This event is only open to Short Form Fest passholders. You can purchase gold, silver, and bronze passes here.
Submitting an essay, short story, or flash piece for publication often feels like sending your work into a black hole—you don’t hear back for months, and when you do, it’s rare to receive any kind of feedback. But on the other side of the Submittable button, editors really are reading, discussing, and thinking deeply about every submission they receive. Secrets from the Slush Pile is your chance to get the inside scoop on this process directly from the editors themselves. What should you do in the first sentence, paragraph, or page to keep an editor reading? How important are titles, bios, and cover letters? What helps a submission stand out—and what sends it straight into the “no” pile? Visiting editors from Colorado Review, F(r)iction, and other local lit mags will explore these questions and more in this unique peek into the short-form submission process.
As part of this event, visiting editors will also discuss participant submissions and offer their reactions from an editor’s point of view. If you’d like to submit your work for a chance to receive feedback during the event, please email ONE of the following to info@lighthousewriters.org by July 18, using the same formatting you’d use to submit to a literary magazine:
- The first page of a short story
- The first page of an essay
- A flash fiction or nonfiction piece (500 words or fewer)
Please note: We will not consider submissions received after July 18. Sending us your work does not guarantee that it will be selected for discussion during the event. If submissions are longer than one page, only the first page will be considered for discussion. Please be aware that work being discussed may receive negative feedback in front of other writers (anonymously); we ask that you approach the event with an open mind and a thick skin
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Join us July 26-27 for Short Form Fest, a weekend celebration of short stories, essays, flash prose, and prose poetry. To explore craft seminars and events, purchase passes, and learn more about the festival, click here.
