The Seattle Review is overhauling their entire journal, swinging from very short stories (all stories had to be under 4,000 words), to novellas (if it’s not more than 40 pages, they don’t want to see it).
They haven’t posted anything on their submissions page yet, but I’ll repost what they mailed me:
“The editors of The Seattle Review are pleased to announce that, starting with our forthcoming Fall 2010 issue, The Seattle Review will publish, and will only publish, long poems and novellas.”
It’s a bold strategy, and one that really gives them a niche in the literary journal sphere. No journals I know of concentrate exclusively on the long form.
It’s also a good move because when I spoke to a former editor at The Seattle Review (who shall remain unnamed), they said that virtually all material was solicited, and that they only took a single story from the slush pile a year. You expect those kinds of odds for The Paris Review, but you hope regional journals like The Seattle Review could be a bit friendlier to slush pile submitters. Hopefully, this change opens up the field.
One thought on “Seattle Review Overhaul”
Yeah, they rejected much faster than a lot of more prestigious journals.