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This is old news but has escaped my attention until now: The Atlantic Monthly is accepting entries for its annual student writing contests. (Student status being of the undergrad or grad varieties.) Entries accepted in fiction, poetry, and something called “personal or journalistic essays” that sounds a lot like creative non-fiction.
Prizes are $1,000 for first place, $500 for second and $250 for third. Postmark deadline is December 1.
The best part? No entry fee.
Full details here. Good luck.
It seems that several times over the last year, I’ve looked in the front matter of a book of short stories I’ve been enjoying, and in the place where the author thanks those publications that originally printed his or her stories, I’ve seen the journal Salt Hill listed as one of them. (Although I can only think of the example of Mary Gaitskill’s Because They Wanted To at the moment.) Google “Salt Hill,” though, and you turn up a bunch of results pertaining to pubs called Salt Hill or, yes, salt hills.
It’s not just me. Fellow fiction ed. Ashleigh heroically compiled a long list of literary magazines over the summer, and her listing for Salt Hill was something like “Not sure this still exists.” We just figured it had gone the way of the dodo, so to speak.
Au contraire! Today, via Pitt’s super-useful “dist list,” comes word that Salt Hill not only exists, but is welcoming submissions for its 21st issue. It turns out too that it’s affiliated with Syracuse University.
Here is relevant info from the aforementioned e-mail, followed by an explanation of why I’m not just putting up a link:
“The editors welcome submissions of poetry, prose, translations, reviews, essays, interviews and artwork submitted by April 1. We do not accept electronic submissions.
“. . .
“To submit address your work to the appropriate editor
(poetry, fiction or nonfiction) at:
“Salt Hill
Syracuse University
English Department
Syracuse, NY 13244″
And now here is the web address they provided: SaltHillJournal.com. Click on it. Type it in yourself and see where it goes.
This is the most utterly mysterious literary magazine I have ever heard of.
-Adam
Robyn Murphy graduated from the fiction program last spring, one year ahead of schedule. I first got to know Robyn when, a few weeks into the program, she made me introduce her at the annual New MFA Readings series. I needed a piece of paper to write down information on Robyn, and she produced from her purse a business card for a swing-dancing place that appeared to be chicken-themed. The information I wrote on the back of the card was innocuous–she’s from Connecticut, she went to CMU and dropped out of law school after a semester–but that chicken swing dancing card gave the distinct impression there was more to Robyn. Talking more to Robyn, and later taking a workshop with her and having my jaw drop at an outrageous sex scene, confirmed it. It wasn’t until after Robyn had left Pittsburgh in late April to re-join her husband in Connecticut that many people discovered that Robyn was secretly well-published, with stories in The Berkeley Fiction Review, The Cream City Review, Parting Gifts, Barbaric Yawp, and Gertrude. Robyn generously agreed to share some of her secrets and strategies, and here they are below:
I was a junior in college when a writing professor gave me the most helpful piece of advice I have ever received.
“I think this one is done,†she said, handing me back a story that I had written for her class, and revised three or four times. “You should try to get it published.â€
For many of us who are writers, the idea of a short story being done can be a difficult one to grasp. We write a story, then revise it a few times, bring it into a workshop, then tear it apart and start again. Bring in the revision, lather, rinse, and repeat. We are so used to making changes that it is a shock to be told that something is completed, and it is time to step back. It helps to have a teacher say it the first time, but when the writer is off on their own, there also comes that point when a piece is done, and the revision must stop.
One of my favorite stories in history is about Hannibal making a surprise attack on Rome. To do so, he had to bring a herd of elephants over the Alps. Getting a story published is a bit like that – after hauling a stubborn pachyderm all the way up the side of a mountain, you have reached the summit and are sitting down for a nice break when you realize that, hey, now you can see the whole damn mountain range. What you thought was your goal, writing a good story, was actually just the first obstacle.
My helpful professor did not give me any advice on how to go about getting published, and it was actually not until I was halfway through an MFA program and with several publications behind me that I met a professor willing to give practical advice on the subject of how to get a story accepted. Certainly getting my MFA was not a requirement or secret backdoor to publication – it was worthwhile for the sake of becoming a better writer, but it doesn’t make the process any easier.
At its essence, trying to get published is easy. Print a copy of your story, pick a magazine to send it to. Write a cover letter – this should start with “Dear Sir or Madam,†and include word-count and a brief description of the piece. I don’t mean “this is a story about a young girl coming of age (with the help of her beloved dog) while being menaced by the inner trauma of her upcoming dance recital.†Try to avoid that. Instead write, “this is literary fiction.†Your cover letter should be as brief as possible. Thank the editor for their time, and end with listing any previous publications. If you don’t have any, here’s what I used to write: “as I am presently unpublished, I would appreciate any suggestions, comments, or corrections.†Include contact information and your signature, and you’re done. (I did accumulate one of each over time – use paper clips, not staples; my self-addressed-stamped-envelope stamps were cute; and to put my page numbers on the bottom right-hand corner) Don’t forget to include that self-addressed and stamped envelope – that’s what your rejection slip will go into.
There are two secrets, however, that will help. I learned these through a great deal of trial and error, though in retrospect they seem rather obvious:
1) You will be rejected. A LOT. Usually with nothing more than a mass-printed slip of paper that comes back to you seven months after you submitted your story, right when you were just starting to imagine that your story had patiently worked its way up through the ranks and was landing on an editor’s desk. I have two accordion-style hanging folders that are filled (and by filled I mean absolutely stuffed to the gills) with nothing more than these unmarked rejection slips. My relationship with my mailbox is one of barely restrained anticipation and seething resentment.
To say to someone that they will be rejected seems as pointless as mentioning that the sky is blue, but it does bear repeating, because the sheer mass of rejections is amazing. It doesn’t get easier, either, after the first few hundred. It doesn’t even get easier after your first publication. It is something that must be dealt with, and accepted. You will be rejected. A LOT.
2) Simultaneous submission is your friend. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar. Here is a concrete example – when the friendly professor advised me to try and get published, I took that story she had labeled ‘done’ and sent out seven copies. I probably spent the first three months twitching as I wondered what I would do when it was accepted by The New Yorker and Esquire. Both magazines were kind enough to solve my dilemma by rejecting my story – as did the remaining five magazines. It took about a year for those first rejections to get back to me. Had I sent out one copy of my story, then waited patiently for each rejection before sending that story out to the next magazine on my list, I would right now be unpublished, and not yet even through that first list of seven.
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Kara Hughes is a third-year fiction student from Columbus, Ohio by way of New York. She entered the MFA program at Pitt with a background in sociology, rather than creative writing, which she invoked in order to lower expectations of her work; this gambit was successful until she won Second Prize in Pitt’s Turow-Kinder fiction contest and now her cover is officially blown. Kara is a connoisseur of foods from frothed milk to turkeys to Teddy Grahams to–as discussed below–fresh, locally grown produce.
FOOD. Seriously, it’s something to consider about Pittsburgh. Graduate student budgets are usually tight and though we have a smattering of quite nice restaurants here, I’ve found that locating (or, well, growing) produce is cost-effective, quite satisfying and an excellent use of time (as opposed to, say, writing). Anyway, Western Pennsylvania has good local produce options and I think it’s a charming thing so I’ve decided to give you a few links.
CityParks has a roving farmer’s market, effective May through November. Look for the mermaid-man (merman?) who works wearing a red shirt and he will sell you nice melons, broccoli, etc.: learn more here.
Pittsburgh also has a few services through which you can subscribe and have organic products delivered to your home. Below I’ve linked to a small database of CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture – I didn’t know what this acronym stood for until right now – always learning). It might sound pricey but maybe you want to split it with a friend or friends or else you love vegetables and here you go.
You can also grow things even if you don’t have space in/around your apartment/house. There are quite cheap community gardens that, again, you can either go bold and tend to yourself, or else try to wrangle up friends so that you all can share gardening duties: see here.
There is much more (this, for instance) but I’m getting self-conscious and kind of feel that for every additional paragraph I devote to food, I’m putting on five extra pounds, upping my pig-status or generally just becoming more gross. So—welcome to Pittsburgh—buy some food(!)
Katy Rank Lev is a third-year graduate student in the University of Pittsburgh’s creative non-fiction track. In general, I have found non-fiction students to be the most enterprising and “together” of MFA students in terms of making the program work for them, and Katy may be the ultimate example. (She even has her own website.) An experienced writer, editor, tutor, and teacher (not to mention a rugby player) even before she arrived at Pitt, she seemed to know more about the program’s workings than many of the second- and third-years I met when I got here; her knowledge included that most confusing, occasionally frustrating of topics: funding. Katy was good enough to sit down in Hot Metal Bridge headquarters to answer a few questions on the topic.
Hot Metal Bridge: Can you describe what you did to get funding at Pitt once you learned you’d been admitted but without a teaching assistantship?
Katy Rank Lev: Once I was admitted sans funding, I panicked. I had enough undergraduate loans for one lifetime. I decided I was not going to pay for graduate school. I gave myself one semester to work it out, or I was going to advance my career some other way. I was given the names of three current students to call for advice, so that’s what I did. I was super fortunate to find a student in the same position as me. She was filled with advice for applicable part-time jobs on campus, key decision makers to familiarize myself with, everything.
My first step was to get myself on the graduate student e-mail list. My contact told me last-minute opportunities crop up in late summer, so I made sure I checked my e-mail twice a day. Sure enough, while I was camping in the middle of Montana with scarce internet access and no cell phone service, a partly funded position editing a gerontology journal appeared. I rounded up quarters, found myself a pay phone and secured an interview. I had to piece my resume together from the comfort of an internet kiosk.
I had done similar work as an undergrad, which was helpful. I worked ten hours per week and got half my tuition paid for and a small stipend. I took on another part-time job to make more money to buy food and this small triumph fueled my fire to find full funding. I knew it was out there! I kept making appointments during office hours, trying to nail down the procedures for applications, and find more hidden funding. I called every department and introduced myself to everyone. I tried to make sure everyone in my department knew my name, my interests, and at least something about my background. I usually said, “Hi! I’m Katy and I’m a nonfiction MFA student. Before I came here I worked in publishing and I love sports writing. If you hear of any job openings around campus or any teaching opportunities, I would love if you’d shoot me an e-mail.”
HMB: What funding did you get, and what do you have now?
KRL: My first year, I just had that partial funding. It paid for 6 credits and gave me about $600 a month. The bummer about that was that it was year-round. That meant I had to be in there working over Christmas, spring break, and all summer long. It meant not being able to work full-time that summer and earn money. Which was OK, because I would never have earned enough to pay that chunk of tuition.
By spring break of my first year, I realized that I loved my part-time tutoring job way more than my clerical position. My boss noticed my enthusiasm and told me there was a fully funded position the following year. I leapt at that opportunity! I now have full funding, health insurance, and a full stipend, which almost buys meat most weeks. I tutor student athletes in writing and composition twenty hours per week in exchange. The position was renewable for my final two years of school.
HMB: Has the experience been more useful, in terms of your degree and future career, than teaching? Or would you rather have just had an assistantship and taught comp?
KRL: I personally believe tutoring is more difficult than and just as valuable as teaching. Would a university hiring committee agree? Probably not. My goal upon graduation is to be a freelance writer. I want to write for magazines. However, I plan to return to teaching at the university level someday. I have always loved teaching. I tutored for 6 years before coming to graduate school and taught all sorts of different workshops and small group courses. I was so sad not to get to continue teaching at Pitt! I feel very thankful that my assistantship now involves teaching and still working with students. My work reminds me how valuable writing centers can be, particularly for student athletes who miss so much in class time. I really get to reinforce the teaching they receive in the classroom! My position has expanded my career goals to perhaps include writing center management.
But, I also have really crappy hours that are set each week. I work on Sundays and until 9 p.m. most nights. I can’t go out to dinner ever with anyone and I often miss speakers and reading series. I don’t have a teaching portfolio and no standard evaluations to draw from. Bottom line, I would rather have had a teaching assistantship.
HMB: Do you feel like your attitude determined how successful you were in hunting down funding? Did it prove any kind of deterrent, either to the search or
to going through the program?
KRL: Attitude was everything! I went into each meeting determined to leave with something. If not a funding opportunity, I wanted concrete answers and proactive suggestions. I know that I would still be unfunded if I hadn’t viewed each interaction as an opportunity. I just wouldn’t take no for an answer from anyone. I could tell that discussing money made people uncomfortable, that they didn’t like being reminded that we unfunded ones were out there. To heck with discomfort! If a department was full, I wanted to know how to get on the waiting list. If there was no waiting list, I wanted to know who to double check with a month later.
My attitude definitely paid off, because right after I signed my contract for the tutoring gig, I got a few other offers for things from people who remembered my name and knew I was trying to make the most of my degree. Sitting around moping and full of despair gets you nowhere! Keep your sleeves rolled up and whittle away at the university until you find something.
HMB: What advice would you give a new MFA student who is coming in without funding (at Pitt or anywhere)?
KRL: My best advice is to be go forward and be persistent. We all would rather be teaching. We need to get over our disappointment and keep trying. Seek teaching experience elsewhere once you have secured partial funding or a part-time job. I found a few gigs teaching high school students and middle school students and even a community class here or there. Take care of your rent, and even if you are miserably alphabetizing files all day you can find an outlet teaching resume writing or whatever somewhere.
For example, I am not teaching for Pitt, but my school offers a certificate in teaching. I spoke to the director of it and he was so supportive of me still being allowed to get it. He even helped me brainstorm chances to do other sorts of teaching. It would be easy to sit at home and mope about a lost opportunity, but I made it work for me. If you want something, find a way to make it happen. You’ll find helpers along the way.
Bonus Answers:
This is kind of related, but many people who aren’t funded are devastated by being denied in-state tuition. I would say not to give up on this, either. Even if you get shot down your first year, try again after you have lived in-state for a calendar year. Once you have a lease and an in-state driver’s license, you will probably get it for the second year.
This is also kind of related, but everyone should try to write for their school’s alumni publications. These are usually glossy, professional magazines that pay GOOD money for articles. We are all writers! Write an e-mail to the editor-in-chief introducing yourself as a writer and say you’d love to freelance for them. In my experience, they are happy to try out new voices and will assign you cool stories. If you aren’t leaving school with teaching experience, by golly you should have some professional clips! Even small private schools have at least an alumni newsletter.
Here we go. It’s New MFA Week. Let’s see how this works out.
Before we go following every tangent that pertains to the MFA experience (and I promise we will follow many tangents), I thought it might be worth pausing to reflect on the nature of the Master of Fine Arts, as a degree and as–yes, I am using this word–a lifestyle.
I’m writing this in a coffeeshop across town from where I live. I spent most of the noon hour doing nothing but walking here, and when I’m done I will walk back. It’s summer, and I’m allowed that kind of inefficiency. But even if it were October, this wouldn’t be an incredibly slothful day for me.
Yes, sometimes I feel like a slacker. On these sorts of days I think of the neuroscience grad student, probably hard at work in a lab of some kind, and of poli-sci., and law, and literature students, and of how they are probably in the library or at least poring over texts somewhere. Busy people, hard at work at tasks pertaining directly, and clearly, to their degrees. It makes me wonder if I shouldn’t also be busy, all or most of the time.
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