Worlds of Possibility Submissions Update

Hello! I come to you today with some Worlds of Possibility submissions info.

As of this evening, I have read and responded to all the submissions from the Spring 2024 open reading period.

I did intend to have all of this taken care of before now (I believe I originally claimed I would be done by the end of April), but life sometimes doesn't go as we plan! This spring has left me scrambling to stay on top of my deadlines. And, to be clear, I am the whole team at Worlds of Possibility. Many cover letters are addressed to "Julia and team" or "Editors" or "Editorial team" – I appreciate authors wanting to recognize the many hardworking assistant editors and first readers in the world. But for this magazine, at least for now, I'm it. I am the one who reads every submission. I am the art director and the publisher and the first reader. The only other "team" here are my feline supervisors (pictured above). This means I get to make all the decisions about everything and luxuriate in creating a thing wholly out of love. But it also means that if I am overwhelmed with life and need to slow down, then everything around the magazine runs late, including my responses to submissions. Sorry about that!

Spring 2024 Submission Stats

I received 1,039 submissions in this reading period, including a few that came in via email. Even though I prefer submissions via Moksha, and may not always consider things that come in through other avenues, I did consider the emailed submissions this time.

I have rejected 936 submissions.

I have already accepted 2 submissions.

I have 68 submissions in my second round pile still awaiting a final decision. It's going to be hard! Many of the pieces I have already rejected were very good, and everything in my second round pile is good AND something I could imagine fitting well in Worlds of Possibility.

33 submissions were withdrawn by their authors, including one I wanted to save for my second round. Such is the nature of allowing simultaneous submissions. If I am too slow to decide on something, that's on me as an editor. I am glad the author in question sold their story!

These numbers are a bit fuzzy because I didn't specify whether people should send individual pieces separately or together, so some authors chose to send bundles of three pieces in one submission. In practice this means I read more than 1,039 pieces, but I have no idea exactly how many. Regardless, for the sake of this bout of numbers wrangling, we will consider each submission as one submission no matter how may pieces were included in it.

This means that in total I considered 1,006 submissions and roughly 7% made it to my second round pile. I can't tell you what the final percentage of pieces accepted will be because I won't know until I have finished accepting things. What I can tell you is that I expect to accept at least enough pieces to fill the next two issues of Worlds of Possibility. Possibly the next three, but I can't be certain.

The two accepted pieces are by one author who has appeared in Worlds of Possibility before, and one who hasn't. One is a poem and one is a story.

17 of the 68 second round submissions are by authors who have appeared in Worlds of Possibility before, and 51 are by authors who have not. 22 are poems and 46 are stories.

I do see some themes emerging in the second round pile, so I have an idea of what the June issue may look like, but I still don't know which of the pieces fitting the theme I have in mind will make it into the final lineup. That said, I do expect to make my final decisions relatively quickly. June is coming fast, and I will want to get those pieces edited and commission art as soon as I can.

Dream Foundry Writing and Art Contests Open Until May 27th!

If you are a new writer or artist who has not been published much, or at all, you might want to check out the Dream Foundry Writing and Art Contests! I am the coordinator for the Writing contest, and Valerie Valdes and C.L. Polk are the judges for this year. Grace P. Fong is coordinating the art contest and the judges for that one are Jessica Cheng and Lauren Raye Snow. Both of these contests are a great way to get practice sending your work out to be evaluated, and all of the judges are really good at their craft.

These contests are free to enter, and they give cash prizes to the winners.

Check out all the details for the writing contest and submit your story here: https://dreamfoundry.org/writing-contest/

Check out all the details for the art contest and submit your art here: https://dreamfoundry.org/art-contest/

The contests are open until the 27th of May, so you have just about ten days left to get your entries in!