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Why We Don’t Query Journals about Submissions
We all do something like this: Submit a story to a wonderful journal. Try not to think about it (we know it’ll be a while). But then we...

Erik Harper Klass
Apr 142 min read
8 views
0 comments


Style: Chapter 1, Section 3: Sentence Combinations
In the last two style essays, I covered relatively short, simple sentences ( §1.1 ) and their longer counterparts ( §1.2 ). Now I’m going...

Erik Harper Klass
Mar 1210 min read
112 views
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Submitit’s Success Rate (An Update)
It’s hard to imagine that Submitit has been going strong now for over four years. Near the end of 2021 (around a year in) I wrote a post...

Erik Harper Klass
Feb 52 min read
55 views
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"Cleaning" Returned Stories and Essays
When we return, via email, a story or essay, we will include several important steps—from saving the file, to dealing with our tracked...

Erik Harper Klass
Dec 6, 20246 min read
386 views
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Thoughts on Creative Nonfiction
Ever since Submitit started handling creative nonfiction a few years ago, I’ve acquired the uncomfortable notion that many writers of...

Erik Harper Klass
Sep 25, 202416 min read
362 views
2 comments


A Few Words on How I Edit
My Editing Philosophy Like all good editors, I’m concerned with those elemental, essential aspects of writing, including plot,...

Erik Harper Klass
Jul 14, 20245 min read
244 views
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Submitit's Client Portal
Submitit has recently (July 11, 2024) introduced a huge update: an (almost) magical platform. While in the past, Erik and Christine used...

Erik Harper Klass
Jun 11, 20242 min read
170 views
0 comments


Style: Chapter 1, Section 2: Long Sentences
For an introduction to these essays on style, click here .) In my last style post (section 1), I got into the art of writing short,...

Erik Harper Klass
Jun 2, 202414 min read
168 views
0 comments
![This Is an Essay on Run-on Sentences[,] and I Hope You Enjoy It](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/2ccd93_be8146771c4c4f2db2bc93f4f52d703a~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_333,h_250,fp_0.50_0.50,q_30,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/2ccd93_be8146771c4c4f2db2bc93f4f52d703a~mv2.webp)
![This Is an Essay on Run-on Sentences[,] and I Hope You Enjoy It](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/2ccd93_be8146771c4c4f2db2bc93f4f52d703a~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_454,h_341,fp_0.50_0.50,q_90,enc_avif,quality_auto/2ccd93_be8146771c4c4f2db2bc93f4f52d703a~mv2.webp)
This Is an Essay on Run-on Sentences[,] and I Hope You Enjoy It
The above is from Jon Fosse's brilliant Septology . My corrections are ironic. First of all, I’d like to forewarn the reader. The...

Erik Harper Klass
Apr 21, 202417 min read
125 views
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Erik Harper Klass Searches for Erik Harper Klass: Part 2
As some of you may recall, a few weeks ago I received an email from a certain Erik Harper Klass, which email contained a...

Erik Harper Klass
Apr 1, 20247 min read
142 views
2 comments


Amazon Rejected a Review of My Novella (I Think)
A few days ago I received the following review of my novella . The review was sent anonymously—or, I should say, homonymously—to my...

Erik Harper Klass
Feb 26, 20243 min read
164 views
3 comments


Style: Chapter 1: Sentences
A good first step in developing style is to focus on the structures and combinations of sentences. All the great writers seem to...

Erik Harper Klass
Feb 10, 20248 min read
278 views
1 comment


Style Essays: Introduction
I am enamored of style. Style—that destination, that endgame, of what I call the writer’s craft —encompasses the quality of a writer’s...

Erik Harper Klass
Jan 27, 20245 min read
238 views
0 comments


A Guide for the Formattingly Perplexed
Since part of my job is to work on—which is to say, less euphemistically, “to fix”—formatting issues with the stories and essays I...

Erik Harper Klass
Nov 10, 20236 min read
321 views
0 comments


The Ephemerality of Literary Journals
(First of all, am I the only one who can’t seem to get enough of the word ephemeral ? It kind of rolls off the tongue. Never gets...

Erik Harper Klass
Oct 14, 20232 min read
150 views
0 comments


1,001 Ways to Find Literary Journals for Your Story (Without Actually Having to Read Them)
(This post was published in slightly different form in Chill Subs .) A selection, based on personal experience: 1. Since my...

Erik Harper Klass
Jun 30, 20239 min read
170 views
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The Possibly Impossible Task of Ranking Literary Journals
I wrote a post not long ago about how I evaluate literary journals , focusing mostly on smaller and usually newer ones. These journals...

Erik Harper Klass
Apr 5, 20236 min read
254 views
0 comments


Why the Author (Usually (but Not Always)) Eschews Nested Square Brackets
Are you familiar with the prescriptivism vs. descriptivism debate in re grammar and usage? It’s a doozy. . . . The prescriptivists tend...

Erik Harper Klass
Feb 19, 20237 min read
127 views
0 comments


The Two Commandments of Lit Mag Acceptances
When it comes to the ethics of getting work accepted at literary journals, the submission gods hath spoken, the prophet hath come down...

Erik Harper Klass
Jan 7, 20232 min read
592 views
0 comments


“I’d like to talk about formatting and punctuating dialogue,” said Erik Harper Klass gleefully.
(Preliminary note: The author does not recommend or condone using adverbs with speaker tags. In the title above, and occasionally below,...

Erik Harper Klass
Dec 6, 20229 min read
272 views
4 comments
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