GUIDELINES FOR WRITERS AS OF JANUARY 2008
Midstream welcomes submission of manuscripts that deal with Jewish life and culture worldwide, past and present, with particular emphasis on current Jewish affairs, political, social, and cultural, in America and in Israel. Midstream publishes many articles per issue, at least one short story (fiction), and from five to ten poems. Articles normally run from 2,000 to 4,000 words and fiction from 2,000 to 5,000 words. Poems are generally short, not more than twenty lines (counting line-spaces between stanzas), since they are used as fillers on a page, but occasionally, poems up to thirty lines are acceptable. Book reviews on current titles run from 1,000 to 2,000 words; review essays that are more extensive in reach and depth from 2,000 to 4,000 words. Midstream does not normally publish very short essays of less than 1,000 words. Writers should include name, mailing address, e-mail address, and phone number, in every submission. Writers of prose pieces should also include a word count, and a three- to four-line bio written in the third person. Writers of fiction or of non-fictional memoirs should clearly identify the genre of their submission.
All manuscripts should be sent electronically as an attachment in Microsoft Word via e-mail to midstreamTHF@aol.com. Poetry (up to three poems at a time in one mailing) should now also be sent electronically as noted above. We are not equipped to publish submissions of hard copy received by regular mail. Such submissions will not be read or returned. Letters addressed “To the Editor” should also be sent in electronically and limited to a maximum of 300 words. Letter writers do not receive notice of acceptance or rejection, or remuneration if published. The editor may publish excerpts and provide responses in print without its being considered an invasion of privacy.
Midstream receives many manuscripts each week for consideration by the editor, but its editorial staff is very small. Consequently, response time to writers may take as long as three months, or even more, and editors cannot offer comments or criticism on manuscripts not accepted for publication. Writers are urged to proofread their own work meticulously since our minuscule staff cannot spend valuable time correcting manuscripts replete with errors. Clean copy makes its own good impression. For the same reason, we urge writers to submit their final version of a piece since belated revisions increase our reading burden appreciably and are rarely welcomed. Timely articles that are accepted may be published quickly, but others that are accepted may take up to a year or more to appear in one of the six bi-monthly issues. Solicitation of articles by the editor is not an automatic promise of publication; that can only come after the submission has been received, read, and officially accepted.
Payment for published manuscripts is calculated at five cents a word for prose, $25 for a published poem, and three complimentary copies of the issue containing the writer’s work. Copies are sent out soon after publication. Monetary remuneration must often wait a length of time for Midstream to receive its stipends from its supporters. Midstream, nevertheless, has an unblemished record of remunerating its writers in its more than fifty years of existence and is especially proud of this achievement.