Editor Interview: Doric Literary

Literary short stories.

The New Quarterly; The New Yorker; The Malahat Review; Smokelong; Pithead Chapel; Milk Candy Review; CRAFT; Short Story, Long; & Reckon Review.

We love classical short story writers such as Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Mansfield, Somerset Maugham, James Baldwin, Anton Chekhov, John Cheever, Raymond Carver, Guy de Maupassant, Bernard Malamud, Alice Munro, Philip Roth, & John Steinbeck.
But we also love contemporary authors such as Lisa Alward, Kristen Arnett, Sudha Balagopal, Lori Sambol Brody, Aaron Burch, Exodus Octavia Brownlow, Avitus B. Carle, Michael Czyzniejewski, Paola Ferrante, Jennifer Fliss, Beth Gilstrap, Hannah Grieco, Maureen Langloss, Megan Lucas, Kim Magowan, Heather O’Neill, Deesha Philyaw, Michelle Ross, George Saunders, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Amy Stuber, Tara Stillions Whitehead, & so many more...

Not so much, really.
We’re two writers who publish work we like, using a bare-bones website with a homepage designed to look like the table of contents of a short story anthology. We do, however, pride ourselves on a quick response time – only very rarely will authors have to wait longer than one week to hear from us.

Ask yourself whether your submission resembles any story one of the above listed “classical short story writers” has written. We say right in our guidelines that the more a story reads like it was written by Flannery O’Connor or Katherine Mansfield, the better.
Other questions to consider: Does your story start as close to the end as possible? Is there tension moving the story forward? Does every scene and every detail earn its keep? Has at least one character changed by the end of the story (or has a character taught us something by not changing)?

The ideal submission is from someone who has read our guidelines – and perhaps even read a few stories from the journal. Ideal submissions are also carefully proofread and finely tuned – because our time is limited, we can only take stories that don’t require huge edits or substantial re-writes.

Many writers send genre fiction (sci-fi, horror, romance), flash fiction, & modern experimental writing, or they send stories involving subjects that we specifically state in our guidelines are our least favourite things: reimagined fairy tales, erotic or violent stories, etc. Some writers think we’re looking for stories about Greek mythology but the Doric temples on our website are a metaphor to represent what we look for in a short story: a solid foundation or beginning, soaring columns or plotlines that lead directly to a satisfying and beautiful conclusion that still has impact and relevance in the modern world.
We also get a lot of work that is already online. Although we are happy to take reprints, our one condition is that your story can’t be accessible, for free, anywhere else on the internet. We will gleefully re-home a beautiful story if the original online journal has gone defunct, or if the piece is behind a paywall, and we love giving an online presence to worthwhile stories that are only available in print, but we don’t understand why anyone would want to publish work in two online journals at once.

We don't need a cover letter. We only want a bio and social media handles because we may need reminding whether we know the writer (we never publish people just because we know them but we may send a friendlier response). Although we are ecstatic when we give emerging writers their first publication, it may also make a difference knowing whether the author has a sizeable social media following to help attract more readers to our journal.

I read until I know a story is out of contention for publication (but, even then, I still skim through to the ending). If a story begins with a hail of bullets, rape, excessive vulgarity, a vampire, a spaceship, or a world leader giving a speech – then I know we are not the right fit and probably won’t keep reading. If a story seems promising – and the vast majority do – I read until a voice in my head says something like: “I’m bored” or “I don’t care what happens to these characters.” This frequently occurs one- or two-thousand words in.

My lone staff person, MJ, is a tiebreaker when I’m on the fence about a piece. Before I send a story to her, I’ll check that it isn’t online elsewhere. I’ll usually do a second read-through as well, to be sure it is a work I really want to start editing.

I have two part-time, non-literary jobs, plus I’m a gardener, and a husband. I also like to write stories of my own. Every day is just a matter of dividing my time between what most needs attention.

I’ve never done less than two rounds of edits, though three or four rounds are also possible. For each round, I might have anywhere from two to fifty suggestions for the author to consider – even in the case of reprints. The writer is free to accept or reject any suggestion. I’ll even do a final read-through once the story is formatted for the website.

Yes. Best of the Net, Best American Short Stories, Best Short Fictions, and the Pushcart Prize.

Doric Literary is almost entirely self-funded by the editor. We warmly welcome, but do not solicit, donations.

We regularly post on Twitter, Bluesky, Substack, and Facebook. We happily consent to interviews with journals that promote writers and literary publications, and we nominate for major literary awards (see above).