Modesto Writers Group Anthology Submission Guidelines

MODESTO ANTHOLOGY SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

SUBMISSION LENGTH:

Entries must be works of prose, up to 7,000 words in length.


WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

All genres acceptable, except for dark and erotica. (We want to keep our anthology at a rating of PG-13 or less.)


WHAT WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR:

Slash and hack, blood and gore for their own sake. Graphic rape, torture, child abuse, and animal torture may have their place somewhere, but not here.

ORIGINAL WORK:

Please no plagiarized works.

HOW TO SUBMIT:

Submissions must be sent as an attached document in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf). Email submission to: modestoanthology@gmail.com. Please include your title and name in the subject line of your email (this will help us keep track of each submission). Proper manuscript format with headers and page numbers is appreciated, but not necessary. You can visit www.shunn.net/format/story.html for an example or email us at anytime for assistance.


DEADLINE:

Deadline is suspended. Go ahead and submit.


QUESTIONS:

Please email any questions about this anthology to: Mary Merrell at mary_merrell@sbcglobal.net or Doug C. Souza at souzacow@gmail.com.

We look forward to reading your stories and will work hard to keep you posted on any developments. You can join the Modesto Meetup Writers Group at http://www.meetup.com/writers-427 for more information about having your work edited prior to submission. Thank you for taking the time to consider our publication for your story. Our goal is to provide both a print and electronic version of the anthology.

Now Batting

July was an exciting month for me. First off, I finally got a response from Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I sent "The Ballad of Honest Luke" to them last September. I can't remember the last time I got such a shot of adrenaline just looking at the outside of a letter. I wasn't sure if I would get accepted, but I felt very strongly about the quality of my story and was hoping at least for a rejection letter with a hand-written note of encouragement. 

As it turned out, was just a plain old rejection letter. Yeah, I was disappointed, but I still feel the adrenaline from tearing open that letter now. With so many magazines taking e-submissions nowadays, the ritual involved in receiving a hard-copy rejection letter was a refreshing formality.

The last time I submitted to AHMM was nine years ago. That was too long. In fact, as I take stock of my submission history it's been pretty scant lately. I haven't been published in print or online since 2006. I did get a story accepted to a print anthology once in 2007, but it never got printed. Sure I've submitted to few contests since then and even earned some recognition, but I haven't been submitting to enough magazines and anthologies.     
                      

One reason is that I have been holding to my best stuff so I can submit it to top magazines like Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine or AHMM, but then I put off submitting to them which means I have a bunch of stories laying around. 

No more procrastinating. Right 'now, I'm rewriting a story I want to send to a literary magazine called Glimmer Train. I'm in way over my head with this and will probably just get an e-mail letting me know my story is free to be published elsewhere. But I can't be sure unless I try. One thing I learned from my rejection by AHMM is that trying to swing for a homerun every now and then is a big thrill. Even if I miss.  
                           

Plus, it lets me know where I stand. When I think I can write stories that are better than the ones I'm reading, a rejection here and there forces me think of why the allegedly inferior story gets published and mine doesn't. Then I learn something positive from the story.        

  

The deadline for the Glimmer Train submission is the end of July. With the pressure of writing for a first class magazine, I'm demanding more of myself and writing better. A couple months later, I'll learn whether or not the story has been accepted. Either way waiting will be exciting.