Monday, March 08, 2010

IT'S NICE TO BE WANTED - PART I
(ANOTHER ACCEPTANCE!)

A few years ago I wrote "To Cop A Feel," an essay about how Aubrey's curious and admiring gropes reminded me to embrace my own body-- and my destiny.

I got an email today that The Mom Egg, a New York-based literary magazine, wants to publish it in their upcoming annual issue, which will have the theme "Lessons."

Yay! I'm super excited about this.

I'm super excited about this, and I have to let them know by the 15th if my piece is still available, but now I have the dilemma of what to do about Skirt and Underwired.

See, I sent it to Skirt as a possibility for the "X" issue, with the title "Exemplary Behavior," and I sent it to Underwired as a possibility for their "Backside" issue.

Unlike The Mom Egg, both of those markets pay (and I think their websites are snazzier, although the literary content is probably similar). Additionally, they should be deciding soon whether they want it, because the deadlines were this week and the issues both publish in April.

That said, I have a call in to my local writing etiquette expert, Jennifer Margulis, asking her if I should email Skirt and Underwired separately to let them know this piece has been accepted elsewhere, unless one of them wants to grab it first.

We'll see if she says that's acceptable.

What do you think?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

If the pay from your writing were the only income putting food on the table for you and your kids, I'd say go for the money. If not (as in your case), go for the best exposure and classiest medium to showcase your writing, so it might be worth more in the future. If the one you choose does both, it's a win-win for you.

Mike

anjie said...

Thanks for weighing in, Mike!

I agree with you, for the most part. However, I also keep reading about the future of writers in terms of pay. The general idea is that writers need to seek payment for writing so as not to have writing for free become the norm, which could also make anybody a writer and level the playing field too much.

Granted, I'm not writing heady, heavily-researched stuff, so maybe this kind of writing is inconsequential in terms of that larger debate, but I have to admit I would like to be paid for my work.

See you in a couple days!

Anjie

Anonymous said...

And I'm thinking, Anjie - can't one be published in all three of your options? Is there some ethical answer to that? or legal answer? or?????
Where can I find your writing - in Writing Mamas???
Lovingly,
JJJ

anjie said...

Hi Jan!

Nah, you typically can't publish in multiple places because of the acceptance agreement -- the agreement usually commits first time rights to the publisher for a set amount of time. After that time, rights are the writer's again, but usually with the caveat that if you re-publish, that publication gets acknowledged as the original publisher.

The Writing Mamas still has some stuff of mine up, but otherwise, you'll just have to get hard copies or links to publications from me.

That reminds me: I have a Christian Science Monitor for you and Mike. I think I'll send one to Kay, too.

Thanks for responding!
Anjie