✴︎ FREE EVENT THIS WEDNESDAY ✴︎
Submit It Now! Time & Support to Get Published with Andrea Firth
August Topic: Nuts & Bolts of Submitting—contracts, rights, reprints, cover letters, and more.
What does it mean to be serious about memoir? Since I don’t know you (you might be a completely silly person) and you don’t know me (a completely silly person), all I can do is make some assumptions based on the data we have.
Get their memoir published in the most reputable place possible.
Use publishing short works in pursuit of a book deal.
Get a job teaching memoir at a university or prestigious writing center.
Rub success in their cousin’s face who thinks writing is only a hobby.
Taking all of that together, what kind of magazines might they want to see.
Well, considering that prestige in the literary world is often tied to awards, I’d want only magazines that are actively winning them, especially for nonfiction. The two main ones would be: Pushcart Prize & Best American Essays. OK, I can do that.
And these might go hand-in-hand, but I would want somewhere selective. Less than 3% acceptance rate. Remember, your cousin is a real snooty f*ck.
What else? I think I’d like it in print. Of course, then you have something to throw down in front of your cousin after they say, “I’ve never heard of that one.”
Alright, let’s pivot. I’d want a magazine with in-crowd credibility. The kind of place directors of universities would respect so a publishing credit there would get me a foot in the door, or the kind of place an agent will recognize when I say, “excerpts of my memoir were published in...”
Pay would be nice, but let’s face it, the amount of time you’re putting into this thing, if you got paid top-dollar you’d still be making about 2 cents an hour. And at this tier, the rate of magazines that charge fees sky-rockets to 56% so you’re probably going to have to pay some (but we’ll let you know where you do).
I don’t like to recommend magazines that have any red flags for us internally, so Narrative Magazine is out. If you have f*ck-you money and don’t mind a $20 fee, by all means. But that’s too rich for my blood. Maybe if your cousin ever gets into writing.
So that’s the deal. Below, you’ll find 17 places designed to advance your writing career as a memoirist. They are tough-as-hell to get into. Some have contests you might want to wait for. Others have online options that are great (for example Gulf Coast), and nobody cares if it was in print when you put it in your bio, it’s just cool and feels seriously good.
There’s a bit of data, a bit of personal insight, a bit of whispering from behind the gate. If you’ve got something you’ve written about yourself that you think deserves the biggest stage possible, give these folks a try.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.