It is painfully ironic that I just spent forty minutes composing an entry on the nature of lost submissions, only to have my poignant reflections vanish right as I hit the “Save and Publish Comments” button. *sigh*
But like any dedicated writer, I will sally forth.
In the past month I’ve received three emails from poets inquiring about the status of their work. This is a fairly common phenomenon, with the exception that all three poets sent work in the summer and fall of 2007. In each case, the sad reality was that the poems failed to arrive in Conte’s inbox, as we never take 6+ months to render an editorial decision.
This leads me to offer some brief comments on the nature of lost submissions. Let me first apologize to all writers who have fallen victim to this unfortunate circumstance. It is a wretched feeling indeed to learn that no one has received, let alone read, the brilliant work you submitted last Labor Day weekend. However, most reputable literary publications (including us) keep extensive records of all correspondence and submissions, so if a ridiculous amount of time passes, chances are it isn’t a human error. It is more likely that the postal service or internet gremlins relegated your writing to oblivion, and this occurs more than any of us would like to admit.
There are a few solutions to this problem. Some journals—increasingly, print magazines that happen to accept electronic submissions—employ a confirmation service, where a no-reply address automates a response saying, “Yes, we just received the poem or story you sent us two nanoseconds ago, so don’t panic. Have a Shasta, and we’ll get back to you.” This is an understandable approach, but in my humble opinion, it shifts the burden of tracking submitted work from the writer to the publication, and merely creates more unnecessary email the world doesn’t need.
Let me propose an easier solution, especially for smaller magazines: if a writer is concerned about the status of his/her submission, he or she should let one month pass beyond a magazine’s standard response time, and then send a polite yet candid inquiry about the status of his/her work. Certainly there are periods where Conte’s official turn-around of 8-10 weeks balloons into 10-13 weeks, but like most of our peers, we strive to treat all writers courteously and respectfully—if we say three months, we mean three months. A brief, well-timed inquiry should never offend an editor’s sensibilities, and if it does, then you probably don’t want such a flaky individual publishing your writing in the first place. Besides, the longer a magazine holds your work, the more likely it is that your writing has moved beyond the “slush pile” and is under serious consideration.
Ultimately, submitting poems or stories in today’s (arguably bloated) literary market is a complex process, fraught with anxiety, hope, and anticipation. Simply remember that good editors are writers, too, and that without unsolicited submissions like yours, their indie-mag or e-zine wouldn’t exist. And when it comes to lost, misplaced, or obliterated submissions, your diligence as a writer is the best way to ensure your work gets the attention it deserves.
