various stats include genres accepted, length, payscale, response time, and the types of responses (acceptions, rejections, non-responses).  Since we’re interested in the acceptance rate, we’ll skip to that.

As of today, Duotrope has 289 responses in the last year from people who have submitted to The New Yorker.  Here’s the data (courtesy, of course, of Duotrope’s):

Responses: (80.97 %)
Acceptances: 0.00 % (No publication has a 0% acceptance rate. This data is based on response reports sent to Duotrope’s Digest, and we have not received reports of any acceptances yet. If one acceptance were reported, the acceptance rate would be 0.34 %.)
Rejections: 80.62 % (65.8 avg. days per rejection) | 14.59 % personal, 66.09 % form, 19.31 % unspecified
Rewrite Requests: 0.35 % (50 avg. days per rewrite request)
Non-Responses (19.03 %)
Lost / Never Responded: 15.22 % (287.9 avg. days before reporting submissions as lost or never responded)
Author Withdrawals: 3.81 % (125.1 avg. days per withdrawal by author)

I know, I know.  It doesn’t look good.  A 0.00% acceptance rate sure gives the impression that getting a short story or poem accepted by The New Yorker is literally impossible.  We know, however, that this is not the case, since they publish over fifty short stories a year, and even more poems.  It is worth noting that Duotrope’s lists The New Yorker as both an “Extremely Challenging Fiction Market” and an “Extremely Challenging Poetry Market.”  But I’m sure we could’ve guessed that, right?

So where does The New Yorker get it’s fiction and poetry from to fill its fifty plus issues a year?  Ginny Wiehardt over at the Fiction Writing section of About.com writes, “The New Yorker publishes only one story per issue (devoting one issue per year to new fiction), and it’s safe to say that pretty much every ambitious American writer tries them at some point or other. And while The New Yorker does take chances on new writers, it tends to draw from a stable of established writers, like Munro and Murakami.”

So being an established writer helps.  From personal experience, I have an author friend who, after having a story published in Glimmer Train, was able to land a literary agent, who in turn said that they would push to get one of this author’s stories published in The New Yorker in order to help promote a new short story collection by this author.  So having an agent might help (though in this case, in fact,  it did not help, since they were unable to get a story published in The New Yorker, despite the fighting powers of the agent).

Over at The Stranger, they have an interview with Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor at The New Yorker, in which she talks about the review process that the fiction staff at The New Yorker follows when deciding which stories to publish.  Also, she talks about why they select the stories they do.  She admits that people complain that The New Yorker publishes a lot of stories by the same writers (Munro, Murakami, Saunders), but she also makes a good point, that those writers are really good writers, and they are writing at the top of their powers.

Then, there’s an interesting an funny online diary of how one merry band of poets was able to get something published in The New Yorker, though it involved infiltrating the magazine’s actual New York office….

So basically you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle with this one.  I think the key to getting published in The New Yorker is the same as the key to getting published anywhere.  They want established writers, so make yourself established.  You don’t have to win the World Series the first time you pick up a bat.  Just be glad to bat .301 in little league, and you’re on your way.  Work your way up by starting with smaller, lesser known publications, and give it time.  You don’t need to be in The New Yorker today, or this year, or even in the next ten years.  It might take longer than that, and you need to be patient.

It’s also worth noting that The New Yorker is looking for literary fiction.  Your awesome short story or poem about a bodice-ripping druid is likely not going to be accepted (no matter how good it is) due to the subject matter.

Follow the guidelines I put forth in a previous post, and use those to get yourself some publishing credits.  Maybe someday in the future, The New Yorker will give you a call and offer you a bajillion dollars for your non-bodice-ripping-druid story.  Well, maybe more like $3000.00, but still.

How to Publish Short Fiction and PoemsPosted by John Woodington on November 17th, 2009

I think there is a misconception around the writing world when it comes to the sensitive topic of publishing.  I’m talking specifically here about the publishing of short stories and poems, and not novels, which have a different, lengthier process, with multifaceted ways to get to the end goal.  In the world of publishing short stories and poems, becoming published lies solely in the hands of the author, and does not take an editor or publicist or agent to get a story into a publishing house. In fact, my previous literary agent said she would specifically not take charge of submitting short fiction for me, as there was very little money in it for her, and that she would only handle novel-length work. This makes sense, since her cut of my sales was 15%, and a top sale in short fiction would be $5000.00 at the very most, leaving her with a profit of only $750.00 for her work.

So the burden (and ultimately the success) of getting a short story or poem published lies with you, the author.  And it is not impossible.  Trust me.  I mean, yes, it’s impossible to get published in The New Yorker, but it’s possible to get published anywhere else.  You only need three things to get your short story or poem published:

1) Dedication
2) Consistency
3) A handy dandy submissions chart

I published my first piece of fiction when I was twenty.  It was wonderful and exciting, and it happened because I followed through on the list above.  I should tell you that this list was imparted to me through some wonderful writing instructors, and is not entirely of my own invention.  Here’s what each point means, and why you need to do it to get published:

1) Dedication – This is the most important (and therefore #1) item on the How To Get Published List.  You need dedication, and eve before that, I suppose, you need a realistic outlook.  The truth of the matter is, you are not going to be published right away (in all likelihood) and it is going to take time, and a little bit of effort.  And everyone goes through it.  You are not the only person to get a rejection letter (or, in the case of The New Yorker, a rejection sentence).  Take pride in them, save them in a folder, and realize that they are the paving stones that make up the path to publication.  You have to remain dedicated in the face of failure.  I have a story in submission right now that has been rejected over forty times in various versions and drafts, but I keep sending it out, because I feel it is a good story, and deserves to be read by others.

2) Consistency – This is important because it can save you a lot of time and a lot of indecision.  Be consistent in your submissions.  If a story gets rejected, send it right back out to the next place.  When you write out a query letter, perfect it ahead of time and use the same one for all of your submissions.  My entire query letter body reads like this:

Enclosed is my short story “[Title]” for publication consideration in [Name of Magazine]. The story is 4000 words long. A SASE is enclosed, and I look forward to hearing from you.

You don’t need more than that.  When I get a rejection letter, I drop it in my thick file of rejection letters and send out the story to the next place within 15 minutes.  The key is to keep your work out there.  You can’t get published unless you’re submitting your stories/poems regularly.  You have to assume that you will be rejected numerous times before your piece finds a venue that wants your work.  Keep sending it out, and don’t despair when The New Yorker says “No.”

3) A handy dandy chart – This is, for me, the most valuable item on my computer, aside from the stories themselves.  The chart consists of a list of your stories/poems that you have out for submissions, and where they are currently submitted, and when you submitted them.  I’ve worked on my chart over the years, and I track everything on it.  Here is a screenshot of it for your visual amusement:

In the left-hand column are the various stories that I have out for submission.  The ones highlighted in blue have already been accepted and published.  Across the top row is a list of various places that accept short story submissions.  Certain places are highlighted in light blue, which means they have rejected work in the past, but would like to see more work (sometimes publishers note this on their rejection letters; make sure to keep track of this as these places can be of value to you in the future, since you already know they like your writing style).  This is just a short sample of my list, which has over 130 different places that I have found to submit to.  Needless to say there are countless others that I don’t have on my list, but which you could put on yours.  The row directly beneath the list of publishers tells me if they take email submissions or snail mail submissions (email are far quicker, and cost no postage), and the row directly beneath that tells me which places pay their contributors (green highlighted boxes) and which don’t.  The little Xs in the cells denote where a particular story has been rejected, so that I don’t submit that story to them again by accident.  The cells with the dates in them denote where and when a particular story was submitted.  Those stories haven’t been rejected or accepted yet.  When they get rejected, I change the date to an X.  If they are accepted, I change the date to an A and highlight it blue, because blue makes me happy.

By following the three points listed above (Dedication, Consistency, A handy dandy list) it is only a matter of time before you find yourself among the published authors of the world.  But it takes time.  I currently have 5 stories that I am submitting, and those stories are each submitted to five places at a time.  It’s okay to do this.  Make multiple submissions at once.  Send your story to four or five different places at the same time.  Odds are you’re going to be rejected by most places anyway, so you may as well speed up the process of finding the right place by submitting to multiple places at once.  The worst that can happen is that your story gets accepted somewhere, and you have to email the other places you submitted to and tell them that your story is no longer available, which will probably make them think, “shoot, we should’ve taken that story before our competitor did.”

So send out your story or poem to The New Yorker and four other places, and when The New Yorker sends you their rejection sentence two weeks later, send that story right back out to the next place on your list.  Once you do this consistency, publishing only becomes a matter of time.  And while you’re waiting for rejections and acceptions, maybe you write out a few more stories or poems.  Because that’s what it’s all about, right?