The Ecology of the Slush Pile (or What Are You Competing Against?)

Let’s start with how lit mags submissions actually work, because the process can be somewhat — and probably intentionally — opaque.

When you submit to a literary magazine, your work gets thrown (either literally if submitted through the mail or figuratively if submitted electronically) into the “slush pile.” This isn’t the most inspiring name, and conjures an image of gigantic piles of dirty, half-melted snow flung carelessly out of the road by shovels and ploughs. This actually may be an accurate metaphor. The slush pile is a mess. Great stories absolutely come out of the slush pile, but they are hidden among the typo-ridden rants, third-rate Raymond Carver imitations, and haikus handwritten on hotel napkins. A good portion of the slush is filled with work that doesn’t fit even the basic parameters of the journal: fantasy novellas sent to Postmodern Poetry Review and LOTR fan fiction sent to Quiet Realism Monthly.

Most editors would probably consider at least 60% of the slush pile to be unpublishable, period. (Many have told me 80–90%, but I’ll be generous here.) Twenty percent shows promise but needs some work, and 10% is publishable but not in the journal being submitted to. That leaves 10% of work that might deserve real consideration.

Writers, this is actually good news!

Most good magazines accept around 1% of the work they get. But if you know you are writing work that is coherent, proofread, and in the vein of what the magazine publishes, then you’ve vaulted into the top 10% off the bat…and 1/10 is a lot better odds than 1/100.

Where Does the Rest of the Work Come From?

The non-slush pile work either comes from 1) solicitations — the editors actively emailing writers or their agents to request work, or 2) from submissions sent by agents or writers who have a connection to the magazine. If you’ve been published by a magazine or your submissions have come close, they may ask you to submit your next work to the non-slush reading pile. For solicited work, it is typically accepted unless the editor really doesn’t like it or it truly doesn’t fit…rejecting solicited work is basically considered bad etiquette. Non-slush pile submissions merely skip the “reader round” — more on that soon — and go straight to the editors. Still, the vast majority of those submissions will be rejected.

Do Lit Mags Actually Publish Unsolicited Work?

Yes. No. Well, it depends.

Literary magazines run the gamut from niche webzines to university-funded print mags to The New Yorker. The amount of slush published varies accordingly. I’d be surprised if The New Yorker has published even three stories from the unagented slush pile in the last decade, but many of the most respected literary magazines publish mostly from the slush. Outside of the few big glossy mags that still publish fiction, most lit mags publish somewhere between 20% and 100% from the slush. The myth that literary magazines don’t even read slush is persistent, but outside of the very top magazines it really is a myth. Speaking personally, many of my biggest publications came from the slush pile with no connections or help. It really does happen.

OK, But Do They Publish Previously Unpublished Authors?

Unpublished writers are, understandably, concerned about whether lit mags ever publish unpublished writers. The short answer is yes. Every writer started out unpublished, and I know plenty of people who had their first publications without any kind of connection. Even big mags will publish unpublished writers. The Paris Review pulled both Wells Tower and Yiyun Li out of the slush in a short span of time. Gigantic has had the luck of being the first publication for several talented writers.

Of course, completely unpublished writers are increasingly rare to find in the submission queue, as the proliferation of web magazines, local mags, and college mags — all of which are good things! — mean that most writers get published somewhere small first.

I Know a Published Writer and She Never Submits to the Slush

It’s true that many writers don’t submit to the slush. Once you have some good publications under your belt, or make a lot of connections in the literary world — or the fantasy world if you write fantasy, etc. — you can get most of your work published through solicitations and/or connections. Still, most writers start out submitting and get most of their first publications that way.

How Is the Slush Pile Cleared?

Most magazines get many hundreds if not thousands of submissions a year. Here’s Brigid Hughes in 2004, former editor of The Paris Review and founder of A Public Space, saying that the former publication received around 15,000 to 20,000 submissions a year. I would presume that number has increased in the age of digital submissions.

Even a small magazine receives far more work that they can publish, and, let’s be blunt, far more work than the editors can read with any real time. Unless an editor is going to give up their day job — most lit mag editors do not get paid for editing — never read for pleasure, never perform any editorial duties other than submission reading, and acquire all nutrients through intravenous tubes…then they simply can’t read the slush themselves.

The vast majority of reading is done by “readers” who are mostly part-time volunteers but may also include interns and other staff members. If the magazine is attached to a graduate program, the readers are probably MFA students. If the mag is attached to a university generally, they are probably undergrads. The volunteers are aspiring writers or editors, or simply people who love literature and have the weird idea that reading random stories is fun. The standard but by no means universal policy is for every submission to get two reads. If both are “no” votes, the piece is rejected before the higher ups see. If it gets one or two yeses, it gets passed up to editors and assistant editors. If the editors like it, it gets published. Boom. Simple.

So My Story Gets Fully Read by Two People?

Err…probably not. Due, again, to how many hours there are in a day versus the size of the slush pile, even volunteer readers can’t read more than a couple pages of every submission. If there is nothing to grab the reader in the first page, it’s probably getting a “no” vote. Thems just the breaks. This is part of why writing teachers harp on the importance of the first page, first paragraph, and first line. That may be all that’s read.



That’s Unfair! My Story Is Genius, But Only Gets Good at the End!

If you are inclined to say how unfair the above is to young writers, ask yourself this: How many of the literary magazines you submit to do you subscribe to? If you’re like most writers, you probably subscribe to two literary magazines, tops. And that’s fine. I won’t berate you for not spending money on lit mags, although I personally find the best ones more enjoyable than most books. The point is just that if magazines aren’t getting money, then they don’t have money to pay their staff (much less their writers), which means they can’t afford to have experienced people reading every submission.

Also, if your story can’t grab a volunteer reader who is forced to at least glance at your work, what chance is there that a random reader will be grabbed? If it isn’t good until the end, maybe rewrite it starting at the end.

Well, at Least All Stories Have an Equal Chance, Right?

I’ve been on many panels about being published and read many essays on the subject. The party line that editors take is that it’s all about the work, not how famous the writer is, and that it doesn’t matter if you are unpublished or have an agent. Yet, whenever the audience asks questions about the cover letter, editors will say you should list about three of your best publications and whether you’ve been to an MFA or have any other writing credentials. And if you’ve got a connection to the journal, mention that too. “It all helps!”

There’s a pretty obvious contradiction here. Either these factors don’t influence the decision or they do. Either listing that stuff (or having an agent submit) helps, or it doesn’t. While I may get jumped in a back alley by my fellow editors for saying this, here’s how those things can help:

1) If your submission has some significant publications or has a connection to the magazine you list in the cover letter then your submission might bypass the reader level and go straight to the editors. That’s an advantage, since 95% of work is weeded out in the reader stage. It doesn’t mean that when you are in the editor’s hands that your story is any more likely to be accepted than a slush piece that is passed up though, especially at a good magazine where they get tons of submissions from agents or established writers. But you won’t be rejected in the early rounds. It’s like getting a bye in a sports tournament.

2) While I don’t think many would admit this, I do believe that if you have an impressive bio you are more likely to get a close read from the readers. Readers are typically starting out in the lit world, or are merely undergraduates who like poetry and fiction, and thus are more likely to distrust their judgment or not want to lose a piece that an editor might like. What does this mean practically? As I explained above, readers may only read a page or two before passing on a submission. If they see the bio has some good publications, then they may read 10 pages of a story they’d otherwise only read one of. If the piece is borderline, they might be more likely to pass it up (if a bunch of other good magazines think the writer is good, maybe the reader is missing something?) But, again, this doesn’t mean that once it reaches the editors' hands it’s more likely to be accepted than any others that make the second round.

All Submissions Should Be Blind Since Merit Is All That Counts!

Writers, editors, and readers all love to say that merit is all that counts. But if we are being honest, that is not the case. For one thing, merit doesn’t entirely exist in a vacuum. A new story by a Nobel prize winner will have certain power and generate certain interest by virtue of who wrote it. Art is subjective, but even if you could assign some kind of “objective” score, a 6.2 story by David Foster Wallace or Flannery O’Connor may well be “worth” more than a 6.2 story by a complete unknown.

Perhaps more importantly, magazines want to be read, and readers are far more likely to read a magazine that has at least a couple familiar names. Hell, submitting writers are more likely to send their best work to magazines that publish writers whose names they know. Most good editors try to find a balance between promoting new and unpublished writers and including established writers who will attract readers, but there you go.

Bah, It’s All Nepotism Anyway!

Despite what I’ve said above, nepotism doesn’t necessarily work like most struggling writers think. There’s frequently a sense that magazines just help out their friends by publishing them, but I think the reverse might be more common: writers giving away work to their friend’s magazine that they could have sold to a bigger market.

That’s because, again, writers and readers are drawn to magazines that publish familiar names. If you want to start a new literary magazine, the best way to get attention is to beg (or pay) established writers to send you work.