Newbie fiction writer seeks connections & advice on getting started in p
November 26, 2018 12:35 PM   Subscribe

Hey MeFi! Can you recommend things I can do to get started in literary publishing, in terms of publishing, pitching, making friends and getting involved in the literary community both IRL and online? Assume I've got a good writing routine down and am producing consistently, so don't need hacks regarding the writing process itself. Also, if you want to be writing buds, hit me up!

I write literary fiction and occasional nonfiction. (For the purposes of this post let's just assume these labels make any sort of sense.) I'm a WOC and based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I write lots on topics like class, gender & misogyny, race, immigration & diaspora, sexuality, trauma, and disability. I'd like to write a novel. Some of my favorite writers include James Baldwin, George Saunders, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rebecca Solnit, GRRM, and Rachel Kushner. I read poetry but don't know that I'd feel qualified giving feedback on same.

Notable stories I've written include: an over-the-top queer rom-com; a story about the legalization of vampires as an allegory for immigration; a story about a conflicted female defense lawyer's work representing a male harasser in a MeToo case; a story tracking the impact of intergenerational trauma on a family lineage; and a story about a diehard conservative and liberal finding their way to uneasy friendship (ft. hilarious homoerotic tension). (Can you tell I got my start in fanfiction, lol?)

Here's what I've done to get started with publishing and building lit community:
- Started a nine-member writing group, which is thriving amazingly!
- Organized women's talent shows in the Bay, inc. featuring readings by writers
- Starting submitting to literary magazines on Submittable, like The Southern Review, Kenyon Review, A Public Space, OneStory, etc
- Gotten a Poets & Writers subscription
- Become a reader for The Rumpus, an online publication
- Occasionally attended events at literary spaces in the Bay Area (The Ruby in SF, Left Margin Lit in Berkeley, etc)

Questions:
1. Are there any writers on here who want to exchange work and feedback? I'm a reliable communicator/emailer, have read avidly all my life, enjoy giving feedback, and love making new literary friends! If so PM me!
2. What can I do to help my chances of publication, besides writing and submitting regularly? The traditional big-name lit mags are getting tons and tons more submissions these days because the submissions process has digitized. Connections & stature in the community seem key in upping chances of publication -- am I wrong?
3. What else can I do to get more involved in the Bay or online literary communities? I loooove the literary arts (if you can't already tell) so I'd be delighted to find some literary communities to participate in & give back to, independent of any impacts that has on my publication chances.
4. Any publications you think would be a particularly good fit for my work?
5. It seems like a lot of the lit community is on Twitter. Here's mine if you want to follow each other. :-)
posted by zestful to Media & Arts (2 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Take a look at Absolute Write - it's the biggest and broadest writing community I'm aware of.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:54 PM on November 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


You're really living up to your user-name - that's an impressive list of things you're already doing!

Seconding Absolute Write. I'm not terribly active there nowadays, because I'm just not doing that much writing at this point, but I have fond memories.

I also like to follow people whose writing I like on tumbler. I could imagine some of your stuff might work quite well there. Not sure whether that would do anything for your chances of publication, but you might meet potential beta readers. Probably not news to you, I guess, since you have a background in fanfiction.
posted by sohalt at 6:18 AM on November 27, 2018


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