There are thousands of publications out there, but that doesn't mean you want your work to appear in all of them. I've been published in journals that looked worse than what I could have produced in my own office. It's exciting to have a story accepted, but disappointing to have it published in a poorly produced journal...or one that takes work that isn't so great.

Literary Database 2008 has two layers of listings, the first are those journals and magazines which submit their work to be considered for the annual The Best American Short Stories anthology. Among short story writers, especially, these publications are seen as being of the highest quality. These journals are highlighted in the database so it is easy to distinguish them from the others.

The second layer of publications is an interesting mix. Some have great editors and put out a wonderful product. Some are trying something new in the publishing world (like GUD which offers single stories for sale by PDF file, or the entire issue by PDF, or their print version...and they pay you every time your story is sold in any one of these formats). Many of these journals are based at universities with writing programs and are of a literary mindset. Some are niche publishers (publishing only work by women like Calyx and Swivel) or publishing work that is more regional (like Zzyuzza and Weber Studies). There are only a handful of online journals, and we tried to choose only those which also publish a print anthology or ‘Best of Year’ issue (like Carve). Some have both an online and print issue (Hobart and McSweeney’s).

It's a good mix of 'step-up' journals (publications that are good places to publish to get started) that will look good on your cover letter, and more narrow journals that may be easier to publish in for beginning writers.

For each publication, it is easy to see if they accept novel exerpts, Experimental work, Humor/satire, non-fiction, poetry, or sci-fi/fantasy. The database lets you know where each of your stories will fit and when to send it. Literary work is accepted by all entries in the database unless noted otherwise in the remarks column.

It also lets you know where you can submit your work ONLINE, saving you postage. And you can CUT & PASTE addresses from the database to your cover letter and to your labels.

Literary Database 2008 also has 'hot links' to the publications’ websites. All you do is click on them and your browser will open to the site.

And Literary Database 2008 always tells you which publications will pay you for your work.

Overall, we've put together a database that has no 'filler,' no fly-by-night or we might publish you if you'll subscribe...magazines. And we are constantly evaluating our choices and updating the database.