Editor Interview: The Writer's Chronicle

The Writer's Chronicle

Being a nonfiction writer myself, I enjoy every issue of Creative Nonfiction Magazine. And I admire the publishers who sponsor our AWP Award Series. They do a wonderful job of the entire process—from start to finish—of publishing and marketing our winners.

The Writer's Chronicle features writers of every genre and style. The writers we publish are from various stages in their career. What I admire the most about them is that almost all of them are teachers of creative writing, and each essay in the Chronicle has something to impart to the students of creative writing.

For over four decads, The Writer’s Chronicle has served as a leading source of articles, news, and information for writers, editors, students, and teachers of writing. Published six times during the academic year, the Chronicle provides diverse insights into the art of writing that are accessible, pragmatic, and idealistic. Each issue features in-depth essays on the craft of writing, as well as extensive interviews with accomplished authors. Readers can also find news on publishing trends and literary controversies; a listing of grants, awards, and publication opportunities available to writers; and a list of upcoming conferences for writers, including AWP’s Annual Conference & Bookfair. Our pages are for those who love reading and writing.

Do familiarize yourself with our magazine before submitting. We do not accept personal essays, and we do not publish poetry and fiction. And no lectures, talks, or panel discussions. A great lecture, however, can be adapted as an essay and submitted to us. We love to read those. We have clear submission guidelines on our website. Please read that first.

We accept submissions via our Submittable portal from February 1 through September 30 each year, and we follow the Chicago Manual of Style. The ideal submission would be one where the author has written the essay following this style and has read our submissions guidelines first and adheres to them.

Our submissions process is pretty simple. Not easy to get it wrong! I cannot stress enough the importance of reading our submissions guidelines first. We get a lot of personal essays and that is definitely a no no.

We publish a short 3-4-sentence bio of the author with each essay or interview. The cover letter lets each person tell us a little more so that is always welcome. We usually get previous publications credits in the cover letter and that is helpful.

It is true that for some pieces, like the personal essay, it becomes clear as soon as we start reading, that it is not right.
We read each submission in its entirety. Not only that, our entire editorial staff does. So it is not just one person reading and deciding. All the readers enter their comments, and that is important to us. All aspects of the submission are considered. Relevance to the current situation in literature, how important is the topic, etc. Of course, the writing has to be perfect!

As I said before, each piece goes through several readings, and it is commented upon. If all of us do not agree, then we discuss the piece before it is rejected or accepted. This process is important to us. Sometimes relevance of the topic takes precedence. We do offer editorial revisions also.

Now that our submissions are via Submittable, it has simplified the process a lot. The editorial staff has access to each submission. There is no set order in which it is read. But we do wait until each one of us has read and commented before I, as the editor, and in consultation with our associate editor, decide what the next step is. Ideally, we like to get back to the submitter within three months, so we are conscious of that and do our best to comply. I find that it helps me personally when I set up certain reading days. I do nothing but read on those days. Otherwise, administrative work takes over!

We are lucky that most of the submissions to the Writer's Chronicle are by wonderful writers. I find that interviews require more line editing than craft essays. We do have our house style, so we have to copyedit extensively. But often, we offer revisions and accept a piece only after it has been revised according to our suggestions. We do not give up on a piece very easily!
And yes, the author gets the final page proofs before it goes into the layout. Another word about copyediting: each piece gets read several times even after it is accepted. We read before sending it as proof to the author. And we read even after it goes into the layout with the author's changes.

We have nominated essays to the Pushcart Prize.