Please Include This Page With Your Submission) Submission Date: Fill & Download for Free

Despite our constant complaints and the cribbing, I always have had a feeling that the Indian government is trying to cut down paperwork making everything electronic. This is true of marriage registration in Delhi also. The entire process can be done online.The following is a short walk through on registering your marriage online in Delhi. I registered mine a month ago.You can register a marriage which took place anywhere in India. However, the bride or the groom needs to have an address proof in Delhi.Please visit Department of Revenue, Govt. of NCT of Delhi and register yourself using your Aadhaar Card and mobile number. You will be asked for your personal and contact details as well as a photo. Provide your Delhi address in the current address or permanent address section or both according to your present status of residence.Your userid is a nine digit number which will be sent via SMS. So please make sure that you remember it and don’t lose it.After the OTP (one time password) verification, you can login to your account.After you login, you will be able to see a tab on the top which says ‘Apply Online’ and under that you have ‘Apply for services’. Click on it and you will get a list of certificates which can be issued using the Delhi Government’s online services. Interestingly, marriage certificates are issued by the Department of Revenue ! I expected this to come under MCD/NDMC/Delhi Cantonment Board like birth and death certificates.Once you click on apply, a new page will open up and you will be required to fill in the following details.Marriage date and placeAct under which you wish to register the marriage: Hindu marriage act/Special marriage act. If the marriage was solemnized in a religious place, you will need a certificate from the priest.Personal details of Bride and Groom. Your details would already be present and you have to fill in your spouse’s details. Provide details of your residence before and after the marriage. Remember that in the next page, you will need to provide proof of residence before and after marriage. I did not have any for my residence before marriage since I had been living with my friend so I mentioned the same address for before and after marriage. The sub-registrar office was fine with that.In the next page, you will need to provide details of two witnesses who attended the marriage. You will need their name, father’s name, address as well as some identity number (Government issued id card or PAN card). On the day of registration, they will have to accompany you to the Sub-registrar office and submit a copy of their id as well as address proof in Delhi. I took two colleagues of mine from the office for my registration.In the next page, you will need to upload the following documents for the bride and the groom.Marriage affidavit: Both the bride and groom will require marriage affidavits on non-judicial stamp paper (Rs. 10). You can get the paper yourself, type the content and get it notarized from a notary public. The content can be obtained from http://delhigovt.nic.in/dept/pubserv/marrAff.pdf. Now the affidavit will have two pages: One e-stamp paper and the next page would contain the content which is signed by you and notarized. Please make sure that the dates are correctly written in this page.Date of Birth Proof: Passport, SSLC/HSC Mark Certificate, PAN Card, Driving Licence, Aadhaar Card, Birth CertificateID Proof: Any government issued ID card, PAN Card, Passport, Driving Licence, Aadhaar Card, Voter id card, Bank passbook with photo and seal and signature of the bank officialsResidence proof: Voter id card, Passport, Driving Licence, Aadhaar Card, Bank passbook, Lease agreement. Please remember that the rent agreement has to be registered at a sub-registrar’s office.In the optional documents section, upload a scanned copy of your marriage invitation. You will need to upload a self affidavit if you require the wife to change her surname after marriage.You will have to upload each document separately including the department issuing it. For the affidavits, just mention self-affidavit and notarized. You will need to mention the e-Stamp number while uploading. Some documents are verified online immediately (eg. Delhi Driving Licence and Aadhaar).If you have uploaded a wrong document, you need to go to the ‘My documents’ tab and select ‘deactivate now’ for the corresponding document. Only then will you be able to upload the correct document. There is no way to delete the wrong documents at present. The deactivated documents will still be shown in the ‘My documents’ section as deactivated.The key issue in this section is the legibility and the size of the documents. The size limit is only 100 kb!!! You have to scan your documents in 100 DPI and in grayscale to keep it under the limit. Even then sometimes it becomes very difficult to keep the scanned document legible and under 100kb. I used this website tool extensively to resize my scanned documents. How to Reduce Photo Size Less than 20 KB / 10 kb / 100 KB OnlineIn the next page, you will need to upload a photo of your spouse and one of the marriage ceremony. Make sure that both the bride’s and groom’s faces are clearly visible.Once you have submitted all these details and scanned documents, the entire application will be visible for rechecking and final submission. Go through everything thoroughly and click on submit. Your application has now been submitted online.The next step is to schedule an appointment online. The registration can be done at the sub-registrar office which serves the bride’s residence or the groom’s residence. Online appointments can be done using the appointment tab at the top. Enter your temporary application number and select the Sub-registrar office of choice. Pick a date and time which is convenient to you. Generally Monday and Tuesday are very busy days for marriage registration.Once you schedule an appointment, you get an acknowledgment slip. This mentions the temporary application number, date, time and venue of appointment.The slip says that payment should be made at the Citizen Service Counter. I visited the Sub-Registrar office before my appointment date and could not find any such counter. I was informed that payment will be taken at the same location where the registration will be done (Room 104 of the Lajpat Nagar Sub-Registrar Office). The cost of marriage registration is Rs. 200/- if done within 60 days of marriage, Rs. 700/- if done between 61–120 days of marriage and Rs. 1550 if registered beyond 120 days of marriage. On top of this, Rs. 350/- is charged as online service fee.The slip also tells you to verify the certificates at the Certificate counter within a week of online submission. Again, this was not done in the certificate counter but in Room 104 of the Lajpat Nagar Registrar Office. However this is not mandatory. You can verify documents on the date of registration also. But if you verify early, you can speed up the process on the registration date.Day of registration: On the day of registration, try to reach 30 minutes earlier than the scheduled time so that you can do all the verification quickly. You will need to carry all the originals and a copy of all the documents which you submitted (self-attested). You need to carry four passport sized photos of the bride and groom and a photo of the marriage ceremony. Carry some stationeries like pen, A4 size blank papers, gum, stapler, seal (if any). You will be required to paste two passport size photos each of the bride and groom as well the marriage ceremony photo on a blank paper and self-attest it there. All your documents will be verified with the documents uploaded and placed together in a file.The next step is payment of the fees. Once the fee is calculated and paid at the counter, the witnesses are asked to submit a copy of their documents. During the fee payment, you will paste a passport size photo of the bride and the groom in a register, enter your personal details and add your signature.The next process is the biometric one wherein a photo of the bride, groom and the witnesses will be captured. Don’t worry about looking nice for the pictures. The cameras are pretty bad, low-resolution webcams and your marriage certificates will definitely have dark, unrecognizable pictures of you and your spouse :)After the pictures are clicked, you will be taken to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM). This is where the bottleneck is. If the sub-registrar is not available for some reason, you will be waiting for a long time. Luckily, our SDM was in the office and so our process went smoothly. The SDM will ask a few questions, say congratulations and sign the register.You go back to the original room again. The witnesses can leave now if they wish to. You and your spouse are called to check your details again on the computer. Once the details of all the couples have been verified, the officer proceeds to take a print out of all the marriage certificates to be issued on that day. After printing it out with the names of the bride and groom and their photographs, both of you are asked to sign the marriage certificate. After the signature, you can leave the building. You can thank the witnesses, exchange garlands with your spouse and take your friends for lunch or dinner depending on the time the process completes.The marriage certificate digitally signed by the SDM will be sent to your edistrict portal within 21 days. You can download it and use it for all official purposes. Mine was uploaded on the same day :)I personally felt that the process was pretty painless and smooth. We reached the office at 1100 and we were out by 1315. Everything is pretty clear in the edistrict website. And it was a cheap procedure to do compared to what is charged by all the touts and middle men.I got married in Tamilnadu which does not have a procedure for registering marriage online. I went to the Sub-Registrar Office near my house. The official in charge was very rude and advised me to go through a middle man of his choice. He insisted that the bride, groom and both sets of parents had to be present within 4 hours of the marriage. I said that it was not possible to do it so quickly after the marriage. He told me that it is the procedure and he will not entertain any more questions. So much for government officials being the friends of the public.When I enquired with a middle man, he quoted Rs. 6000 for ordinary registration (the bride, groom and both sets of parents had to be present at the Sub-Registrar Office) and Rs.12000 for a Special registration (The SDM would come to the marriage hall and do the registration him/herself!!!). Wow! These middle men and government officials must be making a killing…That is why I decide to get my marriage registered in Delhi and it proved to be a wise decision. I hope that this is useful for people who are planning to get their marriages registered.

I just did some research on application to Tisch. Hope it helps.5 Parts Portfolio:Part 1: A one-page resumeA one-page resume that highlights creative work accomplished, activities and/or relevant employment. Your resume must also include: Your full name, home address, date of birth, the name of your high school (or college for transfer students) and any extra curricular activities or work in your community. (Save as a pdf and upload to Slideroom.)Part 2: Leadership and Collaboration AnecdoteLeadership and collaboration are important ingredients for creating successful media projects. In three hundred words or less (no more than one page, double-spaced), describe an experience in which you exercised leadership and/or took part in a productive collaboration. We're interested in both your insights into these issues and your ability to tell an engaging short story. (Save as a pdf and upload to Slideroom.)Part 3: Personal StoryDescribe an event in your life and how it changed you or someone close to you. This event can be dramatic and/or comedic, major or minor. The assignment should be written as a short story. Please do not write about why or what led you to pursue a degree in film and television production. Ultimately we are looking for evidence of your potential as a storyteller.FORMAT: Up to four typed, double-spaced 8.5” x 11" pages. (Save as a PDF and upload to Slideroom.)Part 4: Artistic InfluencesHow has a film, play, book, television series, painting, music or other significant work of art inspired or influenced your own work or the way you look at the world? Please discuss this in three hundred words or less, no more than one, typed double-spaced page. You may discuss more than one influence provided that you do not exceed the word limit. (Save as a pdf and upload to Slideroom.)Part 5: Creative SubmissionA creative submission that shows visual storytelling and imaginative expression of thought. Choose ONLY ONE of the following:a. Film or video/ live action, fiction, experimental, documentary or animation. (Up to ten minutes total running time). Video footage of staged plays or theatre performances is not acceptable. Your submission should be a complete work which represents your best effort and one which engages your audience. Please be clear about your specific contributions to the video sample. Please test your video prior to submission. You may submit more than one piece provided the total running time doesn’t exceed ten minutes. If you are submitting a link, please be sure no downloads or passwords are required. If your video file is too large to upload please provide (embed) a YouTube or Vimeo link on the media page within Slideroom.b. A portfolio of photos, drawings, paintings, sculpture or set design. Your submission should reflect clearly developed ideas and themes. You may upload up to 10 photographic or scanned images of your work. (Still images and scans uploaded to Slideroom should be a minimum of 72 dpi).c. A sequence of ten to fifteen still images on any subject which shows a story. These images can be drawings (in the form of a storyboard), still photos or created through montage. Your images should convey a clear and imaginative visual sense.(Still images and scans uploaded to Slideroom should be a minimum of 72 dpi).d. No more than six pages of creative writing consisting of either a complete short story, film script or stage play. FORMAT: 8.5 " x 11" pages typed double spaced or screenplay format where applicable. (Save as a pdf and upload to Slideroom).Exact credits must be specified: the applicant must be the principal creative force of the creative work submitted. Please make sure your name and date of birth are on documents you upload. Please send the requested items only. Failure to do so will be grounds for automatic disqualification. Please, no substitutions, variations, or extraneous materials. Receipt of your portfolio will be confirmed via email from slideroom. It won’t appear on the status page in ALBERT.All components of your creative portfolio must be submitted to Slideroom (Update your Browser). For technical assistance, please contact [email protected]:Freshman Early Decision: uploaded by November 1stFreshman Early Decision II: uploaded by January 1stFreshman Regular Decision: uploaded by January 1st

People write short stories for all kinds of reasons. The fact that you were motivated to write them suggests that writing fulfills a need.But, if you want to monetize your hobby, you’ll have to do some research. But where to start? Writing is a complicated business anyway. When you start thinking about publishing or doing something else with it, that can be really complicated.Now you don’t have to find a publisher. You can self-publish short stories. If you want to do that, look up self-publishing advice on Quora. I’m going to talk about how to get your short stories traditionally published, and to possibly get paid for it.All kinds of websites and magazines are looking for content, including short stories. You’ll have to learn how to read guidelines in order to take advantage of them. This is probably best explained through an example. Here is a very detailed set of guidelines for a magazine that I submit stories to from time to time.My comments are in brackets like this [my comments]***Update: new higher word-count limit for submissions: 11,000 words. (Unlocked as a goal from the BCS 200th Issue Subscription Drive. Thank you!)[You must adhere to the word count limitations. Those sometimes include low word counts, like 1000–7500 words.]What We WantBeneath Ceaseless Skiespublishes “literary adventure fantasy”: stories with a secondary-world setting and some traditional or classic fantasy feel, but written with a literary approach.[If you’re not familiar with any terms in a set of guidelines, don’t guess. Look them up or ask on Quora. It may be that the answer is here already. For example, literary style writing involves writing using literary devices like describing characters by what they’re doing instead of directly through hair color, eye color, etc. For more details on literary style or literary devices, check out Quora or Google literary devices. If your stories don’t have a literary bend to them, then this will not be the market for you.]Secondary-World Setting: We want stories set in what Tolkien called a “secondary world”: some other world that is different from our own primary world in some way. It could be different in terms of zoology (non-human creatures), ecology (climate), or physical laws (the presence of magic). It could be set on Earth but an Earth different from our primary world in terms of time (the historical past) or history (alternate history). It could have a “pre-tech” level of technology, or steampunk technology, or magic as technology, or anything else that’s not advanced or modern technology. However, the setting should contain some element that is in some way fantastical.The inhabitants of this secondary world should have developed their own culture in response to the uniqueness of their world. The characters should fit this culture, and the qualities of the secondary world should have some bearing on the plot.We are NOT interested in urban fantasy or other types of stories set in the “real world,” even if they contain fantasy elements, or in stories that move between the real world and a fantasy world.[It’s good that they defined secondary world here. Not all guidelines do that. This is a big hint to you as a writer that they get a lot of inappropriate submissions. Don’t waste their time or yours by sending a story that doesn’t fit their requirements! There are thousands of markets out there. Don’t spam them. Send only to ones that fit with your story or stories.]Characters: We prefer stories that focus on the characters. We strongly prefer characters who yearn for something, external or internal, and feel driven to attain it. Our favorite characters are “round characters”: ones who grow and change over the course of a story instead of remaining the same.[Internal and external conflicts are a big deal in professional writing. The fact that they mention internal and external conflicts (somewhat indirectly) suggests that the stories you’ve written will only be appropriate if you’ve got a rich mix of internal and external conflicts that resolve well.]Narrative Style: We prefer styles that are literary but readable. We love gorgeous, poetic prose, but in genre fiction it’s vital that the style be clear enough so the reader can understand what’s happening. Our favorite styles are lush yet still clear.We tend to prefer limited or ‘close’ executions of point-of-view, whether first-person or third-person; as opposed to external or ‘distant’ executions of point-of-view. We find it harder to empathize with a character if the story’s execution of point-of-view feels more from outside the character or at arm’s length from them. We rarely like second-person point-of-view; it feels annoying to us.We know grammar rules, such as which types of clauses should have commas between them and which types should not. We respect the author’s freedom to bend the rules as suits their story, but repeated ignorance of grammatical principles for no apparent artistic reason will make a manuscript look unprofessional to us.[This is a long way of saying: proof read carefully or we’ll reject your story no matter how awesome it is. Grammarly is your friend.]Originality: We prefer stories that are as original as possible, particularly in the setting. We are unlikely to enjoy stories featuring elements we have seen repeatedly, such as elves or barbarian swordsmen or an opening scene in a fantasy tavern, unless they present that element in a unique new way.[Again, they’re giving you a big hint that they see too much of RPG or Tolkien-esque stories. Don’t send any of your stories to them that have those tropes.]Extreme Content: We prefer that graphic sex and violence not escalate beyond the level of an R-rated movie. We also insist that sex and sadistic violence not be acted upon children.[Not all magazines post what they like or don’t like in terms of graphic content. If a magazine’s content is up for free, it’s a good idea to read a few issues to see what they’ve bought before.]Fairy Tales / Myths: We usually find that fairy tale-style or myth-style narratives don’t provide a gritty or immediate enough perspective to make us feel the texture of the secondary world or the direness of the protagonist’s struggle. Any fairy tale-type or myth-type story probably isn’t right for us.[Notice they say ‘right for us.’ Just because a market doesn’t accept the kind of stories that you write, that doesn’t mean that you need to change the stories that you write. You just have to find the right market.]Urban / Contemporary Fantasy: We aren’t interested in urban fantasy or other types of stories set in the “real world,” even if they contain fantasy elements. It’s just not what we prefer to read. Any story with a modern or contemporary setting isn’t right for us.[They probably get a lot of inappropriate submissions. This drives editors crazy. Magazines like this get so many submissions that even spending a few seconds to look at your story feels like a huge inconvenience. You want to develop a reputation for being a writer who pays attention to guidelines, otherwise you’ll be thought of as a spammer.]Science Fiction: We aren’t interested in science fiction; it’s not what we prefer to read. Any story with advanced realistic technology or set in a future time isn’t right for us.[Anyone who sends science fiction to a fantasy magazine is either a spammer or is really not paying attention. Again, if you don’t know what something means when you read it in a magazine’s guidelines, ask on Quora first before assuming that your story might or might not fit.]Steampunk / Weird West / Sixguns & Sorcery / Etc.: In addition to classic settings of pre-tech fantasy, we also enjoy stories set in other types of secondary world that likewise don’t have modern technology, including steampunk, smoke & sorcery, Weird West, etc. Feel free to send us anything that you think might fit.[This may be a silent signal to authors that they’d like to see more of these kinds of stories! If you have one, this would be an exciting market to send it to. Also, authors, when they read over guidelines, often use those guidelines as inspiration to write a new kind of story that they haven’t tried before.]Poetry: We don’t publish poetry; only prose fiction.Humor and Satire: We don’t mind humorous stories, but we have a very dry sense of humor. We love wry satire, but we rarely enjoy slapstick or puns. We haven’t published much humor, but if you have a dry satire that hits us just right....Length and PoliciesLength: We strongly prefer under10,00011,000 words. We will consider stories over that length, but the longer a story is, the better it must be.(This new, higher length was unlocked as a goal from the BCS 200th Issue Subscription Drive. Thank you!)Novel Excerpts or Serials: We are NOT interested in novel excerpts or serials–we only want self-standing stories.Reprints: We publish only originals (stories that have never previously appeared anywhere in print or online). We do not consider reprints (stories that have previously appeared anywhere in print or online, including on a personal website or blog, or self-published on Kindle, or as Patreon or Kickstarter rewards).(We buy First Serial rights–the right to be the first place to ever publish that story. If the story has already appeared in print or online, or been given to readers in exchange for a donation or patronage, the story has already been published, and therefore BCS can’t be the first place to ever publish it.)Multiple Submissions (more than one story submitted at a time): We do NOT accept these. Please wait until you have received a reply to your submission before sending another.Simultaneous Submissions (a story that is currently under submission to another market): We DO accept these, but ONLY if you state in your cover letter that your submission is simultaneous, and ONLY if you notify us IMMEDIATELY when another market accepts your story.(We accept simultaneous submissions as a favor to writers because we know that response times from short fiction magazines in the field can be long, but if people abuse this policy, we will rescind it.)New Writers: We welcome submissions from new and unpublished writers. We publish a lot of new and neo-pro writers. For many of our authors, their sale to BCS was their first short fiction sale or their first pro-rate sale, or their third pro sale and qualified them to join SFWA. All our rejection letters are personalized, which many authors tell us they find useful in revising their stories to submit elsewhere and in learning what we’re looking for.Acceptances, Payment, and RightsEditing: All accepted manuscripts will be line-edited for grammar, punctuation, and clarity. The author will have the opportunity to review and discuss all of these edits. Payment will be made after receipt of the final, line-edited manuscript.[This is not an excuse to send them anything but your best proofed work! Editors are human too and they know that writers overlook mistakes. But if you have serious grammar and spelling errors, especially on the first page, they won’t accept the work.]Payment: For standard acceptances, we pay 6 cents US per word, which as of 07/01/2014 is professional rate as defined by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).[You don’t have to send to paying markets to receive benefits from your writing. Many writers find it extremely rewarding to be published at all. Having said that, it’s a good idea to send to paying markets first, and then work your way down the list.]Rights: For this payment, we purchase the following rights:First World Serial RightsFirst World Electronic RightsNon-Exclusive World Audio RightsAn Option to buy Non-Exclusive World Anthology Rights(This means that our payment buys the rights to publish your story on theBeneath Ceaseless Skieswebsite and in our ebooks, and to publish an audio podcast of it if we choose it for our podcast, as well as the option, at our choice, to pay you again at the reprint rate specified in the original contract (2 cents per word) and reprint it in any future anthology of stories fromBeneath Ceaseless Skiesand distribute that anthology anywhere in the world.)(You can’t publish that story as a first-run or “new” story anywhere else in the world, and you can’t have it appear anywhere else, in print or online or as audio, before or for 180 days after we publish or podcast it. But after that you can have it reprinted online and/or in a reprint magazine and/or in a reprint anthology, like one of the many Year’s Best collections, and you can resell non-exclusive audio rights, like to one of the many fiction podcast zines.)We also hope that you will let us keep the story in our online archives after 180 days.We are and always have been a SFWA-qualifying professional market, so any sale to us since BCS #1 in 2008 can be used to qualify the author for membership in SFWA.[If you ever have questions about copyright, and terms in a contract, ask on Quora. These terms are very generous and author-friendly.]How to SubmitFormat: Format your manuscript in Standard Manuscript Format. If you don’t know what that is, look it up. If you deviate from this in more than a few ways, your story will look unprofessional to us before we’ve read the first word.Include your name, address, and email on the first page, and a running header with your last name, the title, and page number at the top of every subsequent page.[If your manuscript is not in the requested format, it’s usually rejected with a form letter without being read. It’s not just a matter of making the manuscript as readable and useful to the editor as possible. It’s a test to see if you’re going to be easy to work with. Professional writers treat writing like a job (because it is!) and are usually easy to work with. Unprofessional writers might argue over single word changes for no valid reason, they might deliver required edits so late that the story misses it’s publication date, might grovel so that the editor feels uncomfortable working with them, or might act like they’re the next Stephen King and must be treated with unquestioning loyalty. If your manuscript is in the format required (and sometimes they’ll ask for something non-standard so watch out) they can feel somewhat reassured that they’re working with a writer that’s at least somewhat agreeable to following the rules.]Cover Letter: We do prefer a SHORT cover letter with every submission. Type it into the body of your email. Mention the title of your story in case the attachment gets lost. If you have prior fiction sales, list the best one or two. If you’ve been to any writing workshops, mention them. TELL US if this is a simultaneous submission. DO NOT give a synopsis or summary of your story; we’ll learn what it’s about when we read it.[This is another test. The shorter your cover letter, the better, assuming that you cover all the bases in the process. It’s totally acceptable to writeDear (insert name of editor), please consider my 2500 word fantasy short story, “Under the Wall”, for publication in Beneath Ceaseless Skies Magazine. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, (your name).If you have other publishing credits, mention them (briefly.)]Manuscript File: Attach your manuscript to an email as either a *.DOC MS Word document file or a *.RTF rich-text-format file, with the normal “.DOC” or “.RTF” file-name extention at the end of the name of your file. If you can’t get either of these formats to work, you may paste the text of your manuscript into the body of your email.DO NOT send a *.DOCX file (the default format that Word 2007 uses); we can’t open those files. DO NOT post your file to a third-party storage site such as SkyDrive and email us the link; we do not download attachments from third-party sites.Send your email to. Use the subject line Submission: (the title of your story).IMPORTANT: your subject line MUST include the word “Submission” or our spam filter will delete your email.[More tests! They really do want to read your story, as long as it fits their guidelines. Most magazines love ‘discovering’ new authors. Some of their guidelines involve technical things. Notice they say that they can’t open a .docx. Well, they probably could by using a workaround or a personal computer or phone, but that increases their already heavy work load. They need to work with writers who are going to make things easy for them, not writers that make things harder. The magazine business is hard enough!]Our Process and Response TimesAuto-Reply Email: You should receive our email auto-reply within 24 hours after sending your submission.If you don’t, check your spam filter to be sure it didn’t get caught there. Then make sure your subject line starts with “Submission” so our filter won’t delete your email and send your story again. If you still don’t receive the auto-reply 24 hours after that, query using the email form on our Contact page. We will get back to you as soon as we can.[I like that they have a process for maintaining communication lines. Not all editors do. Quite a few don’t have their submission process automated. If you submit to such a market, you must be patient and not pester them. That means that it may be that your submission is lost, and no one will know until months later. That’s okay, because you’ll still be writing more stories and submitting to other markets, right?]Response Time: Our response times average 2-4 weeks, occasionally as long as 5-7 weeks; during Spring 2014, as short as 1-3 weeks.[This is great information. If a magazine doesn’t list its response time and doesn’t have a mechanism for tracking whether or not a manuscript is received, you’ll have to find out yourself. There are services that track response times for paying markets. If you’ve sent a story to a market, and there’s no tracking system, and you haven’t heard anything in a long time, it’s a good idea to look up the average response time. If you haven’t heard anything and it’s past the regular response time, you can write a polite letter or email asking about it. “Dear (editor’s name), On (exact date) I sent my fantasy short story, “Under the Wall,” for consideration. Did you receive it? Thank you for your time. Sincerely, (your name.)”]Slush Updates: To keep writers informed on our reading progress, we post periodic Slush Updates on our News page, under the category Slush Updates, saying what date up to which we have currently read all submissions.[I love this feature. I wish all markets accepting submissions had this.]Querying: If we post a Slush Update saying that we’ve replied to all submissions sent before a certain date, and you sent yours before that date, please query us using the email form on our Contact page. We really mean this; it’s not necessary to wait.Please do not query if we haven’t announced that we’ve replied to all submissions up to the date you sent yours.All rejections and acceptances will be notified by email.[This is a big, flashing sign saying “Please don’t bother us, we’re working as fast as we can. Be patient!]Unsolicited Rewrites: We DO NOT accept unsolicited rewrites of stories that we’ve already rejected. (That is a nearly universal policy among short fiction markets of all genres.)[This is true. MOST markets will not accept unsolicited rewrites. Read my next comment for more on this.]As discussed in this comment thread, we intend the personalized comments in our rejections as explanation of why that story didn’t work for us, and we hope that insight into what we’re looking for will be of help to the author with their next submission. They are not an invitation to resubmit the same story, even if it has been revised.[If you get a personalized comment on your story, congratulations! That means they cared enough about the story to try to help you make the next one better. Even if the comment is a negative comment, like “there’s too much dialogue and not enough description for us,” you made them care enough to write that. Editors are very, very busy and slush readers are overwhelmed all the time with submissions. If they take the time to write anything other than what’s on the form, that means your story was a near miss.But, even if it doesn’t specify in the guidelines, don’t send your story to the same market, even after a drastic rewrite, unless they ask for a rewrite. That’s called a rewrite request, and it’s a good thing. It means you’re almost in, though it’s not guaranteed. (Don’t mess up your rewrite! Though, of course you can refuse to rewrite too. It’s your story. They won’t buy it without a rewrite, but someone else might.)What do you do if you get a personalized comment but they rejected your story? You can send your story to another market without changes. There might be nothing wrong with your story at all. Everyone has their preferences, and another editor might like your story just as it is. BUT if you agree with the comments the editor made, you should think about tweaking the story a bit before you send it out again. Whether you do or don’t change the story, KEEP WRITING and learn from your rejections.]I hope that this has been helpful to you. Good luck!