Michelle L. Smith - The Ebony Quill, LLC

After last month's post about my penchant for being a serial submitter, I received notice that a poem of mine made it into a finalist spot for an anthology to be published later this month, an announcement that came less than a week after the submission deadline. My first thought: they must have been desperate for content. My next thought was that I'd unwittingly invoked the imposter syndrome (the subject of my June 2024 blog post).

Haven't I learned anything about doubting myself? I've been published in other anthologies, and I've won awards. Yet I still manage to succumb to the voice that says these accolades were all just a fluke. Talk about a head case!

Two other publications I submitted to around the same time (yes, this serial submitter has turned in several pieces since last month's post about her penchant for serial submitting) are highly competitive magazines that boast a turn-around time of six months. One publication didn't provide much in the way of guidelines, instead suggesting that we lowly writers subscribe to their magazine to see examples of what they deem worthy. I agree with familiarizing oneself with an individual publication's style, etc. But I got the feeling that these folks think pretty highly of themselves. Thus, you might understand why I was a tad skeptical about the aforementioned rapid acceptance of my work.

Despite the air of we really couldn't care less about supplying guidelines—you should be thankful we have an open submission period, I imagined those heady publications just might be shocked and awed by the distinguished writer that I am. They should be so privileged to have someone like me even consider sharing my work with them. And then I returned to Earth One, LOL.

Lest you think I have a propensity to swing between lows and highs with respect to my self-regard as a poet, back-to-back rejections keep me grounded. An added "bonus" these rejections bring is encouragement to keep writing—a positive feedback loop that improves my odds of being published. Additionally, the more I'm rejected, the easier it is to let said rejections roll off my back, and to move beyond the yucky feeling they elicit.

Interestingly, the last "not interested" I received came in the form of a short essay wherein the in-house editorial team went on for days (and paragraphs) about the difficult nature of choosing winners from so many fine pieces. It read like a catharsis for not having selected my work and that of others. At first, I thought this guilt-ridden rejection letter was a farce. By its conclusion, however, I wanted to reply with a note of reassurance stating they'd done the right thing, that not everybody is a winner, that no one is going to dox them for the decisions they made.

I'm sure there's a lesson in these contrasting editorial sentiments; I'm just not sure what it is.

Nevertheless, I consider my latest success a result of having multiple irons in the fire. And this is the mantra I'm sticking with as long as it keeps me writing!

I'm fortunate to have had several works from different genres find a home in reputable literary journals and anthologies; however, getting my writing published is no small feat. As the accompanying image indicates, I received notice last month that my personal essay earned a spot in the July 2025 issue of The Sun, a highly respected ad-free literary magazine that's been around for decades. While statistics vary, my research shows fewer than 0.4% of submissions make it past The Sun's rigorous vetting and editing stages.

With all the rejections I receive, seeing a work get published is cause to celebrate. Given that this is my second piece placed with The Sun, I've learned to accept that I'm a pretty decent writer, though it's not unusual for me to frantically polish a submission to meet a pending deadline, only to end up tweaking it when I come across another suitable submission venue. This additional round of tweaking sometimes causes me to cringe at having submitted the prior version.

This revision business is never-ending. Even when I think I've written a fantastic piece, the passage of time provides me with eyes fresh enough to find yet more to tweak. Poems are surprisingly onerous to revise, as every word and line must be as concise and impactful as possible. Determining the correct tense of an individual verb pesters me to no end—a struggle that might endure throughout several revisions given that, with each pass, the poem's rhythm changes in my head.

I do care about the quality of my work; and yet, I've learned from the rejection pile that one's best effort usually doesn't make the cut. A lot depends on the editor and what they like to read and/or write. It also depends on the theme editors are looking for—a criterion not always evident.

With one of my recent poem submissions, I faced an unsettling conundrum. The theme and writing style were left up to the writer. Despite familiarizing myself with the publication, the rejection letter stated that while my writing was appreciated, either its theme or style was not what the editors were looking for with their next issue. If only I'd had a better understanding of what they wanted!

I've likened the process of getting published to a crapshoot, which also means I've had work accepted for publication that I didn't think would see the light of day. Being in the right place at the right time is an elusive force that figures prominently in getting published. It can allude to an editor's mood or the current political climate or the workload piled on an editor's desk. Unfortunately, it's not always clear what some of those more cryptic guidelines are alluding to when the editors say they're open to all styles/genres/subjects, etc. The confusion is magnified when the feedback in a rejection letter says, "your piece is not quite what we're looking for."

In the end, numerous factors—some controllable, others not so much—go into seeing your work published. When I hit the jackpot, I need to accept a win as genuine and celebrate the effort that went into it. So, I plan to mark this latest achievement with a dinner out to reinforce that I can conquer in this game of chance. Lord knows, if I don't acknowledge my milestone achievements with a little bit of fanfare, no one else is going to do so on my behalf.

And as I've been wont to do, I'm going to dismiss any reluctance about patting myself on the back (I'll save this little issue of mine for another post). Instead, I will repurpose this celebration as an incentive to keep at it.

Here's to raising a glass—bon appetit!