inside peek

If you submit work to Third Wednesday, know one thing.

As one of the editors, I will pretty much 99% of the time veto a piece that uses the words beautiful or scream, the former because the author has not said anything, the latter because usually a synonym would work better than something so emo.

Cicada is coming close to earning an honorable mention on my invisible list.

opinion

If you're a magazine & you take longer than a month to respond to submissions, you should allow simultaneous submissions. Six weeks, tops. Keeping someone's work exclusively for any greater amount of time is rude, IMHO.

As an actively publishing writer, I screen out magazines that violate this rule of thumb unless the market 1) pays or 2) is sufficiently exclusive that publication would be worth more than payment.