Happy Hour Submissions Support Group is back for a fourth run! Rachel and Anne are excited to welcome veterans and newcomers alike to our weekly (virtual) gathering place for community, insight, and accountability, all in service of getting our writing out in the world.
Designed for female-identifying and non-binary submitters working in all genres, this group was born out of two truths:
One, the administrative work of being a writer can be intimidating, boring, and confusing. But writers need readers, and publications are still the best way to find them. And two, women and non-binary writers are underrepresented in the literary landscape, year after year. Real progress has been made, thanks to writers calling out and VIDA counting the skewed demographics, and editors becoming more conscious of bias. But if we are going to be published more, we also have to submit our work more. Why shouldn’t it be your writing on the editor’s desk? This group will help you get over your own obstacles and get it there.
All genres of writing are welcome, as are writers at all stages of their careers. Our focus is on literary magazines, but we can discuss book publishing, newspaper editorials, and more--the group determines much of our direction. We will troubleshoot your submissions questions, share recommendations for journals, workshop your cover letters, have a visit from a magazine editor or two, and relate stories of successes and frustrations. We will demystify the process and, where we have access, we will hold the door open for others. Most of all, our supportive weekly check-ins will make you submit your work. Over our eight weeks together, you will choose a submissions goal and we will hold you to it.
Your leaders, Rachel and Anne, have been submitting for years, across multiple genres and publication types. We will share what we’ve learned and the missteps we’ve made along the way. We will also be submitting right along with you!
Note: To get the most out of this group, you should have at least one piece of writing that you feel nearly ready to send out for publication.
*Please use your own self-identification to determine whether this group is a fit for you. “Women” is shorthand here; we aim to be inclusive across the spectrum of gender identity, including those with non-binary and non-cis identities.
Anne Beatty submitted her first short story to The Atlantic while in college, in 1998. Twenty years and many rejections later, she finally published an essay in The Atlantic. Her writing has also appeared in The American Scholar, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. In 2019 one of her essays was listed as Notable in the Best American Essays anthology. A writer by night, by day she is a high school English teacher.
Rachel Richardson has been submitting poems to magazines since 1997. Her first submission, to The New Yorker when she was a senior in high school, received a form rejection, but her second, five years later, to Witness, was her first acceptance. Since then, she has published poems in APR, The New York Times, Copper Nickel, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. Rachel is the author of two books of poems, the recipient of Stegner and NEA Fellowships, and she currently teaches in the St. Mary’s College MFA program. (She would still like to get a poem into The New Yorker.)