22 Awesome Lit Mags With 5-10% Acceptance Rates
Reported by editors
Sometimes submitting your writing can feel like being Jack in Titanic.
You’re treading water, slowly freezing to death, gasping for air, knowing THERE IS PLENTY OF SPACE ON THAT GODDAMN DOOR! But nobody invites you on. So, death. Womp….
I’m in a mood, clearly.
What were my latest rejections? Let’s see. Joyland! More like Sadland, am I right? Oof, and Passages North? More like Passages Go-Fuck-Myself. And Pithead Chapel! More like Shi—enough.
That’s more than enough.
Well to cope with the pain and loneliness I’ve put together this fine little list of lit mags who fall into that sweet spot: 5-10% acceptance rate. If you’d like even more that aren’t on this list, I made another one before:
And one focused on only fiction:
We have several ways we gather stats:
Though our submissions tracker
Through our partnership with The Submissions Grinder
And through the editors of the lit mags themselves
For today’s list I wanted to go only with option 3 because I think it is pretty reliable. Certainly, if a lot of folks are tracking, and that’s a good representation, but who knows better than the editors themselves? So, each rate on today’s list was reported either to us directly or on the lit mag’s guidelines page.
For each, I’ve mapped out founding date, location, genres, descriptions, fee, pay, notable tags, response times, acceptance rates (obv), and whether they accept simultaneous submissions. Wooo. Want something else? Let me know, we’ll work on adding it in.
This one is a paid one, but if you’re under any financial duress please let us know and we'll comp you, no problem and no questions asked.
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