[Maryann Corbett]

I'm discovering one of the perils of acceptances: a publication that seems to have died before one's work appears.

The evidence: Editor accepts work for a pub that features new poems (theoretically) every several days. New poems do seem to appear, but nothing like that fast--more like several weeks. After six months and ten other poems rotating on and off, no sign of my poems, no movement on the site for weeks, and no response yet (after a couple of days) to an e-mail query to the editor.

What would you do?

Maryann

[Carol Taylor]

Why the rush to publish? Even funded publications may not make it, and without some sort of financial backing most publications will fail because they depend on the private resources of the editor. People get sick; people get tired; people want to do other things; people go broke.

Carol

[Maryann Corbett]

Carol, I'm having a little trouble deciding which of these is your main point: "Cool it and be patient" or "What's so important about publishing anyway?"

I think I'm antsy about these poems because they were a couple of my favorites. If the pub is dead, I'd like to know that so I can try to find them another home.

Some pubs that go belly-up act very responsibly. Texas Poetry Journal seems to have been one. Others at least are open about being defunct. But some just hang on and on to poems while doing nothing.

There's advice available about how long to wait when we submit, but not about what happens in cases of delay after the acceptance. I just wondered if anyone felt able to offer any.

Maryann

[Carol Taylor]

Maryann, my point is be judicious about where you send your poems, because journals aren't equally reliable or responsive and there's no guarantee some of them will be around by the next issue. There are publications (I think Poetry is one) that bar simultaneous submissions and yet make no commitment as to response time. I've heard of people waiting two years for a rejection. Forget that! I don't submit unless the pub commits to responding one way or the other within x number of weeks or months, and if they haven't responded in that time I consider all bets are off and send the poem elsewhere. Texas Poetry Journal never responded to my last submission, and months later Tim relayed the news here that they were belly-up. Light usually responds but not always, and if you send in several poems and get one little pink slip in the mail that simply says "Not quite," it's hard to know what was rejected. Or if you send in five poems and a magazine accepts one but doesn't send back or mention the other four, you have to assume they didn't want them. No response is the same as a rejection as far as I'm concerned. I know editors are under space constraints and need to leave room to include big name poems that come in at the last minute, but they still ought to let people know and then do what they say they'll do.

The situation would be much more difficult if a pub actually accepted the poem and then kept stringing you along, as yours did. The only time that's happened to me was when Susquehanna Quartly bit the dust, and Robt Ward did eventually post here saying he didn't know if or when another issue would come out and releasing the submissions of those who chose to send them elsewhere. I did.

Carol

[Gail White]

MAryann, are you willing to say where you sent your poems, to see if anyone else has experience with the same publication?

I know it is at least 3 years since I have been able to get a response from Dark Horse to any submission. Admittedly they're in Scotland, but still...

[Maryann Corbett]

Gail, the submission I'm talking about was to the online 'zine Strong Verse.

I'm sad to hear that Dark Horse delays that badly, because I've sent work to them too! Egad. No wonder people get turned off on submitting.

In case anybody doesn't already know about it, there is a site with information about print publication response times:
http://www.jefferybahr.com/Publications/RptSubTimes.asp

Perhaps sometime we should talk about whether the stated times have held true for us.


Maryann

[Gail White]

Thanks for the link.
I'm not familiar with Strong Verse... Does anyone else have any experience with this zine?

[Roger Slater]

Carol, when I send a group of poems and get an acceptance for, say, three out of five of them, I believe the rejection of the other two is implicit and there's no need for a formal rejection notice. My experience is admittedly limited, but it just seems natural to me that the editor, by accepting a few without mentioning the others, means to say that the others are rejected.

[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited December 05, 2006).]

[Carol Taylor]

Roger, I assume the same, though most editors return the ones they don't want in the SASE. However, in an email submission I once sent four poems, of which the editor accepted two immediately and later came back and asked for a third. Fortunately it was still available.

Carol