Submitting a Work to The Literary Gothic
Since LitGothic constantly receives queries about submissions — most of them completely inappropriate — I thought I'd add this page to try to save people, perhaps primarily myself, some time.
If you are thinking about submitting one of your own "gothic" pieces to LitGothic, you haven't followed one of the most basic pieces of advice given to beginning writers: know the places to which you're submitting your work. Understand what they publish and what their guidelines are. LitGothic, as explained on the About page (which of course you should have already examined), is devoted to works in the Gothic tradition published prior to 1950. If you're alive, you're not the type of author who is featured on LitGothic. It would be utterly inappropriate for you to submit an original work here. (If you're dead, and reading this, definitely get in touch with me, but only after reading Poe's "How to Write a Blackwood Article and "The Scythe of Time".)
If, by "submission," you wish to send me for online posting the etext of a Gothic-tradition work from before 1950, read on.
I do indeed consider posting submitted etexts, but they must be public domain
works from authors prior to 1950, and they do need to be etexts of works not available
elsewhere on the web, or which add in some way to works published online elsewhere.
If you include any explanatory notes, please indicate your sources; I reserve
the right to add notes or modify existing notes, and to format the document to
match LitGothic design considerations and formatting practices. Submitting an
etext will not guarantee that it will be posted online as part of LitGothic;
works are subject to verification. If a submitted work has lots of typos or other errors, it may not be posted for months, or longer. If your submission is published, you will
be credited in the document as the contributor and an email link to you will
be included unless you request otherwise.
Thanks, as always, for your interest in LitGothic.
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