As of 9/11/2026: 116 current submissions between poems and manuscripts. Roll call is just...this is an example of the toil. I don't often talk about what I am reading, how often I read things that gobsmack me or disinterest me, how often I write, how often I edit, or how often I send work out.
But here is a list of the long and the short of the submission work:
Longest poetry mag wait: 985 days, Guernica, Dec. 31, 2023 (kind of think they forgot about my work and now I just want to see the clock move to 1000 days. They’ve beat The New Yorker!)
Shortest mag wait: 7 days, Stonecoast and Gulf Stream, Sept. 4, 2026
Longest mss sub for Palatable Dust: 412 days, a west coast press I am not trying to call out or jinx and would love to have this book come out with, July 26, 2025
Longest mss sub for Dear Irreverence,: 89 days, a midwest uni press contest, June 14, 2026
Longest mss sub for Cosmic Bread (which is a mixtape of "best" of both separately written): 129 days, prestigious university open call, May 5, 2026.
Shortest mss sub for PD: 72 days, Sarabande (one of my favorite poetry presses since undergrad days), July 1, 2026 (both mss sent here).
Shortest mss sub for DI: 10 days, Tupelo Press (1/4 of poems or more started during their 30/30 challenge so long ago).
Shortest mss sub for CB: 80 days, Copper Canyon, June 22, 2026.
As my imaginary audience can see, that’s a wide range of time, an example of how creating art may be easier than trying to get the art out into the world to be seen, read.
Like many, I have dreams of working with the presses whose work I most read from. Whose poets I most often read. I'm clearly...clearly...not immune to the emotional ups and downs of this art world. I've been it is for more than half my life, for nearly a quarter century now!
But a boy can dream, even when he's 44.5. Maybe it is because I am neurodivergent, but I just don't enjoy when people cannot be honest. I have top 10 presses I'd like to have my next book with. I've named some of them, above. Others include: Graywolf (duh), and two university presses who have taken note my work, my little poems, for decades: Wisconsin and Crab Orchard/SIU. When I was more naive and doubting myself in my 20s, those two presses were two of the first to say what became Hearsay would be a book. Handwritten notes, specific praises.
More than half of the lit mags submitted to have sent me tiered declinations in the past few years. So, that’s an inside glimpse into this writer’s publication attempts.