About Us

In 1990, we two sisters started Glimmer Train Press. It was somewhat of a surprise to both of us: Susan studied language and linguistics, I majored in psychology. It was simply a moment in our lives when we felt able to consider our options. What we really wanted to do was to publish great short fiction by both familiar voices and fresh new ones—fiction we would personally look forward to reading. The stories would be more than well-written, they would be emotionally meaningful, would affect us and our view of the world, enlarge our perspectives on it.

When we sat down one afternoon over pizza and beer, wondering what we might name our enterprise, we started talking about our lives as we do, and thought how crazy it was that we were embarking on such an adventure. We’d certainly never anticipated it, though in retrospect we could see that there had been glimmers of it. And, despite not knowing where we’re headed, really, we still go full steam ahead. So that’s how we arrived at Glimmer Train.

We imagined, at the beginning, that it might be possible to break even eventually. So far, 13 years later, that’s not happening. Competition reading fees help some, but mostly go to larger payments to competition winners. Subscriptions help a LOT. (We certainly encourage and appreciate your support in that regard.)

Since 1990, we have read thousands and thousands of stories. For years, with paper submissions, we had to have thoughtful, well-read, mostly-volunteer help come to the office and pick up buckets of stories and lug them home. We sometimes got as much as 8 buckets a day—that’s about 250 POUNDS of mail and I cannot begin to guess how many paper cuts waiting to happen. Not to mention the occasional page that flies out the bus window.

Highly skilled and amazingly generous family and friends saved us from paper chaos by designing the online submission procedure we have now. The system allows the two of us to read every single submission ourselves, which we love! It costs authors less postage and paper and, because they can check status on their work, they don’t need to wonder whether or not their work arrived safely. It is, at any rate, a dream for us. We can focus on READING, which is what got us into Glimmer Train in the first place.

It’s a challenge getting one’s short fiction published. Not many literary journals, certainly not independents, stay afloat to publish and pay for writing. We’ve increased our page count to about 200 within the last year, but that’s still just six to ten stories a quarter. BUT we’d like to say, here, that even if we don’t choose a particular piece for publication, we consider it a great honor to have the opportunity to read it. And those people whose stories we publish have usually gotten a tidy bundle of rejections from us before they sent the one that made us say yes. So keep at it! And thank you for contributing to the literary community by reading and writing and sending your work out into the world.

Warm regards to you from us both. -linda