Editor Interview: Third Coast Fiction and Poetry Contest

Your best work.

Ploughshares; Gulf Coast; Antioch Review; Tin House; Dorothy, a publishing project; FC2; A-Minor; Stolen Island.

Junot Díaz, Jonathan Safran Foer, Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Franz Kafka, Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Richard Brautigan, Sarah Kay, Leslie Marmon Silko, Toni Morrison, Jeannette Walls, Joan Didion, Ann Patchett, Marcelle Maurette, and many, many more.

We are one of the few literary publications that consistently prints four genres: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama. Our editorial staff is selected from the graduate students at Western Michigan University; the consistent addition of new members opens us up to new writers, new voices, and new styles of writing.

Back issues and subscriptions are available for purchase on our website. Read the submission guidelines, thoroughly. Not sure if your writing would be a good fit? Try us. We are looking for both new and established writers. Whoever you are, wherever you are, write your best work and send it to us. We can't wait to read it.

We encourage submitters to follow Elmore Leonard's advice: "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

Not following submission guidelines. Don't send submissions through post or email. Don't try to submit when the submission period is closed. If your writing is that brilliant, we'll enjoy it when submissions open again. Be sure you are satisfied with your work before you submit it. Revise, revise, revise. And know that when we reject submissions, it isn't personal. We receive thousands of submissions each period and are very selective.

We do like cover letters, but your submission is much more important. Cover letters that are flowery or humble bragging are annoying. So are emotionally manipulative pleas for publication or quotes from other writers or teachers detailing how great you are. Keep it simple. Education and past publications are nice, though not necessary. Your current occupation, location, and any other personal details are also pleasant if you feel comfortable sharing. Mostly we'd like to know why you chose to submit to Third Coast specifically. Mostly we want you to let your work speak for itself.

We read until we get bored, then we reject. Your opening had better be a kicker.

The process varies within genres, but we regularly employ first readers, and genre editors confer with one another in order to make the best possible selections for the magazine.

Busy, but I love getting to work with our dedicated staff and having the opportunity to meet our submitters. I approach each new submission with hope, eager to discover a new work that will stay with me for days and years.

Very little, generally. We accept finished, polished writing.

Yes! In the past several years, stories published in Third Coast have gone on to appear in the O. Henry Award Series, the Pushcart Prize anthologies, and Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri. Poetry first featured in the journal has been selected for Best New Poets and the Pushcart Prize Series.