Writing Guidelines

Glimmer Train welcomes the work of established and upcoming writers.

We especially appreciate stories that are both well written and emotionally engaging. Please let us read yours! If it is chosen for publication in Glimmer Train Stories, you will be paid upon acceptance. Your story will be prepared with care, and presented in a handsome, highly regarded literary journal to readers all over this continent and every other continent, for that matter, except Antarctica. If you've seen Glimmer Train Stories, you know that we go to some lengths to honor our contributors and their writing.

NOTICE:

As of February 1, 2008, rather than a competition being open to submissions for a couple of months (and it taking us up to five months to complete the reading and judging), we snugged things up so that no category will be open for more than one month, and our response times has been shortened so your stories won't be tied up for more than two months from the end of a submission period.
As of November 25, 2007, we've decided to allow simultaneous submissions. We've had a policy for 17 years against simultaneous submissions, but now that we've tightened up our submission-response times, we feel we can manage it better, and it's been harder and harder to support our position when it is so darned difficult to get one's work published. We do ask to be emailed immediately should a submitted piece be accepted elsewhere.

As always:
Submissions must be original, unpublished fiction

Please, no novels, poetry, or stories written for children

Submissions should be made via our site, but in a pinch you can make paper submissions

Please doublespace, use 12 point font, to save our eyes

When we accept a story for publication, we are purchasing first-publication rights. (Once we've published your story, you are free to, for instance, include it in your own collection.)

Competition submissions are also automatically considered for standard publication

It's fine to submit a previously submitted story (revised or not) to any category for which it qualifies.

We're happy to consider stories whether they're submitted as competition entries or standard submissions, for which there are no reading fees. Standard or competition? How to decide

Every category will be open for one full calendar month, from the first day through midnight of the last day. (These dates were effective as of 10/1/07, and are ongoing.) Click on category link for complete guidelines:

January: Family Matters and Standard
February:Very Short Fiction Award (Up to 3,000 words.)
March: Fiction Open (2,000 to 20,000 words.)
April: Family Matters and Standard
May: Short Story Award for New Writers
June: Fiction Open (2,000 to 20,000 words.)
July: Family Matters and Standard.
August: Very Short Fiction Award (Up to 3,000 words.)
September: Fiction Open (2,000 to 20,000 words.)
October: Family Matters and Standard
November: Short Story Award for New Writers
December: Fiction Open (2,000 to 20,000 words.)

Please note: Only the Fiction Open has a minimum word count; there are no minimum word counts for any other category, though it's rare for a piece under 500 words to read as a full story.

Competition winners are posted here three months after the close of the competition and are announced in our monthly bulletins. Standard submission results are emailed directly. Please put glimmertrain.org and glimmertrainpress.com on your safe-senders list so we can reach you, and keep us advised of email address changes by clicking on Contact Preferences once you're logged in at the site. (We never share your contact info.)