Dear Writer: We appreciate the opportunity to read your work, but unfortunately this submission was not a right fit for One Story. Thank you for trying us. Sincerely, The Editors of One Story
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Dear Occupant...
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I have seen, with my own eyes, literary types and English professors reading nearly every fiction journal, but have never seen anyone reading One Story. The only people who've even heard of it are writers in the literary journal publishing game.
Anyway, they must thank God for library subscriptions, or else OS would have tanked a long time ago.
one story is a seriously top tier journal. look at who they have published, very often before those authors had books. i subscribed for a while, but then let it lapse—i rotate my lit journal subs and usually take two at a time—but i did like the format and about 50% of the stories, which is a high hit rate for a lit journal.
(I also once saw it at a non-writer friends house, which never happens with the other journals I take.) They have 10,000 subs, which is huge for a lit journal and a high percentage of those are on kindle. I don't think they have many library subs at all.
Institution subscriptions are a big chunk of every literary journal's subscription list, and something as narrowly focused as One Story is not likely to be an exception.
I have seen non-writers reading the thicker lit mags, but like O'Day, I have never seen One Story being read outside of incestuous literary circles. Plenty of my non-writer friends know about Paris Review, Missouri Review, etc.
I don't really have a beef with One Story except that they pretend to consider unsolicited stories from nobodies, when everybody knows they only publish famous writers who have books out. It's an open secret, they should own it.
I'd like the editors to come out and say "We never read subs from the sub-famous. We just collect contact info for potential subscribers."
One Story absolutely publishes from their slush pile.
I just got the same rejection letter from One Story. I mean word for word the same. Shocking, I know.
the idea that one story is more star-fucky than other lit journals is absurd. they have a policy of only publishing a writer once. i think that keeps them more honest than most other journals. they've published plenty of nobodies and first-timers.
Word of the day: "STAR-FUCKY!"
They ran a story of mine, and I am as big a nobody as there is -- perhaps the biggest nobody.
When I subscribed to them, there was one first fiction in print in the set of 18 issues I received. In general, I liked what I read, but I too rotate my subscriptions (somehow I've managed having three subs going right now).
Personally, the thing that bothers me is the phrase "is not a right fit" always sounds wrong to me whenever I encounter it (and it's in many form rejection letters).
I know someone who has published in OneStory, and I received a kind rejection letter from them encouraging me to re-submit.
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