Oi vey, getting published.  That’s the elephant in the room here in my graduate writing program.  We’re all working on becoming better writers, critiquing one another, reading a ton — it’s incredibly valuable time spent on self-improvement.  But let’s be honest, to what end?  Why are we all doing this?  Because we want to be published.  We want the validation that our work is worth something.  We want to be able to add some italicized names of magazines to our biographies.  We want to write…drum roll please…a book.

Whether or not connections are actually necessary to get published is a separate question.  But if you want to do something other than self-publish, you might have a tough time if you assume that the all-knowing, all-powerful internet can help you find a publisher. Read more »