Now they all make it clear in the submission guidelines: "We strongly suggest you acquaint yourself with the material we publish in _______ before submitting." I did. I read as many stories in as many of the literary journals as I could reasonably get my hands on and absorb before the approaching deadlines. (Note, it is of course my fault that I did not do this earlier.)
The stories I had written were maybe not of the caliber, but would I thought, ride the waves of these collections without sinking too far below the surface. Yes, I noticed all the poems and read many of them as well, but it didn’t occur to me, except in one particular journal, that poetry overwhelmed each issue. (Note, it is again my fault for not putting two and two together.)
It looks like I will be spending some time in the campus library to do some statistical reasearch. A quick perusal of my own library here shows some astounding facts: The last three issues of Prairie Schooner for example reveals this data: Stories – 4/2/4; Essays – 2/2/2; Reviews – 5/6/4; Poems – 58/50/76.
Confrontation and Glimmertrain seem to have a more reasonable diversity of narrative form, and to be fair to Ploughshares, while one issue is devoted to fiction, two others are split 6 stories/52 poems, and 6 stories/61 poems.
Now one can simply stand and howl at the moon, or one can use the information for both personal and public good. Focused research and data collection will point me to the trails I can take. For one thing, it will save me lots of money wasted on basically hopeless submissions and needless stress (Although I’ve only gotten two rejections back so far out of a dozen sent, my stress level has gone down considerably just knowing that I don’t stand a normal snowball’s chance once I understand the statistical data.) Once before I saw a need and filled it with a traditional archery magazine.
And we’ve already put out the first issue of otto – a compendium of diverse narrative. (Open to the public for submissions, by the way, but limited distribution until I get my rear end in gear.)
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology