In 2025, I returned to submissions after several years away, during which I published a book and had a daughter. I’d drop my daughter off at daycare, go to a cafe about a block away, and amp myself up with caffeine while I tried to bang out five quick submissions.

I’ve never been as fast a submitter as I want to be, but after years away, I found that I was swimming through mud. I’d start out excited, with some goal publications or places that had sent me positive rejections in the past, only to find that they were closed; or were open but had already reached their monthly cap; or were reading exclusively for a theme issue on amphibian horror.

On one particularly bad day, I remember thinking, “Is anyone even open?” I suddenly remembered Submittable’s Discover tab and opened it up, only to find an 18-page-long list of every single call under the sun. I also tried various other lists—good ones—and came away still muddy. Culling long lists is the opposite of what my dopamine-driven brain wants—to get to the point already! The Submit button!

The problem was not that no one was open—at any given time of the year there are lots of places looking for good work. The problem was the labor of searching and sorting, remembering who and when, and then getting my work out the door before the submission cap slammed it shut.

Getting repeatedly thwarted in my submissions—and rarely getting the little dopamine hit of clicking the Submit button—made it even harder for me to turn my attention to them and by the middle of the year, I had floundered.

What I needed, I realized, was a list of exactly who I could submit to right now without having to wade through a lot of open calls that didn’t apply to me because I’m not from the UK, or I don’t live in Georgia, or I don’t write magical realism about conifers. I needed the list to be ranked a little bit so that I could strategize which submissions I wanted to aim high with. And I needed a work party, other people to keep me going through what can sometimes feel like a slog. I had never heard of an event like that so I decided to create one.

I started with a spreadsheet of open lit mags—divided into two simple categories “The Old Guard” and “The Cool Kids.” I listed fees, length requirements, and linked to their submissions pages and mastheads (because I always like to start a cover letter with editors’ actual names). I created sample cover letters for newer participants and some submissions strategy tips. And I started with my first event in January 2026. Fourteen people signed up, and we had a great time. One participant sent out seven submissions in an hour.

I don’t work on submissions myself during Jumpstart events, because I want to be available for questions (and because I add to the spreadsheets in real time for anyone who is looking for more specific types of calls). But in the days after my events, I work off of the same spreadsheet as everyone else. Separating out the “search and sort” phase of submissions from the “send work” phase has made my brain very happy, which has a career impact for me. Halfway through the year, I’ve already surpassed the number of submissions I sent out in all of 2025. More importantly, I have fun doing submissions, which (at least for me) is the only thing that makes this work sustainable.

Come join us for the next Submissions Jumpstart on July 15^th. You can bring a friend for free.

Megan Alpert is the author of The Animal at Your Side, which won the Airlie Prize and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. As a journalist, she has reported for The Atlantic, Smithsonian, The Guardian, and Foreign Policy, where she was a fellow. More recently, she has published humor and commentary in Romper and The Belladonna Comedy. She has a short story forthcoming in The Bennington Review. Sign up for her newsletter about writing, or come submit your work at a Submissions Jumpstart event.

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