Dear Readers and contributors,

Thank you for your support these last four fabulous years. I can’t express my gratitude enough. As The Literary Nest enters the fifth year this April, we are experiencing some growing pains. This post addresses some of these issues.
It has been a long time since I communicated with you. To be frank, I have been swamped with reading submissions and website updates, not to mention personal projects. If you noticed, I haven’t had a chance to conduct poetry workshops in a year. Three of my fiction readers have moved on to their own priorities. In light of these facts, I am making some changes to the publishing schedule.

I am suspending fiction section until further notice.

There are two reasons for this decision.

• In the last year, our fiction acceptance rate has been only about 20-30% of the total submissions received. We want character-driven fiction with rare insights into a character’s mind. We reject a lot of the work that is plot-driven with weak character development. Pacing and a lot of “telling and not enough showing ” are the other few issues we noticed. Also, the editors and readers are human with limited time on their hands, and if the story doesn’t capture attention in the first couple of pages, the likelihood of acceptance goes down.  To steer the submissions in the direction that we want, I will add links to some relevant articles in a month or so.
• We simply do not have the bandwidth for the detailed edits to the stories.

The summer issue will be poetry only issue. I will revisit the decision of including fiction at that time.

The poetry workshops on hold until further notice.

Here’s an important note to the submitters.

I personally respond to all the submissions and send out acceptances and rejections before the issue arrives. I do not read and respond to the submissions that do not follow the guidelines. One obnoxious person sent submissions to multiple magazines without addressing any of the editors. If you feel that you followed the guidelines and didn’t hear from us, please send a polite inquiry. I am human and make mistakes, but I will always respond to a polite query.

That’s all for now. Thank you again for your support and stay tuned for the excitement of the National Poetry Month.