Glimmer Train rejection

I've been rejected by them. Form rejections, and pretty much when they say they'll respond. They'll encourage you to keep submitting, keeping in mind their calendar.

And prepare for email spam forever. I finally moved them into my spam filter because I'd get constant emails asking to buy this issue or to buy that. While it's not uncommon for magazines to use a writer's email for soliciting, it just seemed excessive.

And yeah, I have only gotten form rejections from them.

Yup form rejections here too!

hey, I have excellent company.

So many times that I stopped taking their mag. Call me spiteful, but there it is. I am sure they don't miss me but it made me feel better--s6

Form rejections here too.

Duotrope lists Glimmer Train's acceptance rate at 0.22%. Their stats are usually several times higher than the actual acceptance rates because they only report what writers report to them (apparently, those who get acceptances are several times more likely to report than those who get rejections). But even if we accepted their numbers as fact, that's what, about 1 in 500? Yikes!

yeah, don't beat yourself up over it.

if i remember right, the mag is run by two sisters of a certain taste in writing, and they receive TONS of stories. i have about two years' worth of the mags in my collection, and I must say that most of the stories they publish are absolutely exceptional. so it's a nice goal, but don't sweat it out too much.

Form rejection here, too. They have very specific stylistic tastes in what they accept, I think. I took a look through two years' worth (8 issues) of GT, and found that most of the stories were 1st person narrative, and about half were 1st person, present tense. They tend to like introspective pseudomemoir styles of fiction, and of course are highly focused on the quality of the prose.

caw

Going through my rejections from Glimmer Train (since 2005), I've always gotten forms. They seem to have changed it very slightly from one form to the other.

I do keep trying, though. What the hell, right?

blacbird said:

Form rejection here, too. They have very specific stylistic tastes in what they accept, I think. I took a look through two years' worth (8 issues) of GT, and found that most of the stories were 1st person narrative, and about half were 1st person, present tense. They tend to like introspective pseudomemoir styles of fiction, and of course are highly focused on the quality of the prose.

caw

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I came here to write about this as well. I really think you nailed it. I do like some of their stories, but many I simply could not connect with. I think I relied too heavily on the ones that really spoke to me (as something they were fond of), which were in the minority.

A decent magazine, though. In some literary circles, I hear that they tend to accept pieces that are in a certain network, or from someone who knows someone who knows someone type situations. I don't know if this is true. All Lit-mags have some measure of nepotism, though.

The covers are always lovely.

CrastersBabies said:

In some literary circles, I hear that they tend to accept pieces that are in a certain network, or from someone who knows someone who knows someone type situations.

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I don't know about this, but they do always post biographical info about, and undoubtedly from, the writers they accept. Most are in or have been in M.F.A. programs. What connections or dynamics are involved there, I don't know.

caw

Form R's here too!

I would think I hadn't done my due rejection diligence without a fistful of form R's from the Glim. I don't think they like first person, present tense pseudomemoirs by shoggoths, which is sheer speciesism, but hey, no arguing with taste.

My nephew got a story in, though!

CrastersBabies said:

I came here to write about this as well. I really think you nailed it. I do like some of their stories, but many I simply could not connect with. I think I relied too heavily on the ones that really spoke to me (as something they were fond of), which were in the minority.

I don't know about this, but they do always post biographical info about, and undoubtedly from, the writers they accept. Most are in or have been in M.F.A. programs. What connections or dynamics are involved there, I don't know.

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(the second quote above was from our resident caw-er).

I agree with you both. I always think when someone talks about which litmags are the best by how much or if they pay, or what their acceptance rate is, that they haven't read many of them and aren't very familiar with them. I really don't notice it working that way. In my experience, the only way to know which magazines you think are good is to forget all that and read them yourself. Some of the most prestigious largely bore me and some of the tiny no-pay unknowns with far higher acceptance rates consistently amaze me.

I have also seen pubs where all or nearly all of the authors are in or were in MFA programs. I always wonder if they think it makes their publication seem more prestigious or what the deal is there. When I ran a little e-zine, I truly didn't notice a difference with education level and story quality (or maybe I should say in how much "I" liked their work, since "quality" is subjective).

Could be just me or just with "literary" writing (another label that I don't find to mean very much in practice) but I just don't find that any of the usual labels apply.

I get frustrated because it seems few people understand (or else they just don't agree). They keep wanting to apply the standards that seem to apply to everything else in life, both with the writers and the pubs- college degrees, pay rates, acceptance rates. I say, "Nope, just read the magazine yourself and judge by that alone."

Does anyone else who reads a lot of litmags notice this?

There was a straw that broke shakey's back--a story so pointless and irritating that I decided to cancel the subscription and save my sanity. There were good stories but most weren't anything I would write. Why bang my head against that particular wall when there are so many other walls to be banged? --s6

I'm not sure it's completely fair to say that the top ten percent of MFA writers are better writers than almost anyone else a typical mag sees, but they're certainly writers who all have a lot of talent, and maybe as important, writers who have spent years studying exactly what kind of fiction the literary market wants, and who to write it.

Literary mags are not a closed circle, but the competition level is unbelievably fierce, and it's simply going to be the case that when a lit mag has thousands of MFA writers sending in fiction, most of the stories they buy are going to be from these writers.

Holder of a Glim Form Reject here too.

Received a personal rejection with reasons for turning it down and a suggestion to try again.
I haven't.