Bookmarks

Over the weekend I did one of those little chores we writers have to do from time to time. I went through all the bookmarks in my browser that have to do with short story submissions. I made a sub-folder for them, and checked them one by one. Then I transferred the good ones into the sub folder. And I alphabetized them, just for kicks.

What was I looking for? Publications that I’ve heard are defunct, especially magazines. Magazines come and go quite often. Also publishers with specific submission windows that are long past. And ones that hadn’t updated their website in over a year. That’s a sign they are struggling or just haven’t admitted they’re going to close yet.

One sad thing I had to look for was a group of magazines like Fantasy and Science Fiction and Analog, which are highly esteemed but were recently purchased by a corporation that makes strange and excessive rights demands. Those bookmarks had to go.

Of course, I also did a fresh search for magazine markets. I’ve been picking up leads from Bluesky and Jason Stanford’s newsletter, Genre Grapevine. I checked those out and added them if they seemed like a possible good fit.

I hope this will help me tackle one of my bad habits, which is to write short stories and then never submit them anywhere. On those days when I’m struggling to put down new words, I can open my file cabinet and look for stories that need to be submitted.

Thrilling, right?

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