Since switching to electronic submissions, we’ve seen a spike of submissions here at cream city review, and we feel it’s made the competition–and the resulting quality of our issues–better than ever. So we were glad to see our impressions validated this week when the submission-tracking site duotrope.com promoted us to their list of 25 “Extremely Challenging Fiction Markets,” alongside such heavyweights as Harper’s, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Zoetrope, and The New Yorker.

Yet despite being acknowledged as one of America’s most selective short fiction markets, we’re proud to publish almost entirely unsolicited, unagented work. It’s thanks to all of you that this achievement is possible: our many talented submitters, both beginning and established; our subscribers who enjoy the results; and, best of all, those wonderful individuals among you who do both.