Submitting to Amaranth (and to literary journals in general)

Amaranth is the journal for literature and the arts at Anne Arundel Community College. As such, we seek to publish the best work submitted to us by students and alumni. But we’re also here to teach you the best practices regarding submitting your work.

There are many things to know about publication and submission. Below is a quick guide to get you started, along with some terms with which you should be familiar.

Submission Guidelines

Every magazine or journal has submission guidelines that tell you the kinds of writing they accept, the number of pages they will consider, what their reading period is, and if they accept simultaneous submissions (see below). The submission guidelines can usually be found on the journal’s website. Most often, journals have their guidelines under the “Submit” button like we have it here, but you might also have to look under the “About Us” or “Contact Us” tab to find the guidelines.

Most journals now take submissions on Submittable and if you can’t find their guidelines anywhere else, they will definitely have them there. You can see our Submission Guidelines for Amaranth here.

The most important thing to remember is to follow each individual journal’s guidelines. Many places will simply not read or respond to submissions that are not properly submitted. Always check the Submission Guidelines of any journal so that you know their particular expectations. You should also read sample poems or stories to get an idea of what they publish before submitting your work.

If the journal does NOT specify how to submit, you can follow these more general guidelines given below. These are what would be considered the “industry standard” (i.e. what most journals expect from a submission). 

For Fiction/Nonfiction

• Most editors will want to see 1 story or essay at a time. 
• Make sure to know the word count of your submission. The submission guidelines will often give a word count for the maximum length they will consider. If they do not specify, 4,000-7,000 words is a good estimate.
• Unless they specifically tell you to not put your contact information on the manuscript, you should put your name/address/email in the top left corner of the first page. 
  • Some guidelines might request your name on every page.
  • Some guidelines might request that you remove your personal contact information from the manuscript. This is most common for contests, which are often judged “blind.”
• Manuscripts should be double-spaced and in a standard (like Times New Roman), 12-point font.

For Poetry

• Most editors want to see 3-5 poems at a time
• Begin each new poem on a new page
• Poems should always be left-justified, not centered on the page
• Unless they specifically tell you to not put your contact information on the manuscript, you should put your name/address/email in the top left corner of every page that starts a new poem.
  • Some guidelines might request that you remove your personal contact information from the manuscript. This is most common for contests, which are often judged “blind.” 
• Title of the poem (in all caps) should also be left-justified
• Manuscripts should be in a standard (like Times New Roman), 12-point font. Spacing is different for poems than it is for fiction/nonfiction:
  • Single-space poems within stanzas
  • Double-space poems between stanzas 
    • Note: if you have a compelling reason to deviate from these formatting standards, that is allowed, but the reason should be intentional and contribute to the poem (i.e. your poem about a bird is shaped like a bird).

Simultaneous Submissions

A simultaneous submission is when you submit the same story or group of poems to multiple journals and magazines at the same time. This is a common practice for writers to participate in, but editors want to know if that’s what you’re doing. And some editors don’t accept simultaneous submissions at all. You will see on Amaranth’s submission guidelines that we do accept simultaneous submissions.

If you are simultaneously submitting your manuscript, you should let the editors know that in your cover letter.

Cover Letter

Most editors want to see a Cover Letter as well. These days, many submissions are done on a submission manager (either Submittable or on the journal’s website). Often, there will be a box where you can type or paste your cover letter into the website form before uploading your submission. Other journals may ask that you include the cover letter as the first page of the submission document that you upload.

In any event, here are some guidelines for writing a good cover letter:

• Keep your cover letter SHORT!
• Use a business letter format.
• Address the letter to the editor of the magazine or journal. This info can often be found on the “masthead” or the “Contact Us” page of the journal’s website.
  • Many journals have a Fiction Editor and a Poetry Editor. Make sure you’re addressing the correct one!
• Ask the editor to consider your work for submission.
• Give the titles of the work you’re submitting
  • The editor should have record of your name and contact info to pair with the title of the poems.
• Let the editor know if your submission is a simultaneous submission or not and if it is that you’ll notify them if the work is accepted elsewhere. 
• Thank the editor for his/her time & consideration

Again, keep it short. The editor doesn’t need to know your life story, and the cover letter isn’t a pitch letter–let your work speak for itself.

Finally, here is a sample cover letter you can use as an example.

Publication: What does it Mean?

First of all, you should be clear about what publication is and what it is not. Publication means that a professional or student-run journal (lots of literary journals are run by colleges, including Amaranth) with an editorial board has selected your artwork, story, poem, or nonfiction essay to include in their journal. 

Most often, journals will purchase what is called First North American Serial Rights. That means that they get to be the first publication in North America to publish your work. The payment you receive for this could be a monetary payment or a small number (2-3) of contributors’ copies of the issue in which your work will appear. Because Amaranth is supported by student activity fees, our journal is free to any students who wish to have a copy.

After the work is published, the rights to the work revert back to you. You are free to publish the work elsewhere (usually in a book or an anthology); however, most magazines and journals will not publish work that has been previously published.

You should always remember that publication, while a mark of success, is not always a mark of excellence. Getting published feels good and it gives you an audience and a sense of validation. But don’t get overly discouraged when your work is rejected, and don’t get overly impressed with yourself when your work gets accepted. You should have a sense of the kind of work that you want to write and let that standard be the mark to which you hold yourself.

Finding Magazines & Journals

One of the most common questions about submitting is: how do I find magazines that will read and consider my work? The best answer is that you should submit your work to journals that you know and like. This means that part of being a good writer is being a good reader and knowing contemporary writers and where they publish. This can be a daunting task sometimes (there are a LOT of contemporary writers and a LOT of journals and magazines), but it should be fun. Follow what you like. If you enjoyed a certain writer that you’ve read in a class, seek out their other work and find out where they published it. 

There are also resources to help you find publications that will consider your work. New Pages and the Writer’s Market  series are two of the most popular.

I need to be published to be a real writer, right?

Finally, and this is perhaps most important, don’t hinge the value of your writing on publication. Every year, tons of really good work gets denied publication. At Amaranth, we sometimes see excellent work that just doesn’t fit into the journal for one reason or another—maybe we’re short on space, maybe we’re trying to arrange our work around a theme. So don’t take it personally if your work is rejected!

Submit a lot and expect a lot of rejections. Even a great piece of art, story, or poem might be rejected 10 times or more before it gets accepted.

And don’t forget that writing is an art and dedicating yourself to practicing that art is a lifelong journey and a constant interaction between you and the blank page.