Happy Tuesday, writers, friends, and shark fans! I cannot believe we only have ONE WEEK LEFT in February already. Where is this year going?

Fortunately, I have a positive answer for that: this year is going amazing places. How do I know that? Well, because I have a great feeling, and…

…because Lit Shark Magazine received its first 100 submissions!

I love the timing of this because, during the week of February 9th, my daughter was already excited about her 100th day of school. On top of that, Lit Shark received its 100th submission during that same week!

Since then, Lit Shark has nearly reached the 200-submission mark. I am floored, excited, and oh so grateful for the opportunity to read so much great writing.

So far, we’ve received poetry, short fiction, and artwork, as well as some inquiries about becoming regular contributors for Lit Shark‘s website to cover book news and book reviews. We’ve even received a few submissions for Lit Pup from kiddos in the form of micro short stories, finger-painted and hand-drawn art, and one limerick.

I cannot say enough times how excited and pleased I am to have this opportunity. Thank you to everyone who has already submitted and for your patience while I work my way through these submissions. And welcome to anyone out there who is still interested in submitting!

To wrap this up, here are the top questions I’ve answered so far: 

Does Lit Shark accept simultaneous submissions? Can we send more than one piece? What about reprints? All the above, yes. We welcome and even expect simultaneous submissions (I’m a writer, too, and I understand the pacing of this industry). As for the number of submissions, you’re welcome to send one or more! We’ve received, on average, 1-3 stories per submission and 3-5 poems per submission, to give you an idea. And reprints are also accepted, as long as you let us know ahead of time that it will be a reprint, and as long as you send us the earlier publication info, so we can properly credit your work.

Does Lit Shark take submission fees, and does Lit Shark compensate? We will never ask for you to pay to submit your creative works, to inquire about being a contributor with us, to inquire about a book review/author interview, or to apply for the Shiver Collective. We don’t do that here. As for compensation, our FIRST goal is to be able to compensate our writers – our creative writers, our contributors, and our core team – as soon as possible.

When will the first issue be available?

I still have a lot of submissions to go through, but I’m aiming for mid-March and will have a solid date available soon.

In what form will the issue be available?

This is so exciting to me! Each issue of Lit Shark will be available as a free PDF on our website so that no one ever has to worry about accessibility or cost to read our work. For those who prefer print issues, we will also make our issues available as short books on Amazon. These will be available for a low, affordable price, and all of those funds will go into building a pool of money to compensate our writers.

Finally, at the end of the year, we will create a “Best Of” Anthology that features all of our favorite works (in every medium) from Lit Shark AND Lit Pup as a physical book for purchase. Writers who are featured will also be given the opportunity to submit a “companion piece” that is a new, unpublished work that they’d like to have featured in the anthology alongside the piece that was published in one of our earlier issues. This will bring a certain freshness to the anthology and will give each writer an opportunity to show what they’ve been working on since they were first featured.

Happy Writing and Happy Submitting!

McKenzie, EIC of Lit Shark