Reading Period
Quick answer: A reading period is the stretch of time when a magazine or press reads submissions. Learn how reading periods work and what they mean for your waiting time.
A reading period is the stretch of time during which the editors of a magazine, press or prize actively read and decide on submissions. The phrase appears in guidelines in two related senses: the months when a venue is open to new work, and the span editors need to work through the pile once it arrives. When a journal says our reading period is October to March, it is telling you both when to send and roughly how long the silence afterwards may last.
Understanding reading periods spares you a lot of needless anxiety. A poem unanswered for four months is not lost or hated; it is most likely sitting in a queue behind two thousand others, waiting for a volunteer reader's Sunday afternoon. Knowing the machinery helps you wait like a professional.
What Happens During One
Inside most magazines, submissions pass through tiers. First readers, often volunteers or graduate students, sort arrivals into no, maybe and yes piles. Section editors weigh the maybes. The final table of contents emerges near the end of the period, which is why decisions cluster in the last weeks and why an early submission can still receive a late reply.
Some venues read blind, stripping names from poems so work is judged without reputation attached. Contest judging commonly works this way too, and it is one reason newcomers genuinely can beat established names in a well-run competition.
Reading Period vs Submission Window
The two terms are close cousins and often swapped freely. The submission window is the door: the dates when work may be sent. The reading period is the desk: the time editors spend reading. At many magazines they coincide, but a press might accept manuscripts only in June while its reading period stretches to December. Guidelines usually make the distinction clear when it matters, typically in a line about expected response times.
Making the Wait Useful
The healthiest poets treat a submission as posted and forgotten. Keep writing, keep revising other poems, and keep other submissions moving so no single reading period holds your mood hostage. If a venue's stated response time passes with no word, a short, polite status query is acceptable; anything more urgent than that should wait for genuinely urgent news, like an acceptance elsewhere requiring a withdrawal.
Venues with rapid cycles can offset the long waits. A monthly contest that announces results on a fixed date each month gives your writing life a heartbeat while the six-month magazines deliberate.
What poets can take from this
- Note each venue's expected response time and only query after it fully passes.
- Assume decisions arrive late in the reading period, not early.
- Keep at least a handful of submissions out at once so waiting is diffuse rather than sharp.
- Respect closed periods; work sent outside them is usually deleted unread.
- Use fast-cycle venues alongside slow magazines to keep momentum and morale.
Try it yourself
Write a poem in the voice of an unread manuscript waiting in a pile through a long winter reading period, without ever using the words wait, hope or patience.
Questions
How long is a typical reading period?
Anywhere from a month to half a year. Many magazines read for three to six months and respond within that time, though busy venues can take longer, especially near the end of a period.
Can I ask a magazine about my submission during the reading period?
Wait until the stated response time has passed, then send one short, polite query. Querying earlier rarely speeds anything up and can mark you as difficult to work with.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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