After getting rejected at a number of more prestigious magazines, I think I might submit a short story or two to CCSU's own Helix literary magazine this year, and I have to admit I'm a little disappointed. Nothing personal against the Helix, but I was hoping for a larger market.
Actually, wait...I do have some beef with the Helix. When I submitted a story last year I made sure to edit it as well as I could beforehand, so it would be less likely to be significantly changed by others.
Well, I did a pretty good job editing but I did make at least one small mistake...which the Helix then turned into a bigger mistake. Apparently in one passage I'd forgotten to italicize the narrator's thoughts (I had italicized in similar passages throughout), and somehow didn't catch it on my edits. The people at the Helix caught it, and made a little note next to the passage: "[Shouldn't this be in italics?]" or something to that effect. How do I know? Because they published the story with those editing comments still in it. Ugh.
Oh well, I don't mean to sound like a whiner. I was happy to be published in the magazine, and I did get a lot of positive feedback from readers, which was immensely gratifying. Also, I should be glad they spelled my name correctly--my cousin Chris wasn't so fortunate.
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I once wanted to submit to the Helix, so I tried it. They rejected it. I hate it when other people who don't have too much more say than we do, decide to chop up our work into little pieces... but what can I say? Anyone who writes has at least a little bit of an ego, and things like this feel like a really big deal. I've been thinking about trying it again myself, but have kinda backed off ever since they dumped mine lol.
ReplyDeleteHope they don't shun you this time. :)
You should definitely try again...you're older and probably a better writer than you were before. Don't give up!
ReplyDeletemaybe next semester. I don't think they're accepting anymore submissions right now.
ReplyDeletewell technically they aren't accepting anything but I submitted something 10 days late and just recently got an email saying it's accepted :) so the date is really arbitrary
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