Long Exposure is published twice a year, and each issue contains work by around fifteen contributors. They accept submissions on a rolling basis. Poets may submit up to six poems. Though Long Exposure accepts submissions of all forms and styles, they are especially interested in Ekphrastic poems, or poems that combine language with visual art. Fiction authors may submit up to four pieces of flash fiction, 700 words or fewer. Photographers, illustrators, and other visual artists may submit up to six pieces in any medium. Long exposure is also looking for visual artists to comment regularly on writing published in the magazine. If you are interested in becoming a commentator, please visit their website for more details.

In addition to poetry, flash fiction, and visual art, Long Exposure also publishes reviews of poetry collections and articles about poetry. If you would like to submit a poetry collection published within the last year for review, please contact the editor. And, if you would like to write an article or essay for Long Exposure, please submit a brief synopsis to the editor for consideration. They are especially interested in articles dealing with the relationship between writing and visual art, contemporary poetry and poetics, and the relationship between the arts and contemporary culture.

Long Exposure accepts submissions via email, but not online or by post. They accept simultaneous submissions, but ask that authors immediately withdraw submissions accepted elsewhere. They do not accept previously published work; however, they will consider work previously featured on personal media such as blogs and personal websites.

If you would like to learn more or submit to Long Exposure, please visit their website at https://longexposuremagazine.com/submissions/

An imprint of Scholastic Inc. Arthur A. Levine Books  was founded in 1996. They publish hardcover literary fiction and nonfiction for children and teenagers (and discerning adults). They have published many award winning and nominated books, as well as a number of very well known and respected authors (including J.K. Rowling).

They are open to submissions of picture books as long as the full text accompanies a query letter. For novels they want you to submit a query letter, the first two chapters, and a synopsis.

If you are not already familiar with Arthur A. Levine Books it is very important to review the catalog, and perhaps check one or two of their books out of your local library.

This is very important to note – if you are met with the message “There are presently no open calls for submissions,” they have reached their monthly limit on queries. Please wait until the first day of the next month to submit your query. In that way they are able to stay open to submissions year round. Expect a response from them within six months.

They accept all submissions through the submission manager Submittable. They respond to all queries, even if it is just with a form rejection letter. They used to have a reliable quick response time, but they have not been reported as responding to submissions since early this year. So please take that into consideration.

To read all of their submission guidelines, visit their website here.

I actually made these mistakes for the first decade I wrote poetry. I did not understand why they were mistakes. I didn’t understand why they frustrated editors and fellow writers. Now I do.

When you are used to reading poetry closely, every word counts, every line break counts, every capitalization counts, so any mistakes within the poem, distracts and throws the reader out of the poem. Whenever I guest edit a journal I try not to just dismiss poems containing these errors, but it can be hard not to. After all, these mistakes make it clear that the poet is not necessarily paying attention to detail. As a submitting poet you want to make it clear that details matter to you.

Capitalization at the Beginning of Every Line

If you read poems by Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson, or other works by historic poets, the first letter of the first word on every line of the poem is capitalized. It was the way poems were written, historically.  However in the world of contemporary poetry, it is rarely done. Unfortunately, in the modern world of poetry capitalizing the first letter on the first word of every line usually means that your Word processor automatically capitalized those words for you.

When a poet or an editor gets used to reading poetry closely, everything in the poem is examined and taken into consideration. All of those automatically capitalized words are distracting, they don’t serve the poem, they are not something the poet intended to do, they are just there. Usually, their biggest function is to tell the poetry editor or reader that you are new to this, and did not notice.

The good news is that you can turn this function off easily. When you are in Word go to Tools and then to AutoCorrect Options. On the AutoCorrect tab deselect the Capitalize First Letter of Sentences check box and click OK.

Out of the three mistakes, this is the most distracting and the biggest tip off to established poets and editors that you are new to submitting.

Punctuation at the end of every line

Line breaks are difficult. Figuring out where to make line breaks can take me hours. It is not easy. But a lot of people just make the line breaks after punctuation like this:

I love roses,
tulips,
and you.

It is easy to spot in this example, but this problem is often hidden by longer lines. Many poets just don’t realize what they are doing. Also this is important to stress, sometimes the right place for a line break is after punctuation, just as long as you are not doing it on the end of every line. This article is a good starting place in terms of thinking about line breaks.

Sporadic Punctuation

So you can write a poem without any punctuation. That is not as accepted as writing poems with punctuation, but it is more accepted than writing a poem with sporadic punctuation. What do I mean by sporadic punctuation? I mean this:

All of the moons, beamed down on us
a cascade of light in the darkness

There is one comma but no periods in this example. Sporadic punctuation can be done many ways. Sometimes there is one period in a poem of twenty five lines. Sometimes the poet uses line breaks instead of commas, which only works if you are avoiding punctuation entirely.

Conclusion

The goal of this article is to help your writing get the best chance of publication. Even if you’ve made these mistakes in the past, as I have, they are all relatively easy to change. Editors are often quick to make judgments, casting aside poems because of the smallest errors. By avoiding these mistakes, you are giving your poetry the chance is deserves.