60 Writing Jobs, Internships, Lit Mag Opps, Fellowships, and More

Jobs for Writers (4.18.25) | Gigs at The Sun, One Story, and West Trade Review, how to break in as a Fiction Editor at a lit mag, and a slew of assistant-level positions!

Apr 18, 2025

∙ Paid

Welcome to Sub Club’s Jobs for Writers!

What a week! I mean, I say or think that every week, but the fact remains: What. A. Week!!!!!! If you, like me, are running on lukewarm coffee and a distinct lack of vibes, I see you, I feel you, I wish you a weekend of rest (and applying to these here jobs). If you’re not running on lukewarm coffee and a distinct lack of vibes, please show me your ways so I too can be a functional human being. But only like, if you feel like it.

Anyway, today is a particularly good day for people who want to get more involved in the magical world of lit mags. How to Break In features a Fiction Editor from the highly competitive, very popular TriQuarterly, and there are a TON of editor and reader positions at lit mags too. Let’s get to it, shall we?

How did you break in? We want more stories about how people got their gigs in writing, editing, publishing, academics, or whatever else that’s writing-adjacent.

» Get the details and submit your entry here «

Selected entries will get $50 or a one-year comp.

How to Break In

This week, I chatted with Jennifer Companik, Fiction Editor at TriQuarterly. Jennifer’s journey to Fiction Editor started in a place familiar to all of us: rejection.

“I had decided to go for a Master’s degree because my writing was being rejected all over,” she writes. “I started studying the bios and acknowledgement pages of living authors whose work I admired, and most of them had Master’s degrees and they thanked, among other people, their professors.”

That was enough to encourage her to apply to—and be accepted at—Northwestern University, the very school that operates TriQuarterly. For Jennifer, pursuing her Master’s was a way to put herself more on par with the writers she already revered. “If you want something, look at someone who has it and ask what you can do to make yourself similarly qualified,” Jennifer continues. “Then do it. Repeat.”

Below, Jennifer talks about the journey from slush pile reader to bona fide Fiction Editor, how her role has changed her relationship with rejection, and her advice for folks looking to become editors at lit mags.

rachael vaughan clemmons: Can you tell us a little about your background and how you started working at TriQuarterly?

Jennifer Companik: I learned through an alumni listserv that TriQuarterly was seeking staff readers for their fiction team. Staff reader is a volunteer position, so the fact that I graduated from the program with a specialization in fiction made me a strong candidate. I applied, was hired, and read slush for eight years.

In 2018, a fiction editor position opened up. The faculty advisor encouraged me to apply, I did, and was hired.

The editors and faculty advisor already knew me because I was, as far as I can recall, the only staff reader who attended every in-person meeting, even though the meetings were a sixty-mile drive from my house. The meetings were only held a few times a year, but things like that matter. Showing up matters. Loving your work and meeting your deadlines matters. I did all of that.

rvc: What does your day-to-day look like as a Fiction Editor?

JC: Fiction Editor is a part time, mostly remote position at TriQuarterly, so what my day looks like is me in pajamas and a leopard print robe camped out on the chaise section of my enormous blue sofa, laptop keyboard under my fingers while I:

Assign stories to my staff to read and score;
Evaluate manuscripts;
Correspond with my fellow editors;
Decline submissions;
Snack on fig glazed cashews;
Advance submissions to the editors' table;
Attend the occasional Zoom meeting (for which I put on real clothes); and,
Opine on stories that have made it to the editors' table.

On the most exciting days I come across a manuscript so outstanding that I want to share it with everyone I know and thousands of strangers I respect.

rvc: How does this position fit in with your greater goals?

JC: I'm a writer. The kind who writes and revises and submits and reaps reams of rejections for every acceptance. My overarching goal is to have my own work published.

Being a fiction editor at TriQuarterly has helped me learn how to prepare a manuscript so that it has the best chance of publication—from making sure there are no distracting typos to crafting compelling endings that address the conflicts set forth early in the story.

Reading hundreds of submissions a year also teaches me about literary trends. There have been waves of magical realism and speculative fiction. Since the pandemic, there have been tons of stories about the pandemic. We receive so much ecofiction. The biggest trend of the last seven years is that fiction in general has grown deeply pessimistic and political.

Overall, being an editor at TriQuarterly has made me a better, more successful writer. I published a book, Check Engine and Other Stories, in 2021.

rvc: TriQuarterly is extremely competitive—on Chill Subs, the reader reported acceptance rate is 1.52%. How has being a Fiction Editor has changed your own relationship with rejection?

JC: I have learned that work can be rejected for a host of reasons—that so many stars need to align for a piece to be accepted—and it has rehabilitated my relationship with rejection emails. I don't crave rejection, but it does not discourage me anymore.

I decline hundreds of stories per year. All of my fellow editors do. We decline most of what we receive. We don't do it because we're mean. We do it because we can only publish a handful of stories per issue. We are threading a tiny needle. We must select only the finest yarns. That said, we come across a bounty of fine yarns and they don't all make it in.

Knowing the process helps me keep things in perspective. It helps me, knowing that stories can be rejected because they don't fit with the aesthetic of a journal or because they just published something with a similar setting or theme. It helps to know that there are real people who might champion my story at the editors' table and get voted down.

Rejection doesn't necessarily mean my work is unworthy. It only means my work did not fully align with a particular journal's needs at that moment. Breathe in. Count slowly to four. Breathe out.

rvc: Lastly, what advice do you have for people who want to become editors at literary magazines?

JC: My advice for someone who wants to become an editor at a literary magazine is to seek a low-bar position, like staff reader, and then do all the good worker things (follow instructions, be excellent, willing, cheerful, and kind) to make yourself an asset to the team. Attend events. Get to know the editors. Build relationships so that when you have more experience and an editorial position opens up, you are a natural choice.

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We’ll list any paid or volunteer opportunity in writing, publishing, and editing. Find details and submit your opening here.