Literary Assistant / Submission Manager for Fiction and Essays

I am a writer seeking a freelance literary assistant to help manage submissions of my short fiction and essays to literary magazines, journals, contests, and other appropriate publications. I’m looking for someone with genuine familiarity with the contemporary literary-magazine world who can take ownership of the process, not simply perform administrative tasks. The work would include: • Reading a small portfolio of completed work and helping me identify which pieces are strongest and most ready for submission. • Researching and developing thoughtful, tiered submission lists for individual stories and essays. • Matching pieces to publications based on style, subject, length, aesthetic, and editorial interests. • Managing submissions through Submittable, email, and other systems. • Maintaining a submission tracker, including responses, simultaneous submissions, withdrawals, and publication status. • Monitoring reading periods, contests, special issues, and other promising opportunities. • Periodically reviewing our overall submission strategy and recommending next steps. I would provide finished or nearly finished work. I am not primarily looking for developmental editing, copyediting, or help writing the pieces themselves. I want someone who can help good work find the publications where it has the strongest chance of belonging. Who I’m Looking For The ideal candidate has experience with literary magazines, journals, small presses, MFA programs, literary agencies, or managing their own successful submissions. You should know the literary-magazine landscape well enough to distinguish among publications at different levels of selectivity and to think strategically about where an individual piece belongs. I would much rather make 20 carefully chosen submissions than 100 poorly targeted ones. You should also be organized, reliable, and comfortable working independently. Once we establish a strategy, my hope is that you can manage much of the process without requiring my involvement in every submission. Working Arrangement This would be ongoing freelance work, paid hourly as work is performed. The workload may vary depending on what pieces are ready and which reading periods are open. I’m hoping to build a continuing relationship with the right person. I would likely begin with a paid trial assignment: reading a small selection of my work, identifying the pieces you believe are strongest for submission, and proposing an initial submission strategy for one of them. To Apply Please tell me briefly about your experience with literary publishing and submissions, your hourly rate and availability, and how you would approach finding the right publications for a new short story or literary essay. And please begin your response with the name of one literary magazine you particularly admire and a sentence or two about why. I’m interested in finding someone who genuinely knows and enjoys this world.