First Time! Share with us!

An excerpt:


Remember your first time?

First time being published, that is. Maybe it was a story in your college lit mag, or a poem in an online journal, or an essay in a periodical. Maybe you even had a manuscript accepted by a small press. Whatever your publishing track record, we're willing to bet that your first time was something special—and chances are it was through an independent literary publisher.

Perhaps you're still waiting for your first acceptance letter, but thanks to CLMP—the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses—independent literary publications are thriving, creating more opportunities for writers like you to be heard!

As representatives of the community of indie lit publishers, we ask that you join us in supporting CLMP, the organization that helps make it possible for us to publish writers like you. CLMP provides essential training and information to literary publishers small and large, established and just beginning. Russell Banks, George Plimpton and others founded CLMP in 1967, and CLMP has been here for us, helping us do what we do even better, ever since.

Supporting CLMP means that you play an active role in sustaining the very publishers most likely to publish you.

Today, we've banded together to show CLMP that writers will join us in giving back. Please make a contribution  and go to (bit.ly/1mOqDBD), and to celebrate your support (and toot your own horn—you've earned it!), simply tweet about the first time you published—and the publication that made it happen—then add #myfirsttime and a link (https://bit.ly/1ku7abg) to clmp's donate page.

Thank you for your voice, which inspires our work, and for helping us support this vital organization.

And thanks again to those of you who made our spring aaduna fundraisers a success.