Where to submit your story

So you’ve written an essay, memoir or personal story. You’ve edited it once, twice, three times and passed it around in workshops and incorporated feedback from mentors, peers and honest friends. Now it’s time to release it into the world, but where do you start? Of course, we hope you will consider Newtown Literary, but here are a few others. I have also included a few sites for competitions and awards.

Here are some suggestions for memoirs and creative non-fiction (I’ll suggest journals for short fiction in an upcoming post). I have divided these journals into different tiers based on the number of Pushcart Prize winners each of them have published, with the understanding that this is not intended as a ranking of the quality of the journal, but as one indication of the volume of submissions they receive. I have only included magazines that accept simultaneous submissions, because who wants to wait months before trying again? I would suggest looking at the publications before submitting in order to get an idea of what they are looking for.

Clicking on this link will take you to a Google Sheets document that lists 25 or so sites that are looking for material. They include websites, submission methods, deadlines and in some cases, the expected response time. Some of the more popular journals have a response time of 6 months, so be prepared to wait it out.

Good luck!