Duotrope

Duotrope is the easiest go-to spot for writing markets, and although a fair pelt of places don’t list on the site, it’s still an invaluable resource for people seeking a hassle-free way to publish their work. As a resource for novel-length work it’s not so useful but for short stories, well . . . it’s a simple and effective tool and it’s free for now, so hurrah.

There is an emphasis on genre writing and markets, though it is easy to use for literary or experimental work too, if “general” is chosen as a genre and no subgenre is stipulated. It’s also worth considering whether a piece might fit into unexpected places. I wrote a somewhat experimental story with split-page narrative that ended up in an ‘apocalyptic erotica’ anthology, so it’s always worth pushing the limits of what magazines might accept, if they seem flexible and open to different types of storytelling.

There’s always a veil of secrecy over where a writer has submitted their work—or perhaps I’m not nosy enough—but I don’t mind sharing markets with others and don’t have the kind of first-come first-served mindset that makes the submitting process a lonely business. Aww. I think we touched on something personal there. Better pull back before I get the Kleenex out. So if you write stories like mine, which I loosely describe as playful, humorous and miserable, you might like the following colourful online publications:

Glint Literary Journal

The Ante Review

Liquid Imagination

Rose & Thorn Journal

Metazen

N.B. I have a story in the new issue of Prime Mincer, available here on Amazon. I can’t make people buy it, but better to give it a mention than meekly ignore the fact.