Huffstickler believed in the small presses and small journals, contributing hundreds of poems to journals around the world from the underground to the academic. Longtime relationships with "Lilliput Review" and "Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream" led to numerous publications in those journals. Barbara Fisher and Richard Spiegel, publishers and co-editors of "Waterways" have noted that his work "first appeared in the February 1985 issue of "Waterways." Eventually, a poem by Huffstickler would close each magazine, with hundreds of poems appearing in this magazine.