The Latest NTM Statistics
"Women don't submit work as much as men" is often stated as fact and the defending reason why certain poetry magazines regularly publish 70%+ male poets. I don't doubt that certain magazines do indeed receive fewer submissions from women. I have my opinions to why this is the case for them. (Short answer: If a magazine develops a track record/reputation of excluding/not being receptive to the work of certain writers, those certain writers take notice and send their work elsewhere). If you are unfamiliar and interested with my evolving thoughts (from 2004-2007) on this topic, you can read some of them here, here, here, here, here, here and here. I have nothing new to add to this discussion except the latest round of No Tell submission numbers.
During the month of May (only our reading period so far in 2008) the percentages were:
50% men
48% women
2% gender unclear
All of these submissions were unsolicited (aside from general calls on this blog and a few mailing lists).
Dear editors with woman poet submission deficits, take heart, somewhere out there are women both writing and submitting poetry. It's really not so hopeless. I don't know, maybe try some breath spray or something.
Oh and no, I have not responded to all the submissions from May yet -- still have 86 to go.
posted by RL @ 10:38 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Reb:
I have a male friend wwho absolutely loathes submitting his poetry. For years, his book editor had to pester him to do it more than once per year. That's what he does now. He take his poems, those he has written in the past year, divides them into batches, and sends them out exactly once. If anything stcks, fine. If not, who cares?
It's enough to make me cry because he's at a point where he just sends his books out to people he knows and they actually go to presses to argue his cause for him.
I love him dearly and he is the single greatest influence on my writing philosophy, but I can't listen to a thing he says about the submission process because he simply doesn't see things the way it is out there.
That reminds me of the time Donald Hall talked about his submission strategy. He first sends them to The New Yorker and if they don't want them, he let's The Atlantic Monthly have them. Of course, he was well into his 70's when he said this -- I doubt that was his situation 40 years ago.
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