Tip: The Glimmer Train Site Is Easy to Submit To

I've mentioned this site briefly in a previous post, but I wanted to go into more detail because I think it really is a model for online submission of writer's work. Glimmer Train Stories is a highly reputable literary review that publishes quarterly in a nice glossy hard copy format. As these reviews go, it's fairly open to new writers and to less traditional work. It sponsors lots of contests, including one for flash fiction, which they call "very short fiction."

The thing that's nice about submitting online, especially if it's as painless as Glimmer Train makes it, is that it cuts through some of the psychological obstacles to submitting. You know how that is - you've got the story done on your computer, now you have to print it out, rats the paper jammed, rats you're out of ink, rats you forgot to insert page numbers and now you have to do it again, now you have to do a self-addressed stamped envelope, but you keep feeding in the envelope the wrong way, and anyway you're out of stamps. All this gives our psyches wonderful excuses to just forget the whole thing.

With the Glimmer Train site, once you've got the story typed into your computer and an online connection, you can really do the whole thing in a couple of minutes. The first time you go to Glimmer Train Press Online Submissions you need to set up a little account, just with your email and a password. They don't sell your email, but they will use it to send you reminders of contest deadlines in case you want to submit to their contests (not too annoying - about one every two months). From there on the instructions are very easy to follow. There is a space provided to type in an optional short cover letter with your credentials, if any. If your story is very short, less than 250 words, like a flash fiction story often is, you can paste it into a space provided. If it's longer, you can choose a "download" option, browse to your story's location on your computer, and send it that way - very easy! You can click to all the guidelines and info you need. You can just do a standard story submission, or you can enter one of their contests, paying the entry fee (very modest, nothing to set off the scam alarms) with a credit card. You can even check on the status of what you've sent by clicking on the "My Subsmissions" link.

One weird thing is that every once in a while I get a notice that I am not using the "secure connection" and a "click here for better connection" link. I just click where it says and have no problems.

So what the hell, if you've got any stories hanging around on your computer, cybersend them on over to Glimmer Train. As Wayne Gretzky said, "You miss a hundred percent of the shots you never take."