Sunday 16 September 2012

Funny Submission Guidelines #1

I wish I'd started this post when I first began sending out poems and stories for publication. But here are a few little gems I've found in submission guidelines recently for your delectation - you may even want to send some of your writing to these markets ...

"Please no poetry, we don’t understand it." The Safety Pin Review (short fiction)

"750 or fewer words. Weird. Surprising. Preferably no elves." Brain Harvest

"We’re just not the best market for doom-laden go-nowhere stories which push the boundaries of the English language into new and unfortunate places." Andromeda Spaceways In-flight Magazine

"We're not looking for poetry. Feel free to submit limericks. We won't publish them, but we might read them. Limericks are cool."  Crowded Magazine  (Who also need to be clear on this point: "No purple midgets, gay pirates, or unicorns. Actually, that's a lie. If you have a great story about a unicorn-riding purple midget battling a fleet of gay pirates, drop it in the queue. Really. We don't see enough of that kind of thing.")

And finally, two favourites from Short, Fast and Deadly:

"We're pretty sure our mothers read this page. Yours might too. We don't mind if she flinches a bit but we don't want her keeling over or anything."

and...

"No Haiku! For the love of God. No Haiku."

Let me know if you come across any other good ones... I feel this may turn into a regular feature!

p.s. And of course, the best place to find out the best places to send your submissions to is the excellent free writer's database and submission tracker called Duotrope which I can't recommend highly enough

14 comments:

  1. Brilliant. Love the Andromeda one. You can hear the pain, can't you?

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    1. Yes, and also the sadness of the safety pin one... Bless!

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  2. Love it! And absolutely agree about Haikus. I have never seen the point of tiny poems with no rhythm and no time to say anything interesting.

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    1. I have to defend them and say I have seen great ones... The trouble is a lot of people thing it's just about syllable counting went they're supposed to encapsulate some essential truth the the perfect description of so,etching natural... Or something!

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  3. there's one excellent haiku:

    Getting up at 7 am

    No no no no no
    no no no no no no no
    no no no no no

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    1. I retract what I said about Hakus. Now I know what they're for!

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  4. Too funny. A great way to start the week. Thank you!

    Anonymous - you made me spit out my coffee.

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  5. From a travel writing site (http://www.literarybohemian.com/submissions/):

    "Please refrain from using the following words: amazing, ancient, beautiful, charming, fabulous, lovely, magical, rich, romantic, timeless or undiscovered unless you are being ironic."

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  6. Not even in satire? And why shard in particular?

    Glimrel turned one of the few shards that remained of the crystal in the light. Morgwyn's power was growing quickly; if he were to be turned, 'twere best done soon.

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    1. Overused in poetry! But the quote you've given involves your actual shard so that's ok! 8-)

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  7. http://www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/2012/11/the-subject-of-submission/

    Have you heard of this?

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    1. Oh yes! I use Duotrope all the time - very very useful, I should have given them a mention - will add a link to the post! Thanks for flagging it up

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