questions: submitting a short story

[megs]

I've finally registered after months of appearing on here as a guest! At last I have finished a short story (!) and I'm thinking about submitting it to a magazine (Aurealis).

However, I was wondering what is appropriate to write in a submission letter to the editor, besides something like:
Please see attached my short story entitled _, which I submit for your consideration to include in your _ magazine.

Should I include any kind of synopsis or justification as to why the story is appropriate (eg. genre or theme)?

I have no previous publication record, apart from one academic article which has been accepted. As this is unrelated to my fiction work, I don't think this should be mentioned.

And lastly, while Aurealis state on their website that submissions are judged objectively, I wonder whether this submission (if they deem it unacceptable) will cloud any future attempts to publish with them. Therefore should I approach a less well known magazine with my first (real) story?

Does anyone have any suggestions about how this should be approached?

[hellion]

Email the magazine first and ask for some submission guidelines, then follow them to the exact letter.

As for feedback, if you get a single line rejection, then forget it and try somewhere else. If they send you something more encouraging to the effect of " Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately this story doesn't suit our present requirements, but we hope to hear from you again in the future" then write something new and keep plugging away.

To quote an email I just received from a dear friend of mine "keep on submitting until someone says yes, then write something else and keep sending that off, rinse and repeat."

Good luck and let us know how you go . Would you mind posting a link to Aurealis' website please? I haven't bought one of their issues in years and didn't even know they were still around!

[megs]

Heres the link for aurealis, they have submission guidelines etc:

www.aurealis.com.au/

Vision writers is QLD based, but there might be some useful info/ links:

www.visionwriters.org/

[hellion]

Never mind, I found it . Good to see some familiar names in the latest edition. Shane Dix used to cross swords with a great many people in Doctor Who fanzine letter columns way back when. He always seemed to enjoy my articles though. No accounting for taste...

[megs]

I'm thinking about sending Aurealis a reminder email as they haven't got back to me yet. Glory or humilation awaits...
Does anyone else know of any other Fantasy/ Horror publications in Australia that are reasonably well respected?

[megs]

I sent Aurealis a reminder notice a week ago (after hearing nothing for about 4 months). I was just wondering if anybody has any thoughts on what would be a reasonable time frame to wait before submitting to another magazine if I don't hear anything.

[megs]

Ripples magazine accepted the story for their July edition (Victoria based)!!! Not paid, but some exposure at least.

Before then I received a couple of very polite rejection letters from Borderlands and Aurealis, so enough encouragement to keep going.

Back to the PhD though...

[megs]

I've found this forum again after many years... haven't been doing a lot of writing but started a blog (sort of) with my stories - are there any other forums like this that are more active?