Sunday 4 November 2007

Short Story and poetry outlets in Ireland


I was thinking about the Poetry Ireland introductions series that is looking for poets with an established body of work in recognised magazines. They don't specify which magazines to consider. Now there are more poetry outlets in Ireland than short stories. The best list is from Poetry Ireland.

Short Stories
There are very few, fewer pay. There are competitions from time to time of varying degrees of recognition and with varying styles. If at all possible check back copies of the magazine or competition to see what type of story they take. A story that fits in to The Stinging Fly would be unlikely to be taken by The People's Friend. I have an earlier entry about 'Women's Magazines' short stories.

Sunday Tribune. Once a month, the first Sunday of the month. Ciaran Carty choses a story 2,500 words or under. All 12 entries are put forward the following year for a Hennessey Award. Fairly literary, a mixed bag, can be funny or urban or rural, or glum, modern or traditional. Ciaran Carty, Sunday Tribune, 15 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2.

Crannog magazine looks for prose as well as poetry. < 2,000 words.

Cork Literary Review. The details for this are vague. Most of the online information is out of date. Cork-centric but some great writing.
Same for Southword, also out of Cork. Both published by Tigh Fili/Bradshaw Books. Looks like they accept submissions at the start of the year.

Irish Pages from Belfast is a bit high-falutin' for my taste.

Stinging Fly has a regular magazine for which they seek admissions of prose and poetry, Jan-Mar only. They also have a 2008 anthology for which they are seeking submission between now and 14th December 2007.
Urban, risky writing does well.

West47
is an online magazine out of Galway Arts Centre. The deadline for the January-March 2008 edition is Friday 16 November 2007. The maximum length for prose is 2000 words and 75 lines in total for poetry. Call me old fashioned but I prefer my journals on paper.

Prestigious Competitions include
The Cork based Sean O'Faolain short story competition where the winners are published in Southword.
The RTE Francis MacManus Short story award which looks for submissions of short stories for Radio every October. Free to enter.
There's also the Fish, which I don't rate highly though others love. It's expensive.
And the Molly Keane from Waterford, although these stories are never published, just win some money.

Otherwise, go to the UK or USA. That's all I can think of. Have I missed something?

11 comments:

The Woods said...

HI there. Ladywolf here. Congrats on your appearance in The Tribune. If it had been me I'd have been screaming it all over my blog. Well done you.

ferdia said...

I've been writing short stories for a while and just wondering do you know of any Irish magazines or newspapers which you'd recommend submitting to, I know the sunday tribune used to accept short stories but not sure if they still do. Anyway any info you have would be a great help. Cheers:)

Emerging Writer said...

Hi Ferdia,

The ones in the post still all work as far as I know. Some of the smaller mags take both poetry and fiction. Francis MacManus is coming up in October

ferdia said...

Thanks:)

ferdia said...

Hey, sorry to bother you again just wondering about the Sunday tribune short story submission guidelines its not very clear on their website. Do you know how many stories they accept at a time/ whether you need a cover letter? Thanks again:)

Emerging Writer said...

The Sunday Tribune New Irish Writing is looking for stories (up to 2500 words) ( I wouldn't send more than two) and poems (up to six).

Open to writers who are Irish or reside in Ireland, all stories published are eligible for Hennessy X. O. Literary Awards announced in April.

Send entries with SASE to: New Irish Writing, Sunday Tribune, 15 Lower Baggot St. D2 along with name phone number and email address.

The editor is Ciaran Carty and New Irish Writing is published the first Sunday of the month.

ferdia said...

Hey sorry to bother you again but was just wondering what you found the average response time to be for the Ciaran Carty short story outlet? I submitted around two months ago and was wondering should I submit again. Also how regularly do you recommend submitting stories (once a month or once every 3 months etc)

Thanks.

Emerging Writer said...

Good questions Ferdia. I will have to do a blog post on response times in my experience. The New Irish Writing/Ciaran Carty has been going through some changes recently so I'd give him at least another month.
I would also recommend sending 2 or 3 stories in one go and then waiting 3 months.

ferdia said...

Thanks:)

ferdia said...

Thanks!

Afric McGlinchey said...

Long Story Short is another one. Editor is Jennifer Matthews. She publishes stories that are over 3 000 words long.
http://longstoryshort.squarespace.com/