Editor Interview: Tiny Molecules

Original, short prose.

The Evergreen Review
Split Lip Magazine
The Paris Review
Chicago Review of Books
TOLKA
Cleveland Review of Books
Jellyfish Review
Lunate

John Berger
Lydia Davis
John McPhee
Zadie Smith
Eileen Myles
Sharon Olds
David Hayden
Brian Dillon
Vanessa Onwuemezi
Elizabeth Hardwick

A hard question to answer, and anything offered can only suggest that similar publications are lacking this. Tiny Molecules has a dedicated team of readers and editors, who take their time with each submission. Stories and essays sent to us are often read by at least three of us, and discussed at length.
We publish work that is first and foremost confident in its language and imagery. This of course doesn't mean a certain kind of story or essay, but only that the writer had complete belief in their own story. This always comes through and it tends to be the work we publish in our seasonal issues, and at Observations.

Read your work out loud before submitting it. Often, hearing the work will catch what reading doesn't, whether its rhythm, dialogue, or the sentence structure.

Cover letters are not too important, and no submissions will be rejected because of spelling or formatting errors.

Our submissions are generally read and considered without publication history in mind.

This is different depending on each editor and reader. Personally, I will continue to read a piece for as long as I believe what I'm reading, and the language is deliberate. If images and plot and character start to fade in the writing, that usually makes the decision for me.

Once one of our Readers has passed a story onto second read, then usually two Editors will read and discuss the piece before coming to a decision. A third Editor will be brought in to break a tie.

I'm generally assigning submissions to readers in chunks as I progress through our inbox. Then, once we have a number of second reads, I will read those and discuss with the other editors. If we accept a piece, I will make suggested edits and run them by the writer. Which of course then leads to collecting stories into the next issue.

Accepted submissions are proofread, and we make line edits, but we don't accept submissions that would need substantive editing. We want to avoid altering a writer's work so much that it loses their style. If we receive a submission we like, but find it needs heavy edits, then we would send a rejection encouraging future submissions. When it comes to writers just starting out, heavy-handed editing can do more harm than good.