I often run across commentary related to writers’ frustrations with submitting to literary magazines, running into the Wall of Rejection, and rants against The Establishment perceived in many long-standing publications/academically-connected journals. Often, new publications are started by writers attempting to break down the barriers for other writers, promising to give consideration to those totally-unknown authors as well as those who do not come with a highly-acclaimed workshop/colony/MFA pedigree. Stick around literary publishing long enough, and the repetitions become easy to sort, but nonetheless, heartfelt and real for those going through them for the first time.
Anette Gendler, in her post “The Year I Gave Up Submitting to Literary Magazines” in Women Writers, Women[‘s] Books, took a look at her publishing record a few years back, “As 2015 drew to a close, I reviewed my submissions log and noted that 25 submissions to literary magazines had yielded zero acceptances.” After considering the usual self-blame (“not enough effort, I should have submitted more”), Gendler considered her record for the years prior: 32 submissions/0 acceptances; 68 submissions/0 acceptances.
For many reading this, I know the first thought: Maybe she’s just not that good.
Consider her previous publication credits: Bella Grace, Washington Independent Review of Books, Tablet Magazine, Thread, Wall Street Journal, and, for a period of time before this ‘dry spell’: Flashquake, South Loop Review, Under the Sun, Bellevue Literary Review, Kaleidoscope, Natural Bridge, and Prime Number Magazine.
She’s been published. She just wasn’t seeing the results that would encourage her to continue banging her head against that Wall. Yet, she asked herself, “Could I abandon the mothership?” She did, and instead, “I focused on the publications whose work I truly admired and loved to read, and that’s where I kept submitting.”
The result? “It’s not that suddenly all my work gets accepted, but the rate is much higher,” Gendler writes. “I now look at my submissions in terms of publications I want to get into. I think about what I could write for them.”
After reading Gendler’s commentary and seeing it had been a few years, I wondered, “Where is she now?” with her stance on lit mags, so I reached out to her to ask.
“My approach has pretty much stayed the same since then,” she wrote, “I don’t submit to literary magazines anymore. Not doing so was essentially a course correction for me. Literary magazines are just not the right market for my work, even though I write literary nonfiction and memoir.”
As well, since that time, she has published her first book, Jumping Over Shadows: A Memoir. Ironically, a lit mag editor, having read her post, asked her to submit something for their journal. She did, and they published The Flying Dutchman, an excerpt from her book.
First Prize
Over the past several months, writer 
In addition, Nye has drawn in a solid staff: Associate Editor LaTanya McQueen; Staff Andrew Bockhold, Brandon Grammer, Robert Ryan, and Brianna Westervelt; as well as a Board of Directors with Ruth Awad, Valerie Cumming, Keith Leonard, and Maggie Smith; and an Advisory Board with David Althoff, Jürgen Fauth, Stephanie G’Schwind, Roxane Gay, Jonathan Gottschall, Andrea Martucci, Speer Morgan, David Shields, Randi Shedlosky-Shoemaker, Jim Shepard, and Marion Winik.
Rachel Napolitano was born in Dallas, TX. She has been the wife of an F-16 pilot since 2011. In her memoir In the Passenger Seat of the Viper: Stories from the Wife of an F-16 Pilot, she talks about her experience in the military community from an insider’s point of view. Her lifestyle requires constant relocation to disparate countries. She lived in places such as LA, Italy, South Korea, and South Carolina, and traveled to exotic locales.
Winner
Cathy J. Schlund-Vials [pictured] and Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, editors for this issue write in the 
Weston Ochse spent thirty years in the military. The first five years was as a communications specialist who carried the combat radio. Then he transferred to intelligence where he stayed for the remainder of his career. He performed humanitarian operations in Bangladesh, was deployed in Afghanistan, and near cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His intense military experience helped him carve indelible characters.
Just what fans of Jane Austen need: Our own society of Austen lovers!
Each issue of 
David Graeme Baker’s oil on linen Escape Velocity greets readers of the Autumn 2018 issue of 
Military stories have engrossed readers and viewers worldwide, ranging from iconic films like A Thin Red Line to visceral books such as Black Hawk Down. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, screenwriting – no matter the genre – we are shaken by the grit of reality and the hero’s quests for victory or survival.
Susan Caswell has been in the Army for twenty years, eighteen and a half on active duty. She was a direct commission as a chaplain. Most of her work is of a non-religious nature. She provides counseling to deal with combat and financial stress, relationship and medical issues, among other sensitive cases. Most of the service members are between the ages of 18-24, extremely young and away from the safety of their homes.
Fiction Winner
The Fall/Winter 2018 issue of 
An online journal “dedicated to short fiction,” 
Based on Editor Victor David Sandiego’s intro commentary, it sounds like the Winter 2018 issue of 
In addition to the print annual, 
About Place Journal
“Alabama for Beginners,” Jean Ryan’s featured essay in a recent issue of 
The Greensboro Review
After twenty-six years as editor-in-chief of 
With each new issue of its online poetry journal, 
With each new quarterly issue, 
Approached by Canada’s 
. . . I wonder if
The December issue of 
In her editorial to