how to write a cover letter for a literary magazine

The Perfect Cover Letter: Advice From a Lit Mag Editor

Today’s guest post is from Elise Holland, co-founder and editor of 2 Elizabeths , a short fiction and poetry publication.

When submitting your short-form literature to a magazine or journal, your cover letter is often the first piece of writing an editor sees. It serves as an introduction to your thoughtfully crafted art. As such, it is significant, but it shouldn’t be intimidating or even take much time to write.

As editor at 2 Elizabeths , I see a variety of cover letters every day; some are excellent, and others could stand to be improved. There are a few key pieces of information to include, while keeping them short and sweet. In fact, a cover letter should only be a couple of paragraphs long, and no more than roughly 100-150 words.

A little research goes a long way

Seek out the editor’s name, and address the letter to him/her, as opposed to using a generic greeting. Typically, you can find this information either on the magazine or journal’s website, or in the submission guidelines.

Read the submission guidelines thoroughly. Many publications will state in their guidelines the exact details that need to be included in a cover letter. With some variation, a general rule of thumb is to include the following:

Editor’s name (if you can locate it)
Genre/category
Brief description of your piece
If you have been published previously, state where
Whether your piece is a simultaneous submission (definition below)

Terms to Know

The term simultaneous submission means that you will be sending the same piece to several literary magazines or journals at the same time. Most publications accept simultaneous submissions, but some do not. If a publication does not accept them, this will be stated in their guidelines.

Should your work be selected for publication by one magazine, it is important to notify other publications where you have submitted that piece. This courtesy will prevent complications, and will keep you in good graces with various editors, should you wish to submit to them again in the future.

The term multiple submission means that you are submitting multiple pieces to the same literary magazine or journal.

Cover Letter That Needs Work

Dear Editor, Here is a collection of poems I wrote that I’d like you to consider. I have not yet been published elsewhere. Please let me know what you think. Bio: John Doe is an Insurance Agent by day and a writer by night, living in Ten Buck Two. He is the author of a personal blog, LivingWith20Cats.com. Best, John Doe

What Went Wrong?

John Doe didn’t research the editor’s name. A personal greeting is always better than a simple “Dear Editor.” Additionally, John failed to include the word count, title and a brief description of his work.

There is no need to state that John has not yet been published elsewhere. He should simply leave that piece of information out. (Many publications, 2 Elizabeths included, will still welcome your submissions warmly if you are unpublished.)

John included a statement asking the editor to let him know what he/she thinks about his work. Due to time constraints, it is rare that an editor sends feedback unless work is going to be accepted.

Unless otherwise specified by the magazine or journal to which you are submitting, you do not need to include biographical information in your cover letter. Typically, that information is either requested upfront but in a separate document from the cover letter, or is not requested until a piece has been selected for publishing.

Cover Letter Ready to Be Sent

Dear Elise, Please consider this 1,457-word short fiction piece, “Summer.” I recently participated in the 2 Elizabeths Open Mic Night, and am an avid reader of the fiction and poetry that you publish. “Summer” is a fictitious tale inspired by the impact of a whirlwind, yet meaningful, romance I experienced last year. In this story, I gently explore the life lessons associated with young love, with a touch of humor. This is a simultaneous submission, and I will notify you if the piece is accepted elsewhere. Thank you for your consideration. Kindest Regards, John Doe

What Went Right?

In this letter, John includes all pertinent information, while keeping his letter clear and concise. In his second sentence, John also briefly states how he is familiar with the magazine. While doing this isn’t required, if done tastefully, it can be a nice touch! Another example might be: “I read and enjoyed your spring issue, and believe that my work is a good fit for your magazine.”

I hope these sample letters help you as you send your short works to magazines and journals for consideration. While you’re at it, I hope you will check out 2 Elizabeths ! We would love to read your work.

Elise Holland is co-founder and editor of 2 Elizabeths , a short fiction and poetry publication. Her work has appeared in various publications, most recently in Story a Day . Through 2 Elizabeths, Elise strives to create value and visibility for writers, through writing contests , events , and more!

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Love this! The letter is short and to the point, and covers all the necessary information. Great tips! I always worry that the only publishing credit I have is the winning entry in a short story contest through the local paper. Should I mention that? And writing conferences I’ve attended?

As Elise says, it’s OK if you’re unpublished. Don’t worry about it. But feel free to mention your winning entry. If the writing conferences would likely be known to the journals’ editors, you might mention one or two.

[…] recently wrote a full article on the perfect cover letter, here. Check it out for clear, simple instructions, along with sample […]

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Thanks for the concise and useful information! I’ve heard that it’s also a good idea to include a sentence or two that makes it clear that you are familiar with the kind of work the magazine has published in the past. Is this generally advised, or would you consider it nonessential unless specified in the submission guidelines?

How to Write a Cover Letter for a Literary Journal, Magazine, or Publication

A cover letter is your chance to create a positive first impression for the editors and readers who are reviewing your work. An unprofessional (or even a long-winded) cover letter can warrant unenthusiastic consideration of your work.

However, a concise and well-written cover letter encourages editors to begin reading the submitted poem, manuscript, or short story proper. As Michelle Richmond, publisher of Fiction Attic Press, writes , “It might surprise you to know that the most forgettable cover letters are often the best.” And if you’re submitting to Adroit , it might be a good idea to review our cover letter guidelines here .

Here’s an example of an efficient and entirely fictitious cover letter that works, with footnotes to explain what to incorporate into your cover letters. A caveat: Different publications may have different requirements for their cover letters. Don’t assume that our template will work everywhere. That being said, this is a solid starting point.

Dear Peter LaBerge, Garrett Biggs, Heidi Seaborn, and Adroit readers, 1

Please consider my poem, “No Regrets.” 2 I’ve been a long-time fan of Adroit , and I particularly enjoyed Jennifer Tseng’s “ First Son ” from Issue 27. 3

This is a simultaneous submission. If “No Regrets” is accepted elsewhere, I will withdraw it immediately. 4

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you. 5

Sincerely, Peter Rabbit

Peter Rabbit is a senior majoring in statistics and comparative literature at the University of Vermont. Their work has previously been published in Winter Tangerine and Vagabond City . Some of their other work can be found online at peterrabbit.wordpress.com. 6

1 Referencing editors’ names shows that you’ve done your research and adds a personal touch to what may be a copy-and-pasted cover letter. For your convenience, I’ve linked the Adroit masthead here . If you truly can’t find information about the editor, consider using “Dear Editors,” “Dear Readers,” “To whom it may concern:” or “Dear [Journal].”

2 Short and simple. Your first sentence should convey why you are writing this cover letter. If you’re submitting a short story, editors will often want to know the word count. Also include the category or genre of the piece.

3 Referencing a piece or two previously published by a literary journal shows editors that you’ve done your research. Editors can assume that you’re familiar with what kind of work they publish, and that will set their mind at ease. Of course, don’t fake it. If you have a truly personal connection with the editor, feel free to add it. But make sure it’s not as inane as “I noticed that we both have a dog! I love dogs.”

4 Simultaneous submissions are submitted to multiple journals at the same time. It’s a common practice accepted at many journals, but individual journals might have different requirements. Always include information on simultaneous submissions as a matter of professional courtesy.

5 Simple, courteous, and a good lead to the actual content.

6 Many journals, like Adroit , will ask for a short bio. Include some general details about your current occupation, your training or education, and some of your most recent publications. It’s important to emphasize that editors will keep reading even if you haven’t had any publications or if you aren’t formally pursuing a creative writing degree (whether graduate or undergraduate), so don’t feel like you’ve got to conjure up some accolades or fluff. You probably want to leave out superfluous details like your job as a babysitter in sixth grade or your last sandwich order.

There you have it. A quick but professional way to open your submission to a literary journal, magazine, and publication. You seem human, but you are first and foremost a writer. And writers want their work to be read and published. Good luck!

Thank you for visiting The Adroit Journal . For more writing-geared content, be sure to sign up for updates using the form below!

Darren Chang

Darren Chang is an undergraduate student at Cornell University, where he participates in intercollegiate policy debate, writes a column for the Daily Sun, and devours large quantities of ice cream. Academically, he is interested by the intersection of different cultural perspectives, especially Asian American and disability scholarship. You can also catch him reading memoirs and autobiographies, playing ping pong, and laughing at memes of his home state of Indiana.

Cover Letters for Literary Magazines

by Mandie Hines · April 13, 2017

Cover letters are the first impression a writer makes on an editor at a literary magazine. I’m going to tell you how to write one, so you don’t ruin your chances of getting published before the editor has a chance to read your work.

A cover letter to a literary magazine may be the simplest thing you can write, and yet writers often overcomplicate the process and make the wrong impression. I’m going to tell you a secret that will help tremendously when writing your cover letters. The cover letter serves a function, which is to give the editors the information they need at a glance. That’s it.

Cover letters are far different than query letters you write to a literary agent or publisher. There’s no explanation of what the story is about, and there’s hardly anything, if anything, about you in the letter.

Let’s start with what information goes in a cover letter.

Genre: This lets the magazine know that you’re piece is in a genre that they publish. A horror magazine isn’t going to waste their time reading a romance, so this is a quick way for them to make sure you read their guidelines, are familiar with their publication, and are submitting a piece that they would print.
Approximate length of piece: This let’s the editor know that the length of the piece falls within their guidelines. Round to the nearest hundred words, or if it’s poetry, you’ll put the number of lines.
If the piece is being submitted simultaneously with other publications: Only put in a line for this if you plan to submit to other publications simultaneously. Again, pay attention to the magazine’s guidelines. There are several publications that do not allow simultaneous submissions. If you do not plan on submitting to other publications at the same time, omit this line.
A short list of where your work has been published: If you’ve been published in several publications, only list three (preferably within the same genre as the magazine where you’re currently submitting). If you have not been published, omit this line.
A brief thank you: Editors go through hundreds, if not thousands, of submissions every month. A thank you is always appreciated.
Contact information: This makes it easy for an editor to respond to your submission.

Before beginning your cover letter, do your research on the name of the editor(s) of the publication. It is important to address your cover letter to a person, and shows that you took the time to track down who would be reviewing the piece. Keep in mind, there are several magazines that have multiple departments, so select the correct editor.

Here’s an example of a cover letter.

Many magazines are now accepting submissions only online, so if you are sending your submission via email, start the email at “Dear” and the rest of the letter will be the same.

Now that you have the general idea of how to write a cover letter for a literary magazine, let me give you some tips about things NOT to include, along with some additional advice.

Do not put “To Whom it May Concern:” because no one will be concerned if that is the salutation of your letter.
When you put Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Ms. in your salutation, make sure that you have the correct gender. Many editors use their initials. If you absolutely cannot discover this information online, then drop the Mr. or Ms. and just put their full name.
In the event that you cannot discover the editor, put “Dear Editor:” in place of a name.
Check your letter for errors. Editors will notice them, and it will create a bad impression.
Do not list every place your work has ever been published. Select three publications that may be relevant. If you want to make a point that your work has appeared in several publications, put something like “My work has previously appeared in . . . among others.”
If you do not have any publication credits to list, don’t worry, but don’t point it out either.

A cover letter should be clean and simple. Many magazines separate the cover letter from the story, so your piece will be judged on the quality of the piece and whether it’s a good fit for the magazine. In other words, you don’t want your cover letter to leave an impression.

If you’re drafting your cover letter, you may find these posts useful:

Manuscript Formatting

The (Submission) Grinder

Best of luck with submitting your work!

Tell me your success stories with submitting to literary publications. Are there any lessons you learned about submitting, the hard way? Are there any struggles that you’ve had or are having with preparing a story for submission, or with submitting a story to a literary magazine?

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Following the instructions very carefully for Clarkesworld Magazine’s online submission process, my cover letter resulted in one substantive sentence, the salutations, and my contact info. That was all. If I’d added anything else, it would have violated their instructions. This was actually a relief. Ten or so years ago when I was submitting by paper, the process was much more painful. I LOVE ONLINE SUBMISSIONS.

Another good post.

Thank you, Kecia. The importance of following a literary magazine’s guidelines can’t be stressed enough. I love that almost all magazines have switched to online submissions. Some magazines no longer even require a cover letter, but most still allow one to be submitted whether it’s in an email or through providing a space to add it in their online submission form. I can’t believe how many literary magazines have switched over to either include an online version, or many have even switched to exclusively putting out an online version within the past five years. Thank you for reading and commenting. I enjoy our conversations. 🙂

I forgot to mention that Clarkesworld Magazine is one of the most challenging magazines to get published in. They’re currently listed as No. 6 of the Most Challenging magazines on Duotrope, and I’ve seen them in the top two before. They’re acceptance rate is 0.19 percent. You write amazing sci-fi pieces though, so I hope yours gets accepted. And if you do, after I scrape my jaw off the ground, I’ll probably be in awe of your forever. And if not, just know that you’re an incredibly talented writer. That was the first place I submitted “Alger’s Dimension,” but I should have known it wasn’t a good fit. My story is sci-fi/horror, but really soft on the sci-fi end.

I haven’t submitted yet, but researched them because of their reputation. I wanted to keep that quality of work as my goal as I write.

That’s one of the best approaches, Kecia. By reading a magazine you get a sense for more than the genre they publish, you also get the feel of the magazine and what type of stories they are most likely to accept. At some point, I would like to write a piece with a certain magazine in mind, as opposed to the way I’ve done it in the past where I write a story and then try to find a magazine that would make a good fit for the story.

This is great, thanks for writing this. I’ve been sending out mag subscriptions as a sort of mini-query (if that’s possible). Most of them end up looking something like you have prescribed, but I didn’t really have a formula for it yet. Now I do. thanks so much. Think I’m going to link this page on my “Resources” list, so don’t let your website go anywhere. 🙂

Haha Thank you so much. I’m am thrilled that you found this useful. And no worries, I plan on having this website around for a long time. 🙂

Some very good advice. I learned some of this during my Freelance Writing class with Penn Foster, so it was a nice rehash.

Thank you. It’s a great thing to have as a template, and takes the thinking out of that part of the submission process. I remember the first time I wrote a cover letter for a magazine, it was so nerve-wracking. I was afraid I would mess it up somehow. Now I have a cover letter template that I start with each time. It’s a good way to make sure you don’t inadvertently leave information in the letter that is specific to another publication or about another story.

You made some great points. Less is often more.

Thank you for stopping by and reading, Russell. And you’re right, less is often more.

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Cover Letters: Advice from a Literary Magazine Editor

A guest post by Yi Shun Lai

Since 2014 I have edited prose for the Tahoma Literary Review . This submission period we had a little over a thousand submissions; by the time I’m done, I will have read somewhere between 350 and 400 pieces of fiction and given feedback on a little over half of those. (We have awesome fiction readers at TLR to help with the remainder of the workload, and poetry makes up a massive chunk of those thousand submissions.)

Over the past few weeks, we’ve had some commentary and questions on what makes a good cover letter for a literary submission, so I thought I’d address that.

First, some notes:

My policy with cover letters is so: I try to only read them after I’ve done with the submission. There are a lot of reasons for this, unconscious bias being chief among them, but because our submission engine defaults to showing me the cover letter when I open the submission, I usually will get a glance at them despite my best intentions before I get to the short story or essay itself.

Literary magazine cover letters are different from the query letters you would write to a consumer magazine in that your piece for a literary magazine is already complete. But in some ways they are the same.

This advice is unique to this editor and to prose , but I’ll wager it covers a lot of things folks like to see in cover letters in general.

The no nos are easy : Don’t “Dear editor” me. Don’t say something like “most people think I’m drunk or on cocaine when they read my work.” And for God’s sake, do not say your writing is “picaresque,” or that it “redefines literature.” (I don’t know. This last one might be a personal thing. *twitches.*) These are all things that have appeared in this reading period, by the way.

With that said, here are the YES, DO THISes of cover letters:

Please customize your letter. The person reading your submission is a person. With a name.

Please give me something that tells me you have actually read my magazine and/or know something of what we like to publish.*

*This is a gimme. Our editors are all online, as are our readers, and the magazine’s digital footprint is considerable.

You don’t have to tell me about your story or essay, but in nonfiction it can be especially helpful. In fiction I find people have a terrible time summing up their own work.

Please tell me a little bit about yourself. This is not a bio in third person. This is one or two lines about your most recent publications, maybe.

With all of that said, here’s what my standard cover letter for a literary submission looks like:

Dear XXXXX,

Thank you for taking the time to read my submission. I admire X publication’s [insert unique feature here]

We met [XX HERE] and I was happy to hear that you [UNIQUE THING ABOUT THIS EDITOR YOU LIKE OR WHATEVER HERE.]

I’m a prose editor for the Tahoma Literary Review, and my fiction is most recently published [XXX here]. My nonfiction can be found [XX].

Thank you very much. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Yi Shun Lai

Generally, it follows very basic rules:

Be concise .
Be polite and human . Remember you’re writing to a person, not a ‘bot. I’m not a fan of the one-line “cover letters” for this reason: it looks like I’m screening for data points rather than reading for a good essay or story.
Please don’t aggrandize your own work or style. That’s what I’m here for, should you publish with me, and your work should speak for itself, anyway.
Remember that your job is to do honor* to the work you are presenting to me. So you shouldn’t, as a friend described it to me recently, feel icky or gross about it. Look at it as giving your work due credit. Start there and you won’t feel icky–doing honor to something is not the same as, um, pimping it.

Okay? In the end, I think it comes down to this: Where are you writing this letter from? Are you writing it from a position that says you want to put something new into this world of reading? Yes? Then put that foot forward.

Okay. Now. Go forth and write. TLR opens to submission again 1 January 2018. Until then, ask me any questions below.

*I stole this from Alex Maslansky, bookseller at Stories Books and Café in LA. I have used it a bajillion times and I’ll keep on using it. It makes sense.

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6 Tips for Perfect (Professional) Cover Letters for Literary Magazines

By now, if you’ve been following my Submission Bonanza! series, you should have picked the pieces you want to send to magazines and compiled a list of magazines that you want to submit to . It’s time now to write a cover letter to send along with your submissions. As Michael Nye, Editor of the Missouri Review says, sending a cover letter with your submission is “like wearing a suit to an interview.” Don’t let your submissions to literary magazines show up naked!

It’s easy to feel stressed about this part of the process of submitting to literary magazines: the cover letter (duh-duh dun….). It’s understandable because this can be the first impression that you are giving to the editors of the magazine. We definitely want to put our best foot forward and present ourselves as professional, competent writers.

But also, keep in mind that you are not being judged on your cover letter. Editors want solid writing. So make a nice, neat little cover letter and spend the majority of your time stressing about whether you should put that extra comma in your new creative nonfiction piece.

So here are some things to think about when writing a cover letter:

1. Follow the guidelines of the literary magazine.

This seems self-explanatory, but a lot of literary magazines ask for different kinds of information in the cover letter. Some of them want word counts or genre. Others want a short bio about you. Some even ask for no cover letter at all. If you are submitting simultaneously, you’ll also need to note that. Make sure you follow their specific guidelines.

2. Address the letter to a person.

This is not a “To Whom It May Concern” letter. It’s pretty easy to find most of the staff at a literary magazine under their masthead. Some magazines even tell you in the submission guidelines who to address it to. Be as specific as possible. If you’re submitting poetry, address it directly to Ms. Sally B. Poetryeditor. If you can’t pinpoint a specific name, you can address it to the editor.

3. Keep it short and simple.

Don’t forget, a lot of editors are reading hundreds or thousands of these. This is not a query letter, so you don’t need to describe your piece to them. You don’t need to tell them how you came up with the idea or list the twenty-seven other literary magazines you’ve been in. For example, the Colorado Review suggests this cover letter:

Dear Editor,

Enclosed is my [fiction/nonfiction/poetry] submission “Title of Manuscript.” Thank you for considering it for publication in Colorado Review.

[*If submitting via mail] I’ve included an SASE for [response only/the return of my manuscript].

Full Contact Info

4. Keep it professional.

Naturally, you want to make sure that the grammar and punctuation are flawless and that it is in a professional format. But also, you don’t need to be cute or catchy to get the editor’s attention. Let your writing do that. That’s what they are looking for.

5. Add a short bio (Optional).

Some magazines ask for a short bio or you may feel that it’s in your best interest to include one. This should only be a line or two of relevant information. Don’t tell your life story, just one or two tidbits that are interesting or pertinent. Don’t include a whole list of the hundreds of places you’ve been published. Just pick 3-5. Also, if you haven’t been published, don’t be ashamed to include that too. As Nye suggests:

If you’ve never been published before? Say so. “If accepted, this would be my first published story.” All literary magazines love being the one to publish a writer for the first time, so acknowledging this possibility can only help.

6. Add a note about what you read in the magazine or how you know the magazine (Also optional).

If you want to personalize it a bit for the magazine, some editors might like to know that you did actually take the time to read past issues or that you have had past correspondences with them. But again, this step could be optional.

In the end, I really like this bit Nye’s advice really calmed me down:

A professional cover letter is all we ask, and even minus that, if the work is excellent, we don’t really care. We want to publish the best work we read, regardless of whether or not you’re an emerging writer or an established one.

So don’t stress too much about your cover letter. Get it done, and make it professional, so you can get back to your craft.

So, the goal for this week:

Make a template of your cover letter and bio. Have them ready and at hand when you want to submit. I personally made a template that had all the information I could possibly want to send to and editor (word counts, genres, bio, etc) and then cut or edited from that for each literary magazine. Once this work is out of the way, you’ll be nearly set to start submitting!

Need more help?

You can read Michael Nye’s article on The Art of the Literary Magazine Cover Letter.

You could also look at advice about what not to do by Michael Kardos at Writer’s Digest .

Or take a look at this sample cover letter from The Review Review .

How To Write a Covering Letter

Literary agents will read the manuscript you send, and some the synopsis, but all will read the covering letter. Writing an effective one may take you a long time, but it is well worth the trouble.

The whole thing should:

Be well written – you are writing to people who care about words
Be concise (don’t waste their time; you want to direct them to the manuscript rather than tell them everything about you). One side of the page is plenty
Look attractive (it is the spaces on a page that draw the eye in, not the text, so paragraphs of different lengths and a ragged right-hand margin really help to attract the reader and keep them going)
Be knowledgeable about the agency
Begin well (according to David Ogilvy, the copywriting guru, the first 11 words are crucial)
Describe the project briefly (in no more than two or three sentences) so that the reader is clear about what kind of book is on offer, and wants to know more
Never say at the end of the letter that you’ll telephone in a few days to follow up your submission – it sounds rather menacing (but do email to check on progress if you haven’t heard anything in a month or so).

Some agents and publishers acknowledge what they receive; others do not. Do bear in mind that some small agencies or publishers only deal with the unsolicited submission pile every few weeks, and so the waiting time may be slightly longer.

An agent’s advice

Here is the advice of literary agent Simon Trewin on writing an introductory letter:

" Life is short and less is more. No letter should be more than one side of A4 and in a good-sized (12pt) clear typeface.

Sell yourself. The covering letter is one of the most important pages you will ever write. I will be honest here and say I find selling myself very difficult, so I can see how tricky this is – there is a thin line between appearing interesting/switched-on/professional and arrogant/unreasonable.

The letters that include phrases like “I am a genius and the world doesn't understand me” or “My Mum thinks this book is the best thing she has ever read” (of course she does – that is her job!) don’t exactly fill my heart with longing! In your pitch letter you are trying to achieve some simple things: you want me to feel that you take your work seriously. Wear your writing history with pride. Tell me about that short story you had published or that writing course you attended and the fact that you are writing alongside a demanding job or in the evenings and weekends when the kids are asleep. Tell me why you write – I love hearing about the different paths that have led people to the moment when they think “I want to write”.

Tell me who your influences are and tell me about the book you are sending me. A few lines will do the job here; I just want to get a sense of the territory I am going to enter. Tell me what you want to write next. Hopefully you won’t be following your commercial romantic comedy with a three-volume science fantasy epic or vice-versa!

At the end of your letter I want to feel in good company and ready to turn the page. I am not interested in seeing what you look like or how old you are – we are not running a model agency here! Publishing isn’t as obsessed with age and beauty as you might think, but it is obsessed with finding distinctive new voices. And a final point: get a friend to read the letter and give you some honest feedback. Put it to one side for a day or two and come back to it – distance is a great editor. "

Simon Trewin

Case Study. The Night Attila Died: Solving the Murder of Attila the Hun by Dr Michael Babcock

Dear [Literary Agent]:

I am seeking representation for a non-fiction book entitled The Night Attila Died: Solving an Ancient Murder Mystery. I am a college professor with a PhD in medieval languages and literature from the University of Minnesota and a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina. [1]

Historians tell us that Attila the Hun died on his wedding night in 453 AD. Drunk and flat on his back, he died of natural causes – an internal haemorrhage. The only problem with this account (and it’s a big one) is that it’s a complete fabrication. The Night Attila Died challenges 1,500 years of history by presenting evidence that Attila was murdered and that the truth was covered up in the official imperial records. [2]

The events and characters are among the most interesting that history has ever assembled on one stage. There’s Aetius, the ruthless Roman general and boyhood friend of Attila who defeated the Hun in a decisive battle in Gaul. There’s the weak and stupid emperor, Valentinian III, who pulled a dagger from his robe and assassinated Aetius in a jealous rage. There’s the emperor’s older sister, Honoria, who secretly plotted to wrest power from her brother and managed to start a world war in the process. [3]

In the eastern Empire, the characters are just as colourful: Emperor Theodosius II, a weak ruler who bungled the first assassination plot against Attila, and Emperor Marcian, whom I accuse of masterminding the plot that finally destroyed the Empire’s greatest enemy. Throw in, for good measure, a scheming eunuch and a pathetic little dwarf named Zerko. It’s a great set of characters. [4]

But what the book is really about is philology. The textual science pioneered two centuries ago by the Brothers Grimm is the tool that lets us peel away layers of conspiracy and propaganda. Through the philological method we can reconstruct what really happened and how the conspiracy to kill Attila was covered up as official history. Chapter by chapter the reader participates in the detective work. In the end the threads of an ancient conspiracy are revealed and the verdict of history is overturned. [5]

There’s more at stake than just a good detective story. This is ultimately about what happens when two cultures with irreconcilable worldviews collide. It’s how we confront the Other with all the power of the sword and pen. What emerges from these violent confrontations is a skewed understanding of the past. We may call it history, but it’s often just propaganda. The Night Attila Died is rooted in the historical moment of the late Roman Empire, but the conclusions I draw are deeply connected to our own time. [6]

My publications to date are academic, in particular a book on the literary representations of Attila. I am uniquely qualified to write The Night Attila Died, having spent 15 years studying the historical and literary records as preserved in Latin, Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Old Icelandic, Old French, and Middle High German. (But that isn’t keeping me from writing a lively narrative!) I am recognised as an expert in this field and have consulted for a History Channel documentary on “famous deaths”. As an enthusiastic and dynamic speaker who speaks widely at conferences, I intend to promote the book aggressively. [7]

May I send you a full proposal with a sample chapter? [8]

Michael A Babcock, PhD

Commentary (keyed to the paragraph numbers)

[1] Direct introduction. No beating around the bush. No ‘clever’ attempt to hook the agent. Identify the type of book it is. Briefly identify yourself and your credentials.

[2] The hook. What’s unique about this book? Why should the agent keep reading the query letter?

[3] What you’re trying to demonstrate in the body of the letter is your style, your personality, and the ‘interest factor’ of the subject itself.

[4] With carefully selected details, you can pique the interest of the agent. Agents and editors love books – that’s why they do what they do. So show them what the pay-off will be for reading this book. You are also conveying the depth of the subject and your expert handle on the material.

[5] Establish the significance of the topic and its relevance. Establish points of contact with general knowledge (the Brothers Grimm).

[6] Again, this draws out the significance and timeliness of the subject – that is, you’re trying to answer the ‘So what?’ question.

[7] Return to your credentials and qualifications as to why you're the best person to be writing this book.

[8] End with a direct, unambiguous appeal that requests a specific follow-up action.

How it worked

‘This letter was sent out by e-mail to agents and out of the ten I submitted to, I heard back from nine and all nine wanted to see the full proposal. Of these nine I had three agents who were interested in representing the project and one, in particular, who pursued it aggressively. This agent called me up and expressed such enthusiasm for the concept and my writing style, that I felt he was the natural choice. Even though there were better known agents who were interested in the project, I opted for the lesser known agent on the theory that he was highly motivated to sell my book. The book sold in less than a month. There were three editors who were interested in making an offer on the book; in the end it came down to two and the higher bid won out. As a side note, the book sold on the strength of the formal proposal and a single sample chapter. The book was sold in December 2003 and submitted in final form to my editor in July 2004. It was published in July 2005 by Berkley Books.’

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Submitting to Literary Magazines

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OVERVIEW

This section of the OWL seeks to demystify the process of submitting creative work to literary magazines. We’ll review topics such as how to figure out what to submit in the first place, how to find good potential homes for your work, and how to maximize your chances for acceptance. We’ve also included examples of writing relevant to the submission process such a cover letter and a biography as well as an acceptance and rejection letter to provide a look into what correspondence with literary magazines looks like.

INTRODUCTION

You’ve done it! Whether it was a lightning bolt of inspiration or weeks (months? years?) of writing and revising, you’ve crafted a piece of creative writing you’re proud of. Maybe it’s a sestina; maybe it’s a lyric essay. Whatever it is, you want to get it published. Reasons for publication are numerous: wanting to see what others think of your work, seeking a way to bulk up your CV, or hoping for a chance to get some hard-earned cash, just to name a few. Regardless of if you’ve submitted 100 times before or this is your first time, this resource will help you navigate the submission process.

We’ll start by thinking through what you can submit in the first place. Next, we’ll move into thinking about where to submit, considering strategies for finding places to submit in the first place as well as how to discern whether or not a particular publication is a good fit for your work. After, we’ll think through the logistics of how to submit and talk through an example cover letter and biography (written materials you’ll almost certainly be asked to include in your submission). Finally, we’ll discuss what happens after you submit and review a few example rejection letters as well as an example acceptance letter.

WHAT DO I SUBMIT?

There are three main considerations when discerning what to submit: 1) whether or not a piece has already been published, 2) the genre of a piece, and 3) the length of a piece.

First, if a piece has already been published, including on a personal blog, a website, and/or on social media, your piece is almost always not eligible for re-publication. The same goes for work that has already been self-published. Lit mags (also referred to throughout this document as literary magazines, literary journals, and journals) want to be the first to feature your work in question and not just “another place” that offers your work a home.

Second, different lit mags accept different genres. For example, if you only write short stories, you won’t be able to publish in Rattle , which only publishes poetry. If you write in multiple different genres, you might find that you are able to submit your fiction to one magazine, and your essays to another.

Third, lit mags often have length restrictions, which can vary widely. You might be able to submit poems only if they are 50 lines or less; or, you might be able to submit any type of prose so long as it is 6,000 words or less. If you tend to write particularly long pieces but want to submit to a lit mag that has length restrictions, try finding an excerpt of a larger work to submit or condensing your work for the sake of submitting it.

WHERE DO I SUBMIT?

After deciding to submit what work to submit, one question often looms: Where do I submit? Finding lit mags is just a Google search away. Chances are, you’ve heard of some flagship publications: The New Yorker , Paris Review , Ploughshares …. Just as there are myriads of different types of writing in the world, so too are there myriads of different kinds of lit mags. Some have been around for decades; some were founded earlier this year. Some only publish online; some only publish hard copy. Some are themed (nature poems only, zombie fiction only, Wyoming-themed work, etc.). Some operate through universities; others are independent. Some require payment to have your work read (usually a smallish fee, say, $3) whereas others allow you to submit for free. Some pay their contributors, though most don’t, or do only minimally. Some ask you to submit your work through Submittable (an online submissions-management platform) whereas a select few ask for hard copy submissions mailed to their office. (For more on this front, “How do I submit?” is a good place to start.) Seeking the right home for your work can be intimidating, but it’s not an impossible task. Below are four strategies to help you find places to submit to in the first place.

1. This list from Driftwood Press: a good starting point!

If you don’t know where to start, Driftwood Press keeps a massive “Where Else to Submit” list, linked above, that includes links to hundreds of different magazines and presses, what genres they accept, when their submission deadlines are, whether or not there is a submission fee, and whether or not they offer compensation for publication.

The enormity of the list can be overwhelming, but you can always select a few lit mags on this list at random and begin scanning their websites to see what their publication is all about as you consider whether your work might find a good home there.

2. What writers do you like? Where did they publish?

Do you have a favorite author? Favorite poet? Take a look at a book of theirs and see where they’ve published. This is especially relevant for books of poetry, essays, short stories, or other work often published as a collection. Just like musical artists often release a few singles before their album, it is commonplace for a writer to have portions of their work published in lit mags before putting out a book-length collection.

In other words, if you like Writer X’s work, maybe you’ll like where she publishes, too! If you are reading contemporary work, it’s helpful simply to read the “Acknowledgements” pages and slowly get familiar with the names of different lit mags.

3. Look local.

If you are a Purdue student, maybe you’ve grown particularly fond of the cornfields in Indiana, and publishing work through a local journal is particularly appealing to you. If so, maybe you’d be especially drawn to the Sycamore Review , The Indianapolis Review , or any number of other journals based out of Indiana. To find local lit mags or publishers, a good start would be to visit a bookstore or library in your area and browse their shelves to see what lit mags they’re carrying.

4. Consider submission windows.

A vast majority of literary magazines do not accept submissions year-round; rather, they may have a “submission window” where they accept work. Some magazines only accept work one month of the year, whereas others may have two different three-month submission periods during the calendar year. Some magazines might have a month-long submission window (June 15-July 15, for example) that will automatically close once they reach a certain number of submissions. If, for instance, you only have time to commit to submitting your creative writing in the summer months, you’ll want to find magazines that accept submissions in the summertime. As you begin the process of finding lit mags you like and want to publish in, it might help to make a document to organize when you can submit to which magazine.

HOW DO I KNOW IF MY WORK IS A GOOD FIT?

Below are three considerations to help you gauge if your work seems like it could be a good fit for the journal you’ve found.

1. Read the most recent issue.

This is arguably the most time-consuming (and perhaps frustratingly obvious) tip, but it has to go first. Just like the best way to figure out if you like a restaurant is to try its food, the best way to figure out if you want to submit to a lit mag is to give it a read. If paying the $10 or $15 dollars necessary to order the lit mag (or pay for online access to it) isn’t possible or doesn’t appeal, fear not! There is often online content for your perusal. Most, though not all, lit mags have online features, so while you may not be able to read the most recent issue in its entirety, you can still read work that the magazine’s editors deemed fit for publication. Even if a lit mag doesn’t publish any of their work online (or a paywall prevents you from accessing it), lit mags that offer contests will often publish contest winners.

2. Read the “About Us.”

Beyond growing familiar with work the lit mag publishes, check out the “About Us” page. This will often include the mission statement / vision for the journal, which can also be helpful in discerning if there might be aesthetic similarities and/or shared interested between you and the folks who run the journal. Further, it can be great to look into who runs the lit mag. If you’re sending in a short story, who is the fiction editor? Look that person up—maybe even read a short story published by the editor. Does this person seem like they might be interested in the kind of work you create?

3. If you are in touch with other writers, use them as resources!

Not everyone is in the position of having other writers nearby, but if you are in touch with other writers and/or know of writers who have publishing experience, feel free to ask them if they have any experience with the journal you have in mind. Maybe they won’t, but maybe they will—or know someone who does. (Consider this is a broader encouragement, too, to seek out community as you seek readers for your work.)

WILL MY WORK BE ACCEPTED?

It’s important to make a few concessions, here.

Concession Number One: There are many more writers than there are literary magazines, journals, and publishers.

Concession Number Two: Except for the most widely renowned writers (think, those who have entire bookcases devoted to them at big-name bookstores), creative writing is not a lucrative field, and likely will not become one.

These two concessions combine for Concession Number Three: Readers and editors for literary magazines are swimming in submissions. It’s not unreasonable for a magazine to receive 700 short story submissions and only be able to publish five of them, or to receive 200 poetry submissions and only be able to publish eight.

Space within magazines, especially print ones, is at a premium; the time of the person reading your submission is at a premium, too. It is actually a great sign of encouragement when, in response to your submission, you receive what’s known as a personalized rejection rather than a form rejection. That is, you might receive a note informing you that, while the journal cannot publish your work at this time, they enjoyed reading it and would love to hear more from you in the future. (Read more below on I submitted: Now what?)

So, will your work be accepted? Statistically speaking, it’s unlikely. But, it’s also unlikely for an NFL team to win a Super Bowl, or a scientist to win a Nobel Prize, or a student to get admitted into Harvard, but these things happen every single year. If publishing is something important to you, don’t let the odds stop you from trying.

WHAT CAN I DO TO MAXIMIZE MY CHANCES OF BEING PUBLISHED?

While publication percentages may not be particularly confidence-inspiring, there are things you can do to increase the chance your work will get picked up.

1. Submit your best work.

This is perhaps obvious, but it bears noting. As discussed above, readers for lit mags are often inundated with submissions. Submit your best work first to help yourself stand out. If you’re unsure which is “best,” ask a trusted reader for their opinion. Further, if you are submitting a packet (two different flash fiction pieces, or five pomes) rather than an individual work, start with the strongest.

2. Read the submission guidelines!

For better or worse, lit mag readers and editors are almost always looking for ways to easily shrink their stack of 1,000 submissions, to, say, 100. And then to 10. There is no easier way to get your submission denied than by neglecting to follow every submission guideline. This means that you should not submit four poems when the magazine only accepts three, submit a PDF when the magazine asks for a Word doc, or submit your fiction to the nonfiction category. Similarly, do not send in a 2,500-word essay when the journal asks for a 2,400-word maximum.

Follow all submission guidelines exactly, not because it is so important to, say, have your bio in third-person as opposed to first-person, but because following these guidelines will allow the reader to immediately dive into the important material—your work—without getting bogged down by any logistical hiccups. Further, adhering to the submission guidelines shows that you yourself are a careful reader and that you respect the journal by following said guidelines in the first place.

3. Make sure your work is a good fit in the first place!

Revisit “How do I know if my work is a good fit?” above.

4. Consider simultaneous submissions.

Most journals accept simultaneous submissions, which is, as the term suggests, submitting your work story to multiple different journals simultaneously. Most journals will clarify in their guidelines whether or not they accept simultaneous submissions (a vast majority do, so long as you let Journal B know that your piece is no longer available as soon as Journal A accepts it .) If there’s a short story you really want in the world, consider sending it to a handful, maybe even two handfuls, of places.

CONTESTS VS. GENERAL SUBMISSIONS

Another consideration for submissions is whether you’d prefer to submit to magazine’s general submissions, their contests, or a mix of both. Contests, offered by some—not all—journals, are generally more competitive and more expensive to enter (fees usually range between $20-$30). But, winning them almost always comes with clout as well as prize money, ranging from modest sums ($100) to larger ones ($1,000+). Sometimes, contest winners are selected by a guest judge (generally a respected and perhaps well-known writer), and other times they are chosen by the editors of the magazine themselves.

One thing to note is that even if you don’t win the contest, it can be possible to still be picked up for publication by the journal as a finalist or simply as someone who caught the attention of the judges. Whether or not finalists and/or semifinalists are published alongside the contest winner (or winners) is up to the magazine’s discretion.

HOW DO I SUBMIT?

On the websites of most journals, there will most likely be a tab that says “Submit” or “Submissions.” Occasionally, this tab is slightly buried somewhere on the webpage. (Look in the “About Us” or “Contact Us” sections of the site if you have trouble finding it.)

In terms of actually submitting, a vast majority of journals only accept—or greatly prefer—online submissions. Generally, this is done via a platform called Submittable that allows you (as the submitter) to manage and track your submissions, just as it allows the journal editors to track and view their submissions. Sometimes, submitting is done via an in-house submission portal, and, in the rarest of circumstances, a magazine will only accept mailed, hard copy submissions. Regardless, the lit mag will (or should ) have their submissions process clearly demarcated on their website in terms of 1) how to submit, 2) what time(s) of year they accept submissions, and 3) what they are looking for in terms of submissions (genre, page length, etc.).

As noted previously, following these submission guidelines exactly is in your best interest. Beyond preparing your piece of writing for submission and figuring out the journal’s guidelines so you can follow them, there are two other pieces to the submission puzzle you’ll need: a strong cover letter and a solid, succinct bio.

COVER LETTER + EXAMPLE

The cover letter is your chance to briefly let the journal know 1) what you are submitting as well as 2) why you are submitting to that magazine in particular. The best-case scenario for a cover letter is that you’ve presented yourself in a professional manner as an eager, capable writer with a strong reason for submitting to the journal. What follows is an example cover letter:

Dear Audrey Li and the entire Coffee Journal team,

Please consider my following poems, “Exciting Poem 1,” “Clever Poem 2,” and “Memorable Poem 3” for inclusion within an upcoming edition of Coffee Journal . I especially admired Ash Lever’s “Brilliantly Titled Poem” in your latest edition and would be honored for my work to be considered for publication in an upcoming edition of your journal.

This is a simultaneous submission, and I will let you know immediately if any of these poems are accepted elsewhere.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to consider my work.

Best,

It’s helpful to make a few quick notes on this example cover letter and what this writer does well. She…

Addresses, by name, the relevant genre editor to whom she has addressed the cover letter.
Includes the name of the work she is submitting, as well as the professional, polite request to consider her work in an upcoming edition of the journal.
Mentions something she specifically admires about the journal in question, revealing herself as someone who has “done her homework”—that is, she is showing that she really does have (at least some) vested interest in this magazine.
Notes that her submission is simultaneous; that is, she is submitting these poems to other magazines as well. As previously noted, this is fine to do if the magazine accepts simultaneous submissions so long as she lets Coffee Journal know that one (or more) of her poems is no longer available as soon as she learned another journal has accepted them.
Concludes the note by thanking the editor(s). Remember, these cover letters are being read by readers who are often underpaid or unpaid and who have, more often than not, dozens and dozens of pieces to read. Kindness in a cover letter is important here just as it is elsewhere.

For more, The Adroit Journal has a great piece further explaining the ins and outs of cover letter writing with an annotated example.

BIOGRAPHY + EXAMPLE

The biography is your chance to briefly give a glimpse of who your writer-self is. Common information to include is where you are from, where you went to or are going to school, what you do for work, and where you have been previously published (if applicable). Writing in third person is the best way to go.

Generally, these are expected to be professional. That said, if the journal you are applying to is particularly quirky, or you have no desire to confine yourself to the constraints of a traditional cover letter, feel free to be quirky. The best-case scenario for a biography is that, similarly to the cover letter, you’ve presented yourself as a professional and given the magazine a small glimpse of who you are.

For those of you asking, “What do I put for publications if I haven’t published anywhere yet?” the answer is simple: nothing. Don’t let your lack of publishing be a catch-22 stopping you from trying to publish in the first place. And take heart: Many magazines exist specifically with the mission to promote new and emerging writers.

What follows is an example biography:

A. Writer is a poet from Indiana. She received her MFA in poetry from A Super Excellent University, and her poems have appeared in This Cool Journal and are forthcoming from Another Cool Journal . She lives in West Lafayette where she teaches high school English.

I SUBMITTED! NOW WHAT?

Congratulations! Even if your work is not selected by the particular lit mag you submitted to, you are putting your work out in the world. At this point, you wait. Response times vary widely, from several weeks to up to a year (or more). Many magazines have submission guidelines indicating about how long you should expect to wait to hear back. Some will also ask that they not be contacted with an inquiry about your submission until a certain amount of time has passed.

During the waiting process, don’t let your writing life be put on hold! A common saying in the journalistic field applies here: “Work is never finished, it just meets deadline.” Feel free to continue shaping the writing projects you submitted, or leave them until you hear back from journals and allow yourself to start writing in new directions.

REJECTION LETTERS: TWO TYPES + EXAMPLES

Generally speaking, there are two different types of rejection letters a lit mag can give, and—perhaps surprisingly—one of these is actually good news. The first type is a form rejection letter. This is a generic rejection, meaning this letter is copy and pasted to each person who receives it (with the exception of changing the submitter’s name and the title of their submitted work). A form rejection might look like this:

Dear A. Writer,

Thank you for submitting “Exciting Poem 1,” “Clever Poem 2,” and “Memorable Poem 3” to Coffee Journal . Unfortunately, we decided your work was not a fit for us at this time.

Sincerely,

The Editors

A personalized rejection, on the other hand, while still a rejection, often includes some kind of encouragement. Two different examples, followed by an explanation of why a personalized rejection is good news, follows:

Thank you for submitting “Exciting Poem 1,” “Clever Poem 2,” and “Memorable Poem 3” to Coffee Journal . While we are not able to find a place for it at this time, we found your work exciting and greatly enjoyed reading it. We would look forward to reading more of your writing in the future.

Thank you for submitting to Coffee Journal . Though we have decided against publishing your work at this time, we found “Clever Poem 2” particularly moving. Please keep up in mind for future work.

On the outset, the form rejection letter and the personalized rejection letters don’t have much of a difference. But take heart: That extra line in the personalized rejection letters is a big deal. Anything such as an invitation to resubmit, a specific, encouraging note about your work, and / or commentary about your specific pieces or writing are signs your rejection was personalized rather than a form rejection. This means that out of the large amount of work that journal received, while your work wasn’t part of the teeny percentage chosen for publication, it stood out to the editors. It’s not a bad idea to consider submitting again a future reading period for that lit mag; if you do so, consider adding a note in your cover letter that you’ve been encouraged to resubmit.

DEALING WITH REJECTION

In an interview with Michigan Quarterly Review , poet Hannah Ensor spoke well on creative writing awards (and, perhaps by extension, publication): “I think that it means a lot when you do win, but it means almost nothing when you don’t.”

In a world where editors and readers for lit mags are swimming in submissions, a rejection is not so much a condemnation of your work as a “out of the 100 pieces we received, this is not one of the five we are able to accept.” This isn’t to say that rejection doesn’t sting; no one likes getting turned down. For better or worse, rejection is simply part of the process.

Further, being rejected from a particular journal is not necessarily a suggestion that your work isn’t a good fit for the journal; much is up to chance in terms of who first reads your work. Many lit mags, especially larger ones, have teams of readers that will curate a small portion of submissions for more serious consideration by the section or genre editor(s). Your submission to Coffee Journal this year may be read by a completely different set of eyes than last year.

Finally, consider the following positive spins on rejection:

Rejection is an invitation to keep writing.

On the one hand, it’s an opportunity to return to your work: What might be revised? How might you make your work come more fully into its own? On the other hand, it can be an opportunity to dive into something new, with all the knowledge and experience you’ve now gained from writing what you’ve already written. (If having writing that never gets published is a depressing thought, consider this encouragement by accomplished writer Anne Lamott in an essay of hers embracing the messiness of first drafts: “Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go – but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.”)

Rejection is an opportunity to revisit why you write in the first place.

Why did you write that story, that poem, that essay in the first place? Rejection can provide a tangible time to revisit your “Why?” as a writer. If you’re writing for the money and you’ve gotten numerous rejections from paid awards, perhaps writing is not the most prudent path forward. If you’re writing because you feel you have something to say, because you love language, because it’s a way for you to discover what you’re thinking and how you feel about the world, well…rejection can’t touch those motivations. Remind yourself why you got into writing in the first place and keep at it.

ACCEPTANCE LETTERS: YOU’RE IN! WHAT’S NEXT?

The purpose of acceptance letters is simple. You’re in! Like a job offer, an acceptance letter from a lit mag means you have an offer for publication—they want you if you want them. After your work is accepted, there a few things that will happen:

You will need to read and sign a contract detailing:
What the lit mag needs from you (such as an updated bio) between that moment and publication.
What happens with the rights of your creative work ( this page by Poets & Writers details copyright information in more depth).
What compensation you will be provided with (if applicable).
You may correspond with an editor from the journal to perform final edits and/or revisions of your creative piece(s).
You may need to submit an updated author information, such as a bio, and/or a finalized version of your creative piece(s).
You need, if applicable, to immediately withdraw the work that is being published from any other lit mags you submitted it to. This is generally done by contacting the magazines through Submittable or by emailing the editors—lit mags’ Submissions page will generally clarify how they’d like to be notified if you need to withdraw part or all of your submission.

EXAMPLE ACCEPTANCE LETTER

Thank you for sending us “Exciting Title Number 1” and “Memorable Title Number 3.” We greatly enjoyed both of them and would like to publish them in Coffee Journal ’s next edition.

As per our submission guidelines, we offer three free copies of the edition in which your work appears. Please click here to confirm acceptance.

Thank you for sending your work! We look forward to hearing from you.

Audrey Li

Coffee Journal Poetry Editor

Just a few things to note, here:

Getting an acceptance does not necessarily mean the journal is accepting every piece of work your sent; it simply means they are accepting one (or more) of your pieces.
Generally, acceptance letters are more personalized; the magazine has chosen your work and is eager to make a good impression on you just as you’ve made a good impression on them. In this vein, acceptance letters are generally sent from the particular editor who chose your work or oversees your genre, whereas a rejection letter is often from the unnamed “Editors”.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Submitting work can be any number of things: exciting, gut-wrenching, confusing, tedious. Regardless of your personal attachment to—or detachment from—the submission process, it’s an important process to understand as a creative writer. Even though the odds may be that a rejection is much more likely than an acceptance, you never know unless you try.

Imagine if the writer of your own favorite book never took the chance to submit it for publication in the first place. Thank goodness they did take that chance so their writing could change you and others—in however big or small a way. This chance, submitting work for publication, is one that you can take, too.

Best of luck, and happy submitting!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Submission Etiquette: The Cincinnati Review has a short, helpful article on submission reminders.

Writing Cover Letters: The Adroit Journal has a great piece explaining the ins and outs of cover letter writing.

Submission Opportunities: Driftwood Press: Where Else to Submit

The Invisible Art of Literary Editing : an in-depth look into the inner workings of literary magazines.

Submittable : a common platform lit mags will request submissions through.

REFERENCES

Jenkins, Marlin M. Somatic Pinging: An Interview with Hannah Ensor, Michigan Quarterly Review Blog, Mar 25, 2019, https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mqr/2019/03/somatic-pinging-an-interview-with-hannah-ensor/ .

Lamott, Anne. "Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Ed. by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005: 93-96.

Need help submitting your writing to literary journals or book publishers/literary agents? Click here! →

The Fundamentals Of A Cover Letter For Poems, Stories, And Personal Essays

by Writer's Relief Staff | Cover Letters | 5 comments

Review Board is now open! Submit your Short Prose, Poetry, and Book today!

Deadline: thursday, february 22nd.

When you’re ready to submit your poems, short stories, or essays to literary journals for publication, you’ll need a cover letter.

Unlike the more complicated query letter you would send to a literary agent for a book project, a cover letter to a literary magazine contains only basic information about your writing submission and your author bio. It is not a sales pitch or a flashy bid for attention. Your cover letter should be professional, no more than one page, and show a knowledge of publishing industry etiquette.

Here are the essential parts of a cover letter:

1. Salutation. Whenever possible, use the editor’s full name. “Dear Sue Smith.” Never assume gender! “Pat” can be a “Patrick” or a “Patricia.” Read more: Savvy Salutations .

2. Introduction. State your intention clearly and include the title(s) of the work(s) you’re submitting: Please consider my poems, “Gray” and “To the Orioles,” for publication in Journal Name .

3. Don’t describe your submission. Don’t summarize your story or explain the themes in your poems. Trust us—it’s bad publishing industry etiquette. Editors may find it insulting if you presume that they can’t understand your work and need to have it explained to them. Plus, editors at literary journals pride themselves on how carefully they consider each submission. If you write a “teaser” into your cover letter, it will seem as if you suspect editors need to be tempted to do their jobs.

4. Your author bio . Include a short bio that lists your writing credits. You may want to add some selective information about your personal interests as well, especially if the details reflect on your writing (but avoid TMI ). If you want to publish under a pen name, note that here. Read more: Pseudonyms: Using A Pen Name In A Cover Or Query Letters To Agents Or Editors .

5. The closing. Be sure to sincerely thank the editor for his or her time.

6. Your signature (your real name).

7. Contact info. Since most submissions are now made electronically, the best place to include your contact information (mailing address, phone number, email address, and author website ) is below your signature.

If you’re printing your cover letter to send a submission via standard postal service, then the letterhead and contact information should be at the top. And while your letterhead is the one place in your cover letter where you can show some individuality, be sure to choose a font that is clean and easy to read. You can tweak standard templates to reflect your personal taste—but avoid using images or too many colors.

And that’s it! You’re ready to send your cover letter and writing submission out to literary journals. To learn more about how to write an effective cover letter, check out our Most Popular Articles for cover and query letter writing .

Very helpful…thank you

Have you got an example of a good cover letter that I could see?

Hi Leander,

If you follow the steps outlined in the article, you will have an effective cover letter.

This was duly described and easy to understand. Very helpful.

Failure to read the directions is the biggest error you might make at this crucial step of the publication process. The instructions can often be found on a publication’s main submissions page on their website or on their Submittable page. Before entering your information and uploading your document, read it once (or twice), then once more before clicking the “Send” button.

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Lit Mag Submissions 101: How, When, and Where to Send Your Work

Everything you need to know about getting your work published

We all know that writing is a solitary pursuit. You go into a room with your computer or notepad, lock the door, and then spend four hours pulling at your hair and slacking off online. Then you go get a drink. Still, no matter how much time you spend alone chugging coffee, smacking your head against the keyboard, and throwing crumpled drafts of chapters into the trash, eventually you’ll need to send your work out into the world. For most beginning writers, this means stories, essays, or poems that will be sent to literary magazines. This guide will give you an overview of how magazines work, and what you can do to give your own manuscript the best shot of being accepted.

How Literary Magazines Read Submissions

The 1% Rule — Before getting into what you, the writer, should do when submitting, it is important to understand the basics of how literary magazines work. Literary magazines run the gamut from small blogs operated as hobbies by one or two people to magazines like The Paris Review or The New Yorker with large staffs. Some pay writers for work, some don’t. Some are online only, some are print only. But in general, you should know that no matter the size, most magazines get far more submissions than they can use or than they can carefully read. A small magazine can easily get a thousand submissions in a year for only a handful of spots, and big magazines will get many thousands. Combine this with the fact that many of a magazine’s spots will be taken by solicited pieces instead of unsolicited submissions — aka “the slush” — and that means that acceptance rates at good magazines are only about 1% or less.

Why Submissions Are Rejected — Pieces are accepted because an editor loves them. They find the voice fresh, the ideas unique, the characters gripping, or in some other way they’re just floored by the piece. It is hard to know what makes an editor accept something, but it is easier to understand what makes an editor reject. Because there are so many submissions, lit mag staff read to reject. If your piece is filled with typos, scrawled in pencil instead of typed, or otherwise lacking in professionalism, it will probably be instantly rejected.

But you should also remember that because magazines get so many more submissions than they can use, most submissions are read very quickly. Frequently, the first readers are interns or volunteers who cull the hundreds or thousands of submissions down to just a handful of “maybes” for the editors to choose from. Normally, each manuscript will get two reads before being rejected, but if the reader doesn’t like the work they may only read a couple pages — if that — before saying “pass.” However, if there is a huge backlog of submissions, then the staff might host a reading party and have everyone plow through the submissions as fast as possible.

Maybe the magazine already has two poems about ravens and your brilliant “Ode to the Stork” would be one bird poem too many.

The point is that there are a million reasons your work may be rejected that have nothing to do with the quality of the work. Your submission may simply not have been read carefully enough, or perhaps the magazine filled their fiction slots for the next three issues and rejected the rest. Maybe the magazine already has two poems about ravens and your brilliant “Ode to the Stork” would be one bird poem too many. Even if the editors read your work carefully and loved it, they may simply have had to make a tough call between your story and several others that they loved. A rejection is not a reflection of the quality of your work. Keep that in mind at all times.

Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission

“Send us your best work” — When you read the submission guidelines to a magazine — something you should always do — they almost invariably say to “send us your best work.” But what is your best work, and when do you know when a piece is finished? Sadly, there is no simple answer. As a writer you have to decide. It is always a good idea to have a few trusty readers take a look at your piece to see if they feel it is finished, but otherwise it is up to you.

Still, you should make sure that it actually is finished to the best of your abilities. Many beginning writers send out work that they know has a weak ending, or a story that starts two pages before it should, with the thought that the editors at a literary magazine will take the time to edit the piece to completion. This is just not how it works. Yes, once in a blue moon an editor might love a piece’s potential enough to heavily revise it with the author, but normally the editors do not have time and — as noted above — the readers may reject the piece long before the editors could see it. Most lit mag editors are not paid much, if anything, and simply do not have the time to work through many revisions with an author. So send your best work.

Oh, and proofread, proofread, proofread.

Formatting — You want your submission to look professional, which means, first of all, following the guidelines of the magazine. Beyond that, your formatting should be simple and unadorned. No wacky fonts, centered text, or weird colors… not unless you are submitting work to a children’s humor magazine at least. Instead, use a standard font like Times New Roman in 12 points, double spaced, with page numbers at the bottom. In the “header” section, you should put your name and possibly your email, phone number, and/or story title. If you are mailing the submission, staple or paper clip.

Cover Letters — One thing that seems to disproportionately stress emerging writers is the cover letter. What should you say? Can you grab the editor’s attention? Will the cover letter give you an advantage? Honestly, the cover letter is mostly unimportant. Cover letters are typically given only a quick glance and are almost never a deciding factor for a submission. Your cover letter should be short and sweet along these lines

Dear [editor’s name],

I loved [piece X and Y] from your last issue. My own work has been previously published in [list three to five magazines]. I have an MFA from [X university] and live in [some town]. Thank your for your consideration.

Scribbly McWriter

If you don’t have an MFA or previous publications, don’t worry. If you were lucky enough to get a personalized rejection from the magazine before, you should mention that. If you know anyone on staff, or met staff members at a recent event, you can list that too. Otherwise, keep it short and to the point and avoid describing your story or trying to pitch yourself. Most editors will simply roll their eyes when they see a cover letter that starts: “ What would happen if vampires drank orange juice instead of blood? In my thrilling short story, ‘Juice Suckers from Transylvania,’ this reality is explored in a fashion that will blow your mind and make you burn your volumes of that hack called Shakespeare. You are lucky that I’m even allowing you to read such genius work, so please accept it promptly!”

Finding the Right Magazines for Your Work

Reading as Research — The best way to understand which magazines publish the kind of work you like is, well, to read them. Go to a bookstore and browse their literary magazines section, or else look at the “credits” in collections you love to see where your favorite authors published their work. Getting published by a magazine that works with writers that you admire is always going to be more satisfying that being published by a magazine you’ve never read.

Other Resources — Clifford Garstang annually publishes a ranking of literary magazines based on the number of Pushcart Prize wins and nominations each has received. This list should not be viewed as any kind of definitive ranking, but it is a great starting point to find the magazines that are both respected in the literary world and that might like your work. Duotrope is also a great resource for writers. It lists almost every lit mag, and lets you search by pay rate, genre, and other factors. However, it does cost money to use.

Getting published by a magazine that works with writers that you admire is always going to be more satisfying that being published by a magazine you’ve never read.

Tiers — A good way to organize your magazine submissions is to figure out a handful of magazines you want to submit to (perhaps between 10 and 30) and organize them into tiers of about five. Send your story to the five magazines you most want your work to appear in. If they all reject, send the story to the next five magazines, and so on until you have gone through all your tiers. If no magazine takes the story, perhaps it is time to heavily revise.

Using tiers means you won’t be the annoying writer carpet-bombing 100 magazines with the same submission at the same time, but it also means you won’t have a story accepted by The Podunk Review only to find out the next day that The New Yorker wants it.

Dealing with Rejection

If you are submitting your work, you will inevitably deal with rejection. The average short story or poem may be rejected twenty times before it is accepted, and even famous writers deal with rejection daily. When you receive a rejection, you should try as hard as possible to not take it personally. Nothing good has ever come from angrily writing back to editors telling them they are fools for not seeing your genius, or from insulting a literary magazine online. If you can’t handle rejection, then perhaps writing is not for you.

Types of Rejection — When your rejections start rolling in, you’ll notice that they come in three different types. Most will be a standard form rejection that politely says the piece isn’t for that magazine, but they wish you the best of luck elsewhere. Sometimes you’ll find a form rejection that is more positive, talking about the “evident merit” — or equivalent phrasing — of the submission. And now and then, you may get a personal note from an editor telling you how much they liked the piece. If you got either a positive form rejection or a personal note, you should be sure to submit to the magazine again. They like your work, even if the last submission was not quite right, and want to see more. While it may still sting to be rejected in a positive manner, keep in mind that very few submissions get a personal rejection. You should consider it a compliment.

Resubmitting After Rejection — For all three types of rejection, you should never submit the same piece again — not unless the editor explicitly asks for a revision. If an editor tells you the work came close, they want to see something new from you. Instead, wait until you have a new piece that is finished to the best of your abilities and send that one out. There is no need to rush out a new submission, even if you got a personal rejection. Submitting unfinished work will only harm your chances, and editors are unlikely to read your new submission for a few months anyway. Do note in your cover letter if you got a personal rejection last time.

Keep at It

The best thing you can do as a writer, beyond writing the best work you are capable of, is to keep on submitting. Submitting takes a lot of time and work, but it is the only way to get published as an emerging writer. Remember, only about 1% of submissions are accepted. Even if only 5% of all submissions are truly great, that still means four times as many great submissions are rejected as accepted. So don’t take rejection personally, keep on writing, and submit again and again like it is your job. Because, well, it is.

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How to Write a Cover Letter for A Poetry Submission

Cover letters are the resumes of the literary world. They offer a brief introduction of your writing career while also providing a pitch to the editor about why your submission is the best fit for the magazine, journal, or press.

When writing a cover letter, it’s important to think about your audience: the editor. They will be searching through hundreds—if not thousands—of submissions, and in the words of Aladdin: They will be looking for the “diamonds in the rough.” Depending on the size and staff of the magazine or press as well as how prestigious and reputable it is, the submission process will take them months to complete, so keeping the cover letter short, concise, and informative will ensure that your letter is considered and that it makes an impression with the editor.

Here are the steps to writing a strong cover letter that you can use as a template for any cover letter you need in your writing career.

Provide your contact information

At the upper left-hand corner of your document, type your residential address, your phone number, and your email. Make sure you check that it is accurate because, for magazines that don’t use Submittable , your contact information is the only way they can reach you.

Write the greeting and body

First, begin with the date. Next, write the salutation to the magazine, press, or publishing company. You can also address the poetry editor to personalize the greeting. Look at this template as an example of how to format it.

The next step is to write the body of the letter. In the above example, you’ll notice he mentions the names of his poems as well as previous poets the magazine has published. This proves to the magazine that you are an avid reader of their work. This isn’t necessary to include, but it does get you bonus points with the editor.

Depending on their guidelines, you might want to mention how many poems you’re sending. You can also mention that you are sending this to other publications and will alert them if it’s published anywhere else: This is an expectation every publication has for poets who are submitting simultaneously . Most magazines accept simultaneous submissions, but some don’t.

After this first paragraph, include a short biography in the second paragraph. This bio should be around five sentences. A short bio is better than a longer one due to the volume of submissions they receive. If they want a longer bio, they’ll let you know when they accept your work.

Also, for the bio, highlight your best-published work and major awards or prizes. If you haven’t received any yet, don’t worry about it: When a magazine is truly interested in your poetry, your work is the most important thing: not the cover letter.

Write the closing

Last but not least, close the letter with: “Thank you for considering my work. I look forward to hearing from you soon.” Then include your name at the end.

Overall, you just need three paragraphs for a typical cover letter. However, to submit your poetry book to literary presses, you’ll want to tailor the letter and make it longer, so you can give a synopsis of the work. In general, it’s usually best to keep the cover letter a page long. For large publishing companies such as Andrews McMeel Publishing , you’ll want to write a pitch or proposal rather than a cover letter.

Provide exactly what they want

Before you send out your letter, make sure you double-check the submission guidelines and then make a checklist of everything you need, or just scan the letter to make sure you provided exactly what they asked for. Sometimes your submission could be discarded just because you didn’t fulfill the requirements. For example, some literary presses want to “judge blindly,” which basically means they want to give judges the manuscripts and poems without any contact information or names of the poets. This ensures the submission process is fair, and that there are no biases based on gender, publication history, or many other factors that can cloud an editor or judge’s decision.

Tips to consider for literary magazines

Some literary magazines or presses care about credentials and past publication history. They want established poets rather than novice and up-and-coming poets, so for these magazines, a well-crafted cover letter can make a difference in receiving an acceptance rather than a rejection.

Thankfully, the majority of literary magazines are not concerned about past publication history: They are just interested in stellar literary work, so your chances of getting published are high even if you don’t have a history of publication credits. However, once they choose the best work, and they have their editorial meetings and are debating whose work will be printed, it’s possible they will consider your publication career, and that’s where they will take into consideration your cover letter.

I was the editor-in-chief for the literary magazine of the program where I received my MFA in creative writing, and I never cared about whether the writer was well-known or unknown: I just cared about the work, so let me assure you that if you send your poetry to a small literary magazine, your chances of being published increase. Most students of graduate and undergraduate literary presses and magazines are just looking for the best poetry and prose.

The purpose of submitting is to get your beautiful poetry into the hands of readers. No matter how large or how small the audience, sharing your work with the world is the reward and the joy of being published.

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How to write a cover letter for poetry submissions, plus a downloadable template.

If you are looking to submit your poetry for publication, you may come across a request for a cover letter.

A cover letter’s main purpose is to give context for your poetry. You will want to explain why you are writing, and what you are submitting.

WHY You’re Writing

It may seem obvious that you are submitting your poetry in the hopes of getting published. But it is essential that you still state the obvious.

State why you are writing— “I am writing for your consideration of my poetry for publication in your literary magazine”. Easy Peasy.

WHAT You’re Submitting

Make sure then, to include the titles of the poems you are submitting, in quotations. And also reference the publication you are submitting to, the title of the publication in italics.

But that is not nearly enough information, so we will want to include a few more things.

Include your contact information and relevant social media accounts, especially if you have a significant following

Reference or link your other published works (if you have none, not to worry, this doesn’t necessarily count against you)

Give a little context for you, as a poet. Have you studied poetry? Who is your favorite poet? Is there a form that you particularly enjoy? Do your views align with the publication you are submitting to?

The cover letter requires a little bit of research as well. It will behoove you to read past issues of the publication and reference what you enjoyed reading. Nothing is more flattering than talking to a fan, so become a fan.

On the flip side, you must remember that you are asking someone to take time to read and consider your work. The least you can do is read their work, and as the Editor the publication *is* their work.

These are the essential steps to writing your cover letter. But here are a few other things to keep in mind…

Less is More

Keep it relevant

Address the Editor Directly if possible. A name is always better than, To Whom it May Concern. With a little research, it should not be difficult to figure out who the editor is.

Be Respectful & Humble*

* I say be humble with the utmost trepidation. So I will define it here: Be Humble in Deference to the Editor. Not in regards to your own achievements. Do you see the difference? Acknowledging the prestige and “rank” of the editor does not mean that you have to downplay yourself.

Still need help? Not to worry! Click here for a simple template to help you write your cover letter.

Now tell me below in the comments, what is the thing that makes you the most nervous when submitting your work?

How to Write a Perfect Cover Letter for a Short Story Submission

Editors see mounds of bad cover letters. A lot of new writers submit short stories with little or no guidance and end up submitting cover letters that are either overenthusiastic or lacking the necessary information.

What you must know is that cover letters for different genres follow different sets of rules and etiquette. For example, an editor doesn’t expect you to write a cover letter for short fiction in the same format you would craft a query letter for a novel submission.

A cover letter is not a platform for you to brag about yourself or your writing accolades. There’s nothing that annoys an editor more than a cocky newbie.

Your cover letter is, most often than not, the first thing an editor sees and you have to be on point to create a strong first impression. Some editors that I have interacted with said that they read the cover letter after reading your short stories, and they admit that some cover letters convince them to go back to the story and reevaluate it.

Luckily for you, I have compiled tips on just how to go about crafting a good cover letter that can make a ‘strong first impression’ and influence the editor’s aftertaste after savoring your stories.

Research and… Research

In all the posts that I have made on cover letters, I have emphasized the importance of finding out the publisher’s/organizer’s guidelines.

Every organizer/publisher has a specific set of rules for short story cover letters, and knowledge and application of these guidelines raises the chances of your submission getting accepted.

You should research the publisher’s inclinations. Some publishers, or should I say most, won’t accept adult stories. They may not disclose these attitudes in their Ts and Cs, but an exploratory look at their published works can reveal what kind of genre they love to publish.

Tips on Creating a Perfect Cover Letter for a Short Story Submission

A good cover letter for a short story submission should be:

Short and Simple

Cover letters for short fiction always have to have the conciseness element. It should be short and simple but compelling enough; it has to signal to the editor that you’re at least a refined writer.

Courteous and Direct

It is unprofessional to send a cover letter that is copied and pasted from previous submissions. The cover letter should address the editor or publishers and must contain information relevant to that particular submission.

Professional

Although a good cover letter is supposed to be courteous, it doesn’t have to get too personal. The editor doesn’t really care if you know their name (although it’s okay to address them by their name if they suggested so), but the contents of the cover letter must remain professional.

How to Address a Cover Letter

It is advisable to leave niceties and go straight to business. I have read a couple of blogs by real editors, and they all agree on one thing: go straight to business.

If you’re going to make multiple submissions to different recipients, you have to make sure you don’t put too much effort into ‘playing the nice newbie’ and just focus on making the cover letter a contextually right letter.

What should be in a cover letter?

I didn’t want to ramble on about something I didn’t know anything about, so I decided to give you a list of things that Neil Clarke (a real-life editor from Clarkesworld Magazine) wants to see in your cover letter for short stories:

State whether you are previously published or not.
If you’re submitting work that you did not author (maybe you’re the author’s agent or something), you have to state it in the cover letter. You have to explain the working arrangement with the author or if you’re translating.
And if you state that you are submitting a translation, you should say whether the story was originally published and where, in what language, and whether the original author or whoever holds the rights on the original has given you the permission to translate and publish.
If you are submitting a reprint, the cover letter should state this and any restrictions placed on the reprint.
If your short story doesn’t fit in one of the categories that the publisher has listed, the cover letter must explain what type of genre it is.

The cover letter also needs to contain a short bio, the story’s word count, title, and a brief description of the short story (not summary), among other things.

Publishers and editors have unique preferences, so you’ll find what ‘unique’ things they want in your cover letter.

Don’t Put These in Your Cover Letter

Going back to Neil Clarke’s preferences (most of which are shared by most editors), these things shouldn’t be in a cover letter:

Bank or PayPal details.
Mailing address or phone number (This might not be the case for all editors/publishers). In Clarke’s case, the mailing addressing should be on the first page of the story.
A summary of your short story.

But I said in the previous section, every editor and publisher has their own preferences.

Don’t Say These in Your Short Story Cover letter

Cover letters rarely influence editors’ opinions of a story, but some things can annoy an editor. Although they’re likely not going to reject the story because of some ‘little things’ in your short story’s cover letter, it’s wise to stay on the safe side.

Confidence is good, but you don’t have to be arrogant. For instance, you don’t have to say “I’m the modern-day Charles Dickens.”

And… you know it’s so ‘amateur hour’ when you say, “This is the best story you’ll ever read.” Trust me, it’s not. Editors have read thousands of stories and it’s better to let them ‘choose’ which is the best they’ve ever read.

Even though it’s bad to sound cocky in your cover letter, it’s equally damning to show low self-esteem. So, in your cover letter, you have to avoid writing things like ‘how desperate you’re’ or ‘how many times your story has been rejected.’ Those won’t help your case at all!

Formats and Submission Guidelines

If you haven’t found this out already, some publications put so much emphasis on the format of short story submissions. Some publications will give you specifications for font size, line spacing, margins, etcetera. It’s either you format everything the way they tell you to, or it’s an instant REJECTION for you!

However, some publications don’t go that far, but most of them let you know that If you don’t follow their pocket-size guidelines, you might as well just keep your story to yourself.

Outside the typing window, there are other formatting issues that you have to be aware of. Things like file type (e.g., PDF, RTF, Word Doc, etcetera.) and the means of submitting (e.g., email, or through the publication’s website). A few old guards still require writers to submit stories in print—yes, inconveniently, through the postal service.

The submission guidelines may extend to the manner of attaching documents (and the number of those attachments). Hopefully, the publications you’re submitting to allow you to submit attachments (which is the most likely nowadays).

Sample Cover Letter for a Short Story Submission

There are more than a thousand ways you can write your cover letter for a short story submission. In case you don’t have the littlest idea of how to go about it, I have written a very brief cover letter.

Note : This is a sample and cannot be used as a blueprint for any short fiction submission. Well, you could use it if you think it’s okay; I mean, it’s not bad.

Dear Maggie (if you don’t know their name, just put their professional title like Editor), Please consider this 2000-word story, “Dying Good,” for publication in the Sun Dance Magazine . I believe this short fiction piece is exactly the type of story that the Sun Dance typically publishes. “Dying Good” is a tale of betrayal, anger, and—ultimately—redemption. It follows a man on his journey from the gallows of degeneracy to salvation. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Ed Halfords.

This cover letter is exactly 67 words (without that bracketed explanation) and even if you were to add some details, which is a likely thing, it wouldn’t be anywhere near 150 words. In such a short piece, you can put all the required information and still avoid taking much of the editor’s time.

Final Words on Cover Letters for a Short Story Submission

You shouldn’t have to worry about writing an out-of-this-world cover letter when submitting your short story. That will only make the process seem like a very challenging task—but, in all honesty, it isn’t. I believe that I covered all the ‘life-saving’ tips that you can use to make your story submission a seamless task.

I’m not an editor (well, not by profession), but I did my research and contacted some ‘editor friends’ of mine before I got down to write this post.

As long as you do your research, keep your cover letters for short stories short, and always stick to the point, omit anything else, your short story is ready for submission!

Tips for Grads: How to write a good cover letter

By Foram Gathia, PhD student

Writing a compelling cover letter is essential for making a positive impression on potential employers. Here’s a guide to crafting a strong cover letter:

Start with a Strong Introduction: Address the hiring manager by name if possible and mention the specific position you are applying for. Engage the reader with a captivating opening sentence that highlights your enthusiasm and sets the tone for the letter.
Highlight Your Relevant Skills and Experience: Tailor your cover letter to the job description by emphasizing the skills and experiences that make you a strong candidate. Provide specific examples of past achievements that demonstrate your qualifications for the role.
Showcase Your Personality and Passion: Use the cover letter as an opportunity to showcase your personality and passion for the industry or company. Share insights into what motivates you and why you are excited about the opportunity.
Demonstrate Your Knowledge of the Company: Research the company and mention specific aspects that appeal to you or align with your values. This demonstrates your genuine interest and initiative.
Close with a Strong Call to Action: End the cover letter with a confident closing statement expressing your eagerness to further discuss your qualifications in an interview. Thank the employer for considering your application and include your contact information.

Remember to keep the cover letter concise, focusing on quality over quantity, and proofread carefully for grammar and spelling errors. A well-crafted cover letter can significantly enhance your job application and increase your chances of landing an interview.

These tips are based on the Beyond Graduate School cover letter webinar as well as the Harvard Business Review article “ How to Write a Cover Letter ”.

Tips for Grads is a professional and academic advice column written by graduate students for graduate students at UW–Madison. It is published in the student newsletter, GradConnections Weekly.

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COMMENTS

The Perfect Cover Letter: Advice From a Lit Mag Editor
When submitting your short-form literature to a magazine or journal, your cover letter is often the first piece of writing an editor sees. It serves as an introduction to your thoughtfully crafted art. As such, it is significant, but it shouldn't be intimidating or even take much time to write. As editor at 2 Elizabeths, I see a variety of ...
How to Write a Cover Letter for a Literary Journal Submission
If a magazine lists Fiction Editor, Poetry Editor, or Nonfiction Editor on its masthead or about page, address your cover letter to the specific editor. If no names are provided, simply address it ...
How to Write a Cover Letter for a Literary Journal, Magazine, or
If you truly can't find information about the editor, consider using "Dear Editors," "Dear Readers," "To whom it may concern:" or "Dear [Journal].". 2 Short and simple. Your first sentence should convey why you are writing this cover letter. If you're submitting a short story, editors will often want to know the word count.
How to Write a Literary Magazine Cover Letter
If the letter is unprofessional, on the other hand, editors will approach the story warily, expecting it to be as poorly executed as the letter. I wanted to share with you a cover letter in which ...
How to Write a Cover Letter for a Poetry Submission
The specific submission process will vary among publishing companies, but in nearly all cases, you'll want to preface your submission with a cover letter addressed to the publisher's poetry editor. A strong cover letter may be the difference between being considered and ending up in the slush pile, so it's important to know what you're ...
Cover Letters for Literary Magazines • Mandie Hines Author
Cover Letters for Literary Magazines. by Mandie Hines · April 13, 2017. Cover letters are the first impression a writer makes on an editor at a literary magazine. I'm going to tell you how to write one, so you don't ruin your chances of getting published before the editor has a chance to read your work. A cover letter to a literary ...
cover letters for lit mags
A cover letter for most poetry submissions is perfunctory. This is not the same sort of deal as a cover letter for a job, in which you actually have to say something interesting. A cover letter for a poetry literary magazine has few elements, and you can basically just use a template with a few optional add-ons.
Cover Letters: Advice from a Literary Magazine Editor
This advice is unique to this editor and to prose, but I'll wager it covers a lot of things folks like to see in cover letters in general. The no nos are easy: Don't "Dear editor" me. Don't say something like "most people think I'm drunk or on cocaine when they read my work.". And for God's sake, do not say your writing is ...
6 Tips for Perfect (Professional) Cover Letters for Literary Magazines
So here are some things to think about when writing a cover letter: 1. Follow the guidelines of the literary magazine. This seems self-explanatory, but a lot of literary magazines ask for different kinds of information in the cover letter. Some of them want word counts or genre. Others want a short bio about you.
HOW TO CRAFT THE PERFECT LITERARY COVER LETTER
Sign your name on a white piece of paper. Take a picture of it. Send the picture to yourself. Save it on your computer as a JPEG. Position your mouse at the spot where you would like the signature ...
Writing a Cover Letter
Cover letters shouldn't stress you out, because they're relatively simple to write. An effective cover letter is mostly professional, a little personal, and concise. It's important to note that I'm writing this solely from my perspective as an editor of a short fiction literary magazine.
Submission Series
Crafting a cover letter, writing a bio, and submitting your poems can be easy with the right support. Check out our tips to make it happen. ... How to Craft a Cover Letter. Most literary magazines and journals will ask you to include a brief cover letter to accompany the packet of poems you're submitting. Although most publications will not ...
Writing Submissions for Magazines: How to Submit Writing to a Magazine
Poetry. The expectation with poetry is also to submit the complete manuscript with a cover letter. However, most magazines like poets to submit a grouping of poems—most commonly three to five poems in a submission. Nonfiction. Nonfiction is a little more complicated because it depends on what type of nonfiction you're writing on how you submit.
Preparing a Submission for a Literary Journal
Write your cover or query letter. See the information above about the conventions of these genres. Prepare your proposal or manuscript packet for online or print submission, following the writer's guidelines specified on the market's website. Send your submission , and keep record of what you've sent.
How To Write a Covering Letter
Here is the advice of literary agent Simon Trewin on writing an introductory letter: " Life is short and less is more. No letter should be more than one side of A4 and in a good-sized (12pt) clear typeface. Sell yourself. The covering letter is one of the most important pages you will ever write.
Submitting to Literary Magazines
Writing Cover Letters: The Adroit Journal has a great piece explaining the ins and outs of cover letter writing. Submission Opportunities: Driftwood Press: Where Else to Submit The Invisible Art of Literary Editing: an in-depth look into the inner workings of literary magazines.
Effective Cover Letters And Query Letters: A Checklist For Writers
Your cover or query letter should provide only the essentials and lead the reader to be curious about your writing. Contact information: You must include your name, address, phone number, and email. Show appreciation: Thank the reader for taking his or her time to read your submission. Appearance: Use an easy-to-read font, no larger than 12 ...
How To Write A Cover Letter For Your Creative Writing
2. Introduction. State your intention clearly and include the title (s) of the work (s) you're submitting: Please consider my poems, "Gray" and "To the Orioles," for publication in Journal Name. 3. Don't describe your submission. Don't summarize your story or explain the themes in your poems.
Lit Mag Submissions 101: How, When, and Where to Send Your Work
Honestly, the cover letter is mostly unimportant. Cover letters are typically given only a quick glance and are almost never a deciding factor for a submission. Your cover letter should be short and sweet along these lines. Dear [editor's name], I loved [piece X and Y] from your last issue. My own work has been previously published in [list ...
How to Write a Cover Letter for A Poetry Submission
Write the greeting and body. First, begin with the date. Next, write the salutation to the magazine, press, or publishing company. You can also address the poetry editor to personalize the greeting. Look at this template as an example of how to format it. The next step is to write the body of the letter.
How to Write a Cover Letter for Poetry Submissions
Make sure then, to include the titles of the poems you are submitting, in quotations. And also reference the publication you are submitting to, the title of the publication in italics. But that is not nearly enough information, so we will want to include a few more things. Include your contact information and relevant social media accounts ...
How to Write a Perfect Cover Letter for a Short Story Submission
Going back to Neil Clarke's preferences (most of which are shared by most editors), these things shouldn't be in a cover letter: Bank or PayPal details. Mailing address or phone number (This might not be the case for all editors/publishers). In Clarke's case, the mailing addressing should be on the first page of the story.
What's in a Short Story Cover Letter?
Short. Professional. In a letter format with a salutation and signature. Something like: "Dear Editors, Please consider my 4000 word short story "The Example Title" for publication in The Stand-in Literary Magazine. It fits your theme of being a fake anthology by being a fake story.
Tips for Grads: How to write a good cover letter
Start with a Strong Introduction: Address the hiring manager by name if possible and mention the specific position you are applying for. Engage the reader with a captivating opening sentence that highlights your enthusiasm and sets the tone for the letter. Highlight Your Relevant Skills and Experience: Tailor your cover letter to the job ...
How to Write a Graduate Cover Letter
How to Write a Graduate Cover Letter. IET Member-only content Charlotte Rogers Tue 12 Mar 2024. The beginning of your job search can sometimes be difficult, especially if you have little or no relevant work experience.
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wasafirimag on March 11, 2024: " Wasafiri 117: The State of the Industry is now available to order! Head to our website..."