archives.

Dear Editors of The Conflagrated Hen,

Thank you very much for your interest, but unfortunately your publication is not right for my work, and I have decided against responding to your call for submissions.

The decision to reject The Conflagrated Hen was a carefully considered one. As you know, decisions about where to publish are quite subjective, and perhaps less about any one journal in particular than about the collection of literary magazines in which a writer hopes to see his or her work, and to have it seen by others. 

Furthermore, I am currently overwhelmed by calls for submissions. For any given piece, I have at least five hundred literary journals and magazines to choose from. I wouldn’t dare submit simultaneously, so there really are very few publications that actually make the cut (in particular among those that take over two years to respond to submissions). 

In the future, rather than soliciting work from seasoned writers, you might try for work from undergraduate writing workshops, whose members tend to be much less selective about where their work is published. You might also try reading the blogs of writers who appeal to you and posting comments on relevant entries. 

Eventually, someone might start paying attention to you.

Until then, best of luck with filling the pages of The Conflagrated Hen.

Sincerely,

Rachel Levy