What are your submission or rejection goals for 2018? Inspired by Lit Hub’s 100 rejections per year post, I got 93 rejections 2017 and aim to cross 100 this year. Since my Spring 2018 contest roundup, I’ve earned plenty of rejections and published the last season’s responses in a fun format I dubbed The Rejection Quarterly.
Summer tends to be a slower time for submissions. A lot of literary journals close their reading periods and are slower to respond. I love using this time of fewer deadlines for more in-depth writing—especially novel revisions. This submissions season covers fiction contests with deadlines between June 1, 2018 and August 31, 2018. Thanks to Literistic, Poets & Writers, and Submittable Discover for many of these contests.
Much like editors are looking for reasons to reject work, I want to focus on opportunities worth my time. Thus, my list of writing contests below includes reasons to submit to that particular writing contest. May you find a promising opportunity among this list and spend less time searching for where to send your exceptional work.