Winter 2022 Rejections: Mystery Magazine, Asimov’s, Epiphany, Alaska Quarterly Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and More Literary Journals

Welcome to The Rejection Quarterly, Winter 2022 edition.

Sharing rejections shares the effort behind submissions and makes celebrating acceptances even sweeter. What kind of literary journal rejections are you seeing? On the road to publication, why not “publish” the rejections themselves?

Here are the rejections I collected from December 2021 – February 2022.

Rejection from Fiction

280-day response time

Dear Contributor:

Thank you very much for submitting your work to Fiction. After careful consideration, the editors were not able to accept it for publication.

We would like to offer personalized letters or feedback but limitations of time and staff have made that impossible at the present. We wish you the best of luck in finding a journal to publish your writing. The editorial staff, including the editor-in-chief, Mark Jay Mirsky, welcomes critical response to past issues of the magazine if you wish to include any in future submissions or letters.

With best regards,

The Editors

2022-01-02 06:06:59 (GMT -5:00)

Form rejections after so many months are especially disappointing.

Rejection from Alaska Quarterly Review

74-day response time

Dear Arthur Klepchukov,

We’d like to thank you, sincerely, for giving us the opportunity to read your work. Though it doesn’t meet our needs at this time, we’re so thankful for it; now more than ever, the arts feel as necessary as they are fragile, and it’s up to each of us to keep them going.

For the foreseeable future, we’ll only be accepting submissions via Submittable. Information regarding open submission reading periods will be posted on our website.

Wishing you safe and well, all our best,

The Editors

Alaska Quarterly Review

https://aqreview.org/

AQR is open for less than one month out of the year, but I’m grateful for the relatively speedy response.

Rejection from Epiphany

96-day response time

Dear Arthur Klepchukov,

Thank you for submitting your work, “Still Watching.” Regretfully, we cannot find a place for it in our upcoming issue, but we wish you the best of luck placing it elsewhere.

At Epiphany we are committed to evaluating every submission we receive thoughtfully and respectfully. Many issues factor into every decision we make either to publish a piece or pass on it, from its consonance or dissonance with other work we’ve accepted to the simple issue of personal preference, which cannot be anything but subjective. To familiarize yourself with the work we do (and some of the work we’ve loved best), please consider subscribing to the journal at http://epiphanyzine.com.

We value long relationships with the writers and artists who entrust us with their work, and hope you’ll keep us in mind for other submissions in the future. Until then, do join our communities on 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/epiphanylit

…Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epiphanylitjournal

…and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/epiphanylitmag

Thanks again and we hope that you are staying safe and sane out there and that all is well for you and yours!

Sincerely,

The Editors

Rejection from The Rupture

99-day response time

Dear Arthur,

Thank you for the opportunity to read “Still Watching.” Unfortunately, we will not be publishing the fiction you submitted, but we wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Gabriel Blackwell
Editor
The Rupture

Encouraging Rejection from Mystery Magazine

36-day response time

Thank you for submitting your story, “furl & unfurl” to Mystery Magazine. This is very, very good! Unfortunately, it is missing a crime. I am sorry I will not be accepting it for publication, but hope you find a home for it elsewhere. I would be happy to read more of your work, please continue to send your mysteries our way.

All the best,

Kerry Carter
Editor

Mystery Magazine
Available in Print on Amazon!
editor@mysterymagazine.ca
https://MysteryMagazine.ca
https://twitter.com/MysteryWeekly
https://facebook.com/mysteryweekly

This response made me smile. Their submission guidelines don’t explicitly call out crime as a requirement, but this is a reminder to read where I submit more closely. Cozy mysteries don’t have to involve murder, but still tend to have crime. And not every crime story is a mystery. Know where you’re submitting by reading, reading, and reading some more!

Encouraging Rejection from Uncharted Magazine

15-day response time

Dear Arthur,

Thank you so much for submitting “furl & unfurl” for consideration in our Crime/Mystery Prize judged by Kimberly McCreight.

I am sorry to say that your submission was not selected for the shortlist. Unfortunately, we always have to decline some excellent pieces, but we are grateful for the chance to read such high-quality work.

Thank you again for submitting to us, we truly couldn’t do this without you.  We wish you the best of luck with your writing. We hope you will consider submitting to us in the future.

Thank you again,

Tommy Dean and the UnchartedTeam

Rejection from Asimov’s

12-day response time

Dear Arthur,

Thank you very much for letting us see “Terminus.”  We appreciate your taking the time to send it in for our consideration.  Although it does not suit the needs of the magazine at this time, we wish you luck with placing it elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Sheila Williams, Editor
Pronouns: she, her
Asimov’s Science Fiction 
www.asimovs.com

Rejection from SmokeLong Quarterly

2-day response time

Dear Arthur,

Thank you for your submission of “Parting Pages” to SmokeLong Quarterly. We gave your work careful consideration. Though we are not accepting it for publication, we hope you find a better fit for it elsewhere.

Thanks again for trusting us with your work, and thank you for reading SmokeLong Quarterly. Our story archive is available free to read online.

All the best,

Christopher Allen

SmokeLong Quarterly

http://smokelong.com

Rejection from Vestal Review

12-day response time

To Arthur Klepchukov,

Thank you for sending us “encircled.” Unfortunately we won’t be able to use this work for Vestal Review. We receive many well-written, compelling stories but can take only a limited number because we come out twice a year with only 10-15 stories each issue, which means a 2% acceptance rate. We wish you the best of luck in placing your story elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Vestal Review

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