We read over 7000 stories & essays. Here are our top 9 submitting tips!
+ Upcoming Free “Gabo” Reading Period | 24-hours only
Our next reading period is coming up on March 6 (Gabriel García Márquez’s birthday) for 24 hours only, midnight-to-midnight.1 Submissions are free and we pay $200 for long-form writing, and $50 for short-form. Read the full submission guidelines here and get ready to submit! Please note: You do not have to be a paid subscriber to submit!
We’ve now read over 7000 submissions to Strange Pilgrims (and sent out 95% of responses from our first reading period). Stories and essays from six continents (still waiting on you, Antarctica). Flash pieces written, we suspect, in single sittings at 2 AM, and novel chapters trimmed to fit our word count like a foot squeezed into a glass slipper (yes, we notice, and no, we don’t hold it against you). Some arrived with cover letters longer than the pieces (not kidding…). Some arrived with no cover letter at all (totally cool). Some made us forget we were reading from so-called slush-pile on a screen way too late into the night.
What follows is something I’ve been meaning to write for a while. After reading this many submissions, there are certain things we wish we could tell every writer before they hit send. So here they are!
Alongside other perks, paid subscribers can also access exclusive writing exercises here (a lot more to come!):
Below we have:
9 detailed submission tips covering:
First paragraphs
How to land your ending
Dialogue & rhythm
What kind of work to send us and others
Why you should submit in the first place
Cover letters
& more!!