Would You Want to Know How Close You Were to Winning a Writing Contest?

[image description: a hand holding a red pen is hovering above the blank page of an open notebook.]

Recently I was skimming Twitter and I saw this question from a literary magazine: Writers, do you prefer to know if you’re on the shortlist for publication or would you rather wait for the final decision?

The timing was interesting because I’d just had an experience that gave me a more informed opinion on this.

First, some context. Over the past decade-plus, I’ve submitted dozens of pieces of writing to hundreds of literary magazines, both large and small. I’ve entered contests (including paying exorbitant contest entry fees, which I now refuse to do and don’t recommend) and have had a dozen or so near misses. Where I’ve been told my writing made it to the final round then fell short or I got runner up in a contest but didn’t place. This happens so often that I almost didn’t believe it when I finally placed in a writing contest recently.

Before I got the news that I’d placed, however, another contest I entered a different piece in emailed me to say I’d made the longlist. I’d had a rough week and that was just the news I needed!

Until three days later when they emailed me again to let me know I didn’t make the shortlist, so I was out of the contest. At that moment I felt silly for celebrating making the longlist and wished they hadn’t even told me until the final decision had been made. Yes, I want to know if I made a longlist or shortlist, but I don’t want to be told, then get my hopes up, only to find out later that it was for naught. I want to be told whether I made the longlist or shortlist only after the actual final decision has been made and everyone knows where their submissions stand.

To announce or not to announce? That is the question.

I thought other writers would feel as I did, but my assumption was wrong. (You know what they say about assumptions!) Twenty people replied to the literary magazine’s tweet and five of us, myself included, said they’d rather wait and not know they were on the shortlist before the final decision was made. The other 15 people said they’d want to know because they saw it as encouraging and a sign that they were on the right track.

I definitely see the news that I was long- or shortlisted as a sign that I’m on the right track, I’d just love for that sign to come after it’s decided that I didn’t win. Then again, maybe I just need an attitude adjustment.

Would you rather know or not know?