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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
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
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
“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
Submitit's Three Submission Strategies
If you’ve signed up for a Submitit submissions package, you know that we submit your story to up to twenty journals, in two rounds of...
Erik Harper Klass
Oct 23, 20224 min read
How to Write a Winning Bio and Story/Essay Blurb for Literary Journals
Usually literary journals ask writers for a third-person bio. And a few ask for a story or essay “blurb” (generally optional) that...
Erik Harper Klass
Sep 15, 20228 min read
Bake Your Stories
I have learned over the years that it’s important to let my work sit for a while when I’ve completed a draft. I’ve come to call this...
Erik Harper Klass
Aug 17, 20224 min read
Glass, Fire, and Siamese Lambs: How Field Research Can Improve Your Writing
For a long time, I dreaded conducting field research for my fiction writing. I think this goes back to my early writing days: ah, those...
Erik Harper Klass
Jun 22, 20225 min read
I’ve Made Some Changes to Submitit’s Algorithm
(A warning before you start this post: It’s a little wonky. I dive pretty deep into my algorithm. If you dislike detailed discussions of...
Erik Harper Klass
May 1, 20224 min read
How Submitit Evaluates Smaller Literary Journals (So You'll Know They'll Stick Around)
I’ve written a lot (most obviously here ) about the importance of submitting stories and essays to smaller, newer, and (ostensibly) more...
Erik Harper Klass
Mar 3, 20226 min read
How I Made $0.02/Hour as a Writer (and How You Can Too!)
I write mostly fiction. I’m working on a (ridiculously long) novel, from which I occasionally submit excerpts as short stories to...
Erik Harper Klass
Jan 15, 20226 min read
The (Usually-but-Not-Always-Unacceptable) Comma Splice
With the (Unasked for) Help of Jonathan Lethem One of the most common grammar errors—or let me put that in quotes: “errors”—I see when...
Erik Harper Klass
Nov 19, 20216 min read
How Well Does Submitit Work?
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay . I officially started submit back in October 2020. (Philip Kennedy-Grant, if you’re reading this, I...
Erik Harper Klass
Oct 3, 20214 min read
Do Androids Dream of a Universal Style Guide?
As an editor, I frequently see the same recurring errors of typography. In this post, I want to focus on the three most common, having to...
Erik Harper Klass
Sep 4, 20216 min read
The Art of Timing When Submitting to Literary Journals
I’ve been running Submitit now for about a year, and I’m happy to say that we—I must say we , since the stories are yours—have had some...
Erik Harper Klass
Jul 21, 20216 min read
I'm not only the owner; I'm also a client
(Image used with absolutely no permission whatsoever.) Remember those old Hair Club for Men commercials , where a man (with a full head...
Erik Harper Klass
Jun 6, 20212 min read
Punctuation Fun with 'Ulysses' and 'Infinite Jest'
(This article was published in slightly different form in The Writing Cooperative .) An editor, like an ornithologist, stumbles upon...
Erik Harper Klass
May 8, 20217 min read
What I Learned About Writing After Reading 1,000 Short Stories Last Year
(This essay was published in slightly different form in The Writing Cooperative .) A year or so ago, I started working on Submitit's...
Erik Harper Klass
Feb 28, 202112 min read
Submitit on the Radio!
The Writer Files is a great podcast dedicated entirely to writing. Episodes focus on "the habits, habitats, and brains of a wide...
Erik Harper Klass
Feb 15, 20211 min read
The Eight Mistakes Writers Make Submitting to Literary Journals
I consistently see the same handful of mistakes.
Erik Harper Klass
Jan 3, 20215 min read
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