This study examines the first time publishing experience of non-native English speaking doctoral students at three public universities in Hong Kong. The purpose was to gain an understanding of the perceptions of Hong Kong non-native English speaking doctoral students as writers of journal articles, their difficulties in getting papers published in refereed journals, the strategies they use to cope with difficulties ranging from writing to publishing, and their perceptions of their training on research publications in Hong Kong. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with six non-native English speaking applied linguistics doctoral students in Hong Kong, interviewees' various drafts and the final version of the first refereed journal paper, journal reviewers' comments on the interviewees' papers, my correspondence with journal editors, mission statements of journals, and content/theme in that particular issue of the final published paper. Results show that a majority of the interviewees exhibited mixed feelings towards writing in English for publication. Lacking motivation and lacking confidence were typical problems encountered by Hong Kong doctoral students in publishing in refereed journals. This study suggests strategies to cope with the difficulties in academic publishing and discusses its contributions to research, theory, and practice.