Call for Submissions | Writing in the Dark Now Pays for Essays, Stories & Poem-ish Things!

Full submission guidelines are in the post below ❤️

Hello! I just had a really fun idea! We’re turning WITD’s Lit Salon into something a lot like … a real Lit Salon!

Straight to the point first, then the backstory & details:

I am inviting submissions of your best new, unpublished work written in response to Writing in the Dark writing exercises—especially if it’s work you feel you couldn’t/wouldn’t have written without the exercise. Payment is $50 for accepted essays/stories/poem-ish things and hybrid creations (we bend genre around these parts!).

Deadline: Rolling/Ongoing — we’ll be curating this feature for the foreseeable ongoing future, so you don’t need to rush! I’m excited to see your work whenever it’s ready.

And if you are new here and don’t know much about Writing in the Dark exercises, I recently spoke with Sarah Fay of Writers at Work about my approach to them (and lots of other things re: writing, teaching & Substack) in her new Visionary Series, and you can read that interview here. ¹

And, since this feature launched in May, we’ve had two accepted pieces run already, which you can read here:

The Game Was to Guess the Words by Jocelyn Lovelle

On Injustice (For My Sister-in-Law) by Sarah Orman

And here is what these writers have had to say about having their work published in Writing in the Dark’s Lit Salon:

There's really no way to thank you enough, so I'll just say thank you again and let you know that you are part of changing the way I feel about being in the world. ~Jocelyn Lovelle

I've been sending my work out for publication for a few years now, and I have to say that this was the most rewarding experience I've had so far. You have really created a wonderful writing community. I'm in the thick of a years-long memoir project, hoping to query agents later this summer, and as you know that process is often a slog. I'm going to be buoyed by the things that people wrote in the WITD comments! ~Sarah Orman

The Backstory

This idea was inspired just yesterday by an email from a Writing in the Dark reader who submitted an essay to me in response to my recent call for guest posts on Notes.

I mentioned I was interested in featuring guest essays and author interviews, and got an immediate outpouring! I’ve only just started opening the emails (though I’ve responded to a couple of authors for what will be incredible interviews!).

But the real surprise, and the catalyst for this Call for Submissions, was this email I mentioned, from a writer who sent me a short essay she’d written in direct response to a Writing in the Dark exercise. And it was … so lovely. More importantly, for me, it was also a little strange, a lot embodied, somehow slanted, and very alive.

The kind of work I really want to feature in Writing in the Dark.

That’s when it clicked:

For guest posts in my Monday Lit Salon series, I want readers to submit only work they’ve written directly in response to a Writing in the Dark exercise—any WITD exercise (we have a giant archive of them).

Again, if you’re new here and not familiar with Writing in the Dark writing exercises, they’re published every Wednesday (and occasionally on other bonus days, too). Lots of folks share bits & snippets of their writing to the exercises in the comments, where we all “gather round the fire” and celebrate each other’s work while also doing close reads of published work, etc.

Essentially it’s a big party, a bit literary salon where we revel in language and try to figure out how to make it do what we want it to do on the page, and it’s amazing in the way the best kind of literary salons are amazing, buzzing with passionate discussion of poetry and image, of meaning and truth and how to get closer up to the world with our words and what it means to try to pin one true thing about a human life to a page.

You can find a bunch of the posts that show writing exercises in these sections of WITD:

• Writing Lab

• Essay Challenge

• Story Challenge

• The Visceral Self

And you can also just search our Curriculum Index.

And, starting tomorrow, May 19, Writing in the Dark will share reader submitted essays/stories/poem-ish things written in direct response to a Writing in the Dark exercise.

Reader submitted work will run on Mondays in Lit Salon, interspersed with occasional author interviews as well as pieces that follow the original advice column format, like Dear Stuck and Dear Especially.

So, without further delay, here are the Submission Guidelines for this new Lit Salon guest feature—I can’t wait to start sharing your work!

WITD Lit Salon Submission Guidelines

1. Email your own original new work written directly in response to a Writing in the Dark exercise to writing@writinginthedark.org, subject line WITD LIT SALON SUBMISSION

2. Paste the whole piece directly into the email please—no attachments. If you really need formatting, we’ll figure that out if/when I accept your piece, but I don’t want to deal with attachments or Google docs. Thank you!

3. Include your full name and the genre of your work (ie, I do need to understand if it is meant to be read as nonfiction)

4. Include a link to the WITD post with the writing exercise you wrote in response to

5. Include 1-2 paragraphs of an Author’s Note describing your process, how it felt to write to the exercise, if/how the exercise helped you break through a block and why, etc. If you already participate in our comments, you know what I am looking for here. If not, it would be good to have a look around our comments on exercise posts. You can also take a look at examples at CRAFT literary magazine, which consistently publishes short author notes with their stories, essays, and flash.

6. Include a short bio of about 150 words, and, yes, you can link to your own Substack if you have one.

7. Word Count is flexible, but remember that longer stuff has to earn its real estate, make every word count. So, use only as many feathers as absolutely necessary for your piece to fly. But, this feature does let you take your first snippets and extend/expand/revise them beyond the usual 200 word count we adhere to for comments (though, again, remember: more words need to earn their space by being essential).

Payment is $50 on publication. ²

WITD Lit Salon Submission FAQ

Q. Why does the writing have to be in response to a Writing in the Dark exercise?

A. Because that’s the whole point of this new feature!

In fact, I am especially interested in surprising, incredible work that came as a result of a breakthrough specific to the exercise itself. As a writer said to me yesterday, “I’ve never been able to write about this until now—I needed a tool to unlock this one.” So, yes, I’m looking for work where you say, “Wow! I could/would never have written this, or written this in this way, without that exercise.”

That last bit is not required, but I will be looking for it, that sense of the essential role of the exercise in unlocking your work, because it’s exciting and it helps me teach these principles better. Also, sharing more finished versions of the work we do in the comments on our Wednesday posts gives us a chance to go a little deeper with our work together.

Q. What if I am a brand new writer and have never published anything before and have never even commented on one of your posts or shared a “snippet?”

A. No problem at all! You don’t need any experience to participate in this new feature. No matter how new you are to WITD, or even if you’ve only ever been quietly working on your own here without posting anything, you are welcome to send work in for this feature—as long as the piece is written in response to a WITD exercise and you link to the original post with the exercise.

Q. Should I revise my work before sending it to you, or send it exactly as I wrote it for the exercise?

A. I’ve never ever submitted anything for publication anywhere ever (did I say ever?) without revising it many times, usually an uncountable number of times. Revision is writing. Yes, sometimes first drafts come out in an inspired, perfect heap, and also, sometimes lightning strikes in the same spot twice.

As for me, I revise. So I guess I would encourage you to revise, too.

Q. Do you accept simultaneous submissions?

A. I mean, I guess so? As long as you wrote the thing in response to a Writing in the Dark exercise, and link to the post with the exercise, that works. But … this is a super specific to WITD thing we’re doing here, so I guess I’ll let you figure that out.

Q. Do you accept multiple submissions?

A.It would be best to send me one piece at a time to consider. But, I could see some exceptions, especially for very short pieces. Like, say, if you have 2 or 3 really cool linked pieces, like pieces from Story Challenge using the Little Red Riding Hood framework we explored! That was really fun, and the Author’s Note would be so interesting!

Or, say you have three pieces from Visceral Self, or —and those three pieces were speaking to each other. Or maybe you have three pieces distinct exercises that are resonant, like something on place, something on voice, and something on desire. I can see all sorts of cool possibilities. I am looking forward to what you come up with.

But, again, don’t send me something, whether one piece or a few very short ones, that’s so long I won’t have time to read it.

Q. Why are you so excited about this idea?

A. The reason I love this idea so much is because, first, we get to showcase your gorgeous work to our almost 9000-member community … and on top of that, with the pairing of your work and your Author’s Note, we get a deeper sense of the evolution of our writing exercises in real time.

fnIt’s going to be really fun!

Q. How should a person choose which exercise?

A. I have no idea! A lot of times, though, your most surprising work will come from an exercise you resist. Not always, though. Sometimes you’ll just get junk. That’s what’s so magical and frustrating about art. If one thing doesn’t work, try something else, or try the thing that didn’t work on a different day—you might be surprised.

Q. Are you always open for submissions for Lit Salon, or will you sometimes close?

A. I have no idea. We’ll see how it goes.

Q. How will submissions be selected?

A. I’m looking first and foremost for work that is alive, unexpected, and real. Whatever this means to you. If you’ve been hanging out here and writing in the dark with me, you probably have a decent sense of what this means to me!

Also, I will definitely favor work in which I can sense the bones of the exercise, or the shadow of the exercise. It’s great if you took the exercise in a whole different direction, revised it, and all that’s left when you send it to me is an impression, like a footprint on grass. But, I still want to feel that impression there somewhere, because that’s going to be fun and help me use this feature to teach better.

Q. Will submissions be blinded?

A. No, I want you to include your full name on your submission. And I will definitely recognize a lot of peoples names! We’re in the comments together all the time, I know you guys. That’s kind of the point, is to feature the work of people doing the work, so we can all learn more from it! Also, I don’t have the capacity or infrastructure or desire to figure out blinded submissions. It’s just not relevant at all to this endeavor.

Fair warning, time to respond could be long. Also, I might not be able to respond at all unless I can use your piece.

I’m really sorry about that. I don’t have readers or editors helping me with this feature! I am just one very very busy writer/teacher doing my best—and that, I can promise: I will do my best.

Last Bits

I think this new feature will elevate and amplify the work we’re doing in this space in really beautiful ways.

And if you send me your work, I’ll treat it with care, even if I can’t use it (I will definitely get way more beautiful submissions than I can use, as you know—and just because I can only a few of these a month at the most, doesn’t mean yours is not perfect and beautiful! It just means I can only use a few).

If I do use your piece, you’ll go through a typical editorial process with me, where I might ask questions, make comments, or suggest edits, depending.

I want you to remember that at heart, I am a writer.

I still submit my work to journals and publishers, and have been doing that since I was 22 years old—so that’s 34 years. I know what it feels like. And I am kind, fair, and strive to be the best person I know how to be, and a little better every day.

Thank you in advance for sending me your best, most exciting work from the exercises!!

Love,
Jeannine

Sarah Fay: Craft and writing exercises are everywhere. What makes yours different? Because they are very different from most.

1. Jeannine: My exercises are pretty weird, I know! I use a lot of constraints–don’t get me going on the amazingness of constraints. Plenty of creative theory books talk about it. But the exercises are more than typical constraints, too. They definitely aren’t prompts, and they’re not standard lessons, either. They’re integrated with close readings of published work–close reading is an essential practice I teach in a highly specific way–so the exercises are craft-enriched and often embodied, too. People say my writing exercises fundamentally change the way they think about writing, and, over time, the way they write. The exercises can transform people’s writing permanently for the better.

Because the exercises are so precise, they often elicit work that surprises the writers. That’s what I’m going for—like, let’s try to write something new, something we weren’t expecting, instead of another version of something we’ve written before. It’s so tempting to stay in the safe lane, but the thing is, we already know how to write the way we know how to write. It’s far more exciting to try something we don’t already know, even if it might not work. Experimenting in open mode leads to breakthroughs. That’s where the exercises take us.

Essentially, the exercises build a capacity called “negative capability,” which comes from the Romantic poet John Keats and means being able to dwell in uncertainty and see past what you think you know. A huge amount of writing craft goes into the exercises, all from a slightly askew angle. 

And they’re fun! 

2. Fifty bucks is not a fortune, but the fact is I’m super happy (and proud, to be honest!), to offer payment when very few literary journals do the same. Writers willing to do the work should be paid for their work if at all possible. So, yay to fifty bucks! But if you can get more for your piece somewhere else, please send it there, and I will promote the heck out of your piece when it comes out! I love nothing better than celebration our writers’ publications, wherever they appear!