Thea Pueschel – Women Who Submit

June 16, 2021

Submissions: The Harsh Reality and How to Improve Your Odds

By Thea Pueschel

First published by Shut Up & Write June 3, 2021

A rejection letter leaves many writers devastated. For years, I would submit one to three pieces a year to literary magazines, and if the work received a rejection, it became dead to me. My nonfiction wellness articles had a 98% acceptance rate, leading me to believe I would have no problem getting my fiction and creative nonfiction published. I did not know about the incredibly low acceptance rates of literary magazines.

There are finite spaces to fill in the literary world, though the internet itself seems infinite. Writers hoping to be published in top-tier literary magazines are faced with startlingly low acceptance rates. According to Duotrope, The New Yorker magazine accepted only 0.14% of 1,447 unsolicited submissions received in a year. The lower-tier magazine Split Lip received 938 unsolicited submissions that same year, and only 0.11% were accepted.

Rejection feels personal, though it isn’t. It’s a numbers game, even with smaller publications. To prove this, I reached out to Viva Padilla, the editor-in-chief of the annual literary magazine Dryland, and asked her about the submission statistics for her publication. “The most submissions we have ever received [for a single issue] was over 1000,” she said. “Every issue has about 50-55 publishing spots available, with around 40 reserved for poetry.” I did the math. That equates to an acceptance rate of 1%-1.5% for a work of fiction. For poetry, the odds are slightly better at 5%. That’s a rejection rate of 95-99%. The acceptance rate is higher compared to Split Lip and The New Yorker, but even then most of the work is rejected due to space limitations, among other reasons.

The work Dryland publishes is primarily through open calls. Most literary magazines and journals solicit work from writers they know or those with name recognition, presenting an entry barrier to emerging or unrepresented writers. In her 2015 article for The Atlantic, acclaimed writer Joy Lanzendorfer made two interesting assertions. First, that the average published story is likely rejected 20 times before being published; second, that slush pile submissions only account for 1-2% of published work. Simply put, most of the work you see in the literary spaces is based on connection or writer recognition. Despite the rejection stats, and the reality of how many times it takes for a story to stick to a magazine’s pages, this emphasizes the importance of being an active member of the writing community. Editors solicit work from people they know. To be known you have to be an active member of the literary community.

A few years ago, I became a member of Women Who Submit (WWS), a nonprofit focused on elevating the voices of BIPOC, women, and nonbinary writers. This organization helped me see behind the literary curtain. Various members have taken time to offer me guidance and mentorship through both the submission and rejection process. WWS showcases the importance of relationships and elevating each other’s voices. The reality is that writers who know writers get published more, and all editors of literary magazines are writers themselves.

Since having my eyes opened by WWS, I have become a member of other writing communities, including Shut Up and Write. Outside of my WWS bubble, I have seen that other writers in various spaces struggle with the inevitability of rejection like I did. I hope this helps reduce the sting of rejection, and I would encourage you to submit again and again until your work finds its literary home.

Recently, I received a really nice standard rejection from Zyzzyva. The last paragraph said, “I would like to say something to make up for this ungraciousness, but the truth is we have so little space, we must return almost all the work that is submitted, including a great deal that interests us and even some pieces we admire. Inevitably, too, we make mistakes.”

I asked Christopher James, the editor-in-chief of the five-year-old Jellyfish Review, how often his magazine rejects stories they love because of lack of space. He responded, “We frequently say no to a lot of very strong stories, we would never say no to something we loved. We often accept imperfect pieces because we’ve fallen in love with them and hope our readers might fall in love with them too.” As the newer journal matures, they too may have to say no to work they admire. At the moment though, if they read your work and love it they’ll make space for it. Most journals have a limitation and only accept a certain amount of work—Jellyfish is the exception, not the rule.

Rejection is part of the process of getting your work out into the world. Should you default to younger journals? You can, but I believe that as a writer you should submit to the journals that speak to you, the magazines that you envision as a perfect fit. Familiarize yourself with the work they publish, follow their submission guidelines, and keep submitting work that aligns with their aesthetic. It will increase your chances of acceptance.

Even though stats are against them, many writers still manage to succeed, and you could be one of them. I reached out to the writers I know and asked if anyone had received multiple rejections only for a piece to be published later. Carla Sameth, author of “One Day on the Goldline: A Memoir in Essays” shared that her personal essay, “If This Is So, Why Am I?” was rejected 22 times before it was published in The Nervous Breakdown, only to be selected as notable for The Best American Essays of 2019. Just because something receives multiple rejections does not mean it isn’t worthy of recognition, accolades, or publishing. It left me wondering if those other 22 magazine editors felt they missed their window and had inevitably made a mistake.

I asked Kate Maruyama, the author of my favorite novella of 2020, “Family Solstice,” about her experience. Eighteen editors rejected her first novel “Harrowgate” before it was purchased. A short story of hers was rejected 35 times before being published. “For the short story, rejection number 10 was from Roxane Gay when she was reading for a journal,” Maruyama explained. “She said it wasn’t right for that journal but that it was a damn fine story.” Those words of encouragement along with her writing community kept Maruyama submitting.

To improve your odds and to keep a stiff upper lip when rejection inevitably finds its way to your inbox, here are some pointers to help ease the painful experience:

Take resubmission requests seriously. If a magazine rejects a written piece of yours but asks you to resubmit, they are not being nice. They don’t have time to be nice. They enjoy your work! Resubmit.

Familiarize yourself with the places you want to submit. If editors keep telling you that your work doesn’t fit their publication, read the publication. If you can’t access the publication because of monetary restrictions, look for copies in your local library or read the work of the writers who have recently been published by the magazine or journal. A Google search of the author will find other work of theirs that you can read for free. Compare their aesthetic to your own. Are you a fit? Then it’s a good place to submit!

Make sure your work is submission-ready. This is the number one sin of writers, according to Viva Padilla. Dryland doesn’t edit poetry; “…we expect poems to be ready to go,” she said. “When it comes to fiction and nonfiction that gets rejected, it’s mostly work that doesn’t seem to have a focus where we’re left wondering, what was that about?” Workshop your work with other writers and make sure to check your grammar before you submit.

Don’t expect an editor to provide feedback. If a magazine rejected you without giving a reason, pestering an editor for the “why” will quickly slam doors on future opportunities. Personalized rejections are rare. They are nice when they come in, but an editor doesn’t owe you a reason.

The reality is slush piles at literary magazines are immense, and many editors are volunteers or minimally compensated. These magazines are mostly labors of love for the written word. Rejection may seem personal, but it’s not. Even literary magazine editors get rejections from other publications. The more you submit, the greater the chance your work will find a literary home. The more time you take to prepare and research the best market for your work, the greater your odds for acceptance. Don’t be discouraged when you get a no. Look over your work and see if there are any structural or grammatical issues. If not, submit it again ASAP. If there are errors, fix them and send your piece out again.

Bottom line: it’s time to Shut Up & Submit!

Thea Pueschel is a writer, multi-media artist, and the winner of the TAEM 2020 Flash Fiction Summer Contest. Thea enjoys exploring the dark with light and the light with dark and a firm believer that without the shadow art and literature has less soul.

March 23, 2021March 23, 2021

Breathe to Pivot

by Thea Pueschel

I know we’re still in the midst of a pandemic, but I am pulling my mask down, letting everyone see my fine lines. I am here to confess. My heart is beating fast, my breath shallow because what I am going to say breaks the two cardinal rules of my house growing up. Don’t let people know your business. Don’t let people know your struggle. I take a deep breath. I doom scroll, to hide. I know it’s pointless; I breathe to pivot and share.

The pandemic has hit all of us hard. It has peeled back several layers of national delusion reminding us that the only exceptional aspects of America are our crumbling infrastructure, racism and the corporate profit over people ethos.

My story is like others and admitting it fills me with a bit of shame. I am one of the 2.2 million women that fell out of the workforce this past year. Writing this makes it feel more real, and from firsthand experience, I have to say it feels gross. In 2020, I made less money than I did when I was in my mid-teens. The least amount I have ever made as an adult.

I have/had a wellness practice for over a decade. When the pandemic hit, I canceled my corporate yoga teaching gigs for safety. When the CDC announced in-person sessions were no longer safe, I canceled those too. After a few weeks, and the realization that the pandemic wasn’t going anywhere, I attempted to move my private yoga and hypnotherapy clients online. Only a few were willing, the rest wanted to wait the pandemic out. I had to cancel a meditation teacher training and issue refunds. My income slowly dwindled to near nothing.

Relief filled me when the state of California stated that there would be Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for sole proprietors. The EDD granted me PUA. However, when I received my paperwork, something was amiss; it said that I made zero dollars in 2019, and I would start receiving my payment of zero dollars by a specified date. I spent several months attempting to get through to fix it and called over twelve hundred times just to be subjected to a constant loop of messages moving me from one area to another. I never broke through not even to leave a message and gave up.

Luckily, my overhead and costs of operating a business dissolved too. Unlike many of my friends with small businesses, I wasn’t stuck in a lease or needing to figure out if I could keep employees on. My practice was mobile. I don’t have children and my mortgage payment is low. Even though it has been a struggle, my husband still had a career, and we could tighten our budget and breathe to pivot. I know even though I’ve experienced hardship, I also have privilege.

Even with fewer responsibilities, I was caught in the maelstrom. The world was out of control, people were dying, businesses shuttered, and work dried up. I applied for essential worker jobs, but my lack of experience in that sector and educational overqualification blocked me from positions. I sat and thought about what I could do. I couldn’t fight the tide so I yield and write. I breathe and pivot.

I had dreamt of writing a novel or creating a collection of short stories, but that was a fantasy filled with false starts and stops. As Paulo Coelho wrote in The Alchemist, “People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel they don’t deserve them, or they’ll be unable to achieve them.” For me it was the latter. I wanted to, but I didn’t think I could write that much. Being able to create a substantive body of work seemed outside my reach and capacity. This past year, I leaned into the writing community.

The pandemic taught me humility and how to ask for help. It also taught me I can be a prolific writer. Currently, my historical novel is four chapters away from completion; I have over 100 short stories, fifty poems, and ten personal essays all created within the past twelve months. I also received a contract to write ESL readers in November, of which I have had twenty published. I applied to an MFA program, because if not now, when? It surprises me that my fingers are attached to my hands at this point.

Though I have generated a large body of work this past year, it was primarily possible because of the literary citizenship of others and opportunities that arose out of crisis. Women Who Submit, my writing buddies, my accountability partners, and my critique circle have all been instrumental in this time. I have applied for scholarships for writing programs, grants and fellowships. I won an award, was paid to write, and received funding. The writing community, especially the members of WWS, have been an invaluable resource with feedback, advice, and moral support.

In the words of Maya Angelou, “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” With gratitude, hope, and determination, I have been able to breathe, to pivot fully into my writing practice.

May 13, 2020May 11, 2020

Idle Hands and Roti

A stack of round and orange sweet potato roti in a red towel.

By Thea Pueschel

Welcome to the brave new world, where your commute (unless you are an essential worker) is from your bed to the couch. Perhaps you are feeling a bit judgmental. With so much extra time on your hands, the thought I should be writing might be circling your brain.

For those who are new to working from home or have an ample amount of time due to being furloughed or being laid off, you may have realized that a 1-hour task can take 16 hours. The lack of structure, and the ability to make your schedule, might have you reeling for normalcy and discipline. Reeling seems to be a symptom of the pandemic.

My father, the king of ADHD and distraction, likes to say about himself, “It doesn’t take me all day to do an all-day job, it just might take me all day to get there.” Going from a film studio corporate structure with set hours and workload to being my own boss– I hate to say it, but I resemble that remark, especially with my inherited ADHD.

This thing called time organization might be new to you. I’ll be honest; it can be a struggle at the best of times.

Time travel is weird, y’all. You don’t even need a time machine to do it. Your mind might be rushing to the future. What will the world look like after this? Your mind might be on the present. Do I have another roll of toilet paper? Your mind might be in the past. I miss XYZ; I felt so much happier then. You might find yourself in a time loop, repeating the same time thoughts over and over again.

These days I see friends and colleagues lament on social media about their lack of productivity, and unsure of where the time has gone. I know where— time travel. The mind cannot be in the present if it’s occupied with the future or the past. Pandemics are great time traveling devices as there are a lot of unknowns and uncertainties.

Remember the old idiom idle hands are the tools of the devil or another version of it idle hands are the devil’s playthings. Folks often believe this expression came from the bible, but we can thank Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee (1405) for the proverb. The character Melibeus says, “Dooth somme goode dedes, that the deuel, which is oure enemy, ne fynde yow nat vnocupied.” My translation of that is, stay busy, so the devil doesn’t find you some work. My interpretation is biased by my experience. Growing up, if my sisters or I said we were bored, there was always a woodpile or brick pile that we would have to move from one side of the yard to the other and served no other purpose. Amazingly, it cured us of boredom, or perhaps it just taught us sublimation.

To me, the idiom is not so much about falling prey to sin; it’s about how the mind can reel, how time travel happens when we are not otherwise occupied. Doing something with your hands can be very grounding. It can help disrupt the time loop. They say gardening and baking can help you feel more grounded, but maybe you don’t have the resources to do that. I have a two-ingredient sweet potato roti recipe for you. Works on a hotplate or stovetop. It will give you the opportunity to smash, knead, flatten, and roll. I dare you to attempt to time travel while making this.

2 Cups flour of your choice (I use Bob Mills 1-to-1)

2 Cups sweet potato

Pinch of salt (optional)

Flour for dusting

Steam the sweet potato(s), let it cool slightly. Peel the skin off the sweet potato when it is cool enough to touch. Mash it with a fork or potato masher until it is mashed really well, or all your existential angst is gone. Then stir in the flour. Knead to mix well, until dough forms. Divide into 12 balls. Put one ball on a flour-dusted surface, flatten it with your hand, then use a rolling pin to flatten it even more to about 2mm. Heat a skillet on medium heat. Once hot, place one roti at a time, flipping it after 2 minutes each side. If you don’t want to make 12, match equal parts sweet potato and flour, it will still work. The roti also freezes well.

After you have paid the devil his due, and enjoy the roti, it’s time to wash your hands and get back to writing.

Thea Pueschel is a hypnotherapist, yoga/meditation teacher. She writes, creates visual art, and teaches yoga teachers and doulas how to deliver and write meditations in and around L.A. and Orange County. She is committed to submitting, only in a literary capacity with light-hearted yet dark creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.

June 13, 2019

Working Through Writer’s Block

A pen and a stone sitting on a opened page of a hardcover book along with a journal and a small alter of candles.

By Thea Pueschel

The screen is blank, your fingers perch on the keyboard, the cursor is blinking at you, and your deadline is looming. Every writer experiences writer’s block at some point in their career. Perhaps, the blinking cursor and the blank screen even pervade your sleeping hours. When you are in a writing rut, and it feels as if there isn’t an exit it’s time to break free and find the flow again.

Body journal and breathe

You’re experiencing writer’s block with that comes a specific sensation or feeling. It’s time to step away from the computer. Take out a pen and paper and begin to write down the sensations you are feeling in your body. Give yourself 5-10 minutes for this exercise. Is your jaw tight? Can you associate the feeling with something else? Write it down. Are your shoulders shrugged up to your ears? When has that happened before? Write it down.

Go through as much of your body as you can in this time frame, write down the feelings and sensations as well as when you have experienced them before. Once, you’ve journaled, inhale deeply and exhale until your lungs feel empty. Take three breaths like this, stand up and stretch. You are ready to conquer the blank screen.

Stichomancy or bibliomancy

You’re stuck. Your thought pattern is circling and not going anywhere near what you need to write. The muse has wandered away. Perhaps, relying on a 3,000-year-old divination technique would invite the muse back in. Stichomancy or bibliomancy is a divination technique where a random line or passage from a book or the bible is selected to help guide a person in life. This technique works well to get outside of your head, and change perspective.

Take a small stone or a coin; open the book of your choice. With your eyes closed drop the object on the open page. Look where it landed, take 5 minutes to write about the selected line or rewrite the text, or write about the topic from a different point of view. Once your creative channels are clear, it’s time to get back to your work.

When you write, it’s easy to get trapped in your perspective especially when you are feeling blocked. Using stichomancy requires you to write from a place that is outside your norm bringing a fresh approach to your creativity. The body journal and breathe technique helps you reconnect to your body, explore your sensations and give them a voice which helps clear the mind and the body of blockages.

These techniques are a great way to break up the monotony of self-judgment and get your writing to flow again. Sometimes, the muse just needs to be taken for a walk through different techniques to open the channels of communication.

Thea Pueschel is a hypnotherapist, yoga/meditation teacher. She writes, creates visual art, and teaches yoga teachers and doulas how to deliver and write meditations in and around L.A. and Orange County. She is committed to submitting, only in a literary capacity with light-hearted yet dark creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.