The other day I got a nicely worded rejection of some poems I'd submitted to a magazine. Nothing unusual in that.

The refusal said that “we have had hundreds of submissions and have had to leave out lots of exciting work”." I liked the thought that my work might be exciting. What got me thinking was the “hundreds of submissions”.

It's been very noticeable of late how long editors are taking to respond. Naming no names, some editors are noted for taking their time. But even those magazines that normally respond fairly quickly are taking longer. Several have replied to queries about whether work has been received by saying they are overwhelmed.

So I'm wondering why. Some editors take a long time to reply because they like to do justice to the work sent in, but there's no reason to think editors are getting more scrupulous.

It cannot be that there's a shortage of magazines to send work to. (To put in a plug, the Write Out Loud Directory presently lists 62 print magazines, all of which are taking work: we've checked; and we're still adding to the online mags listed there.)

So what is the reason? Here are some possibilities. There's the thought that in harder times people write more poetry: but are times really that hard?

if you read the biogs of those that get published in magazines, or are winners of prizes, many have studied “creative writing”. For example, the recently announced winner of this year's Bridport prize, Daisy Behagg, “completed a BA and MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University”. When I last looked, a few years ago, 69 English and Welsh universities offered postgraduate courses in creative writing. Quite an industry; and with a growing output?

We'd be interested to hear what others’ experience has been of trying to get published recently. Are there any other reasons why editors might be swamped?

David Andrew is the editor of Write Out Loud's Gig Guide and Poetry Directory. In the last year he has had poems published in Brittle Star, Abridged, Poetry Salzburg Review, The SHOp, Under the Radar, Turbulence, South, Long Poem Magazine and South Bank Poetry