Editor Interview: Does It Have Pockets?

Unseamly Literature

River Teeth/Beautiful Things
Dorothy Parker’s Ashes
Milk Candy Review
The Rumpus
Split Lip
BULL
SugarSugarSalt

Our team’s favorite fiction writers include Kathy Fish, Meg Pokrass, Kelly Davio, Robert Vaughn, Dashka Slater, Lydia Davis, Flannery O’Connor, David Sedaris, and many more.
We love reading the poetry of Wendell Berry, Kim Addonizio, Brendan Constantine, Nicole Sealy, Patricia Smith, Wendy Cope, Ron Koertge, Billy Collins, Nicole Sealy, Marilyn Nelson, and many more.
Visual artists we adore include Andrea Kowch, Sarah Sloat, Angela Smyth, Karen Faris, Lorette Luzajic, and many more.

DIHP strives to share meaningful work with the world, but to also
1. Foster a community of writers whose work doesn't always neatly fit into genre boxes.
2. Highlight writers and their work, thoughtfully pairing pieces with art and a celebration of individual pieces.
3. Deepen the connection between writers and editors, carefully tending each piece that crosses our desks.

.5 Writers have not read the submissions guidelines
1. Sending a submission meant for/addressed to another market.
2. Submissions exceed our 5000-word limit or artwork that is not correctly sized.
3. Writers who attempt to submit via social media or other channels.
4. Cover letters that include a summation of the work.

I prefer a cover letter to say my name or the magazine's name or even a cursory attempt at our entity (we get a lot of cover letters addressed to other magazines, contests, editors) and something like "Thank you for your time considering my 1000-word short story." And that's it. I do like when writers include something they like about the magazine or how they found us.
I am interested in your bio, but don’t worry if you don’t have an MFA or 70 publications – these qualifications do not do any work that your writing won’t. Sometimes we get bios that are very long and very involved. Your brief background and your last few publications are what gives us the overview we need.
We absolutely do not want a summary of your work. If I cannot glean the writer’s intention from the work itself, then the writer either isn’t finished with that work or thinks we’re too dim to grasp it, neither of which are good feet to start a literary relationship. Go ahead and tell us why you’re inspired to write what you write (you love hippos!) but please don’t recap or package the work for us (an enchanted hippo rides to the rescue of a dashing princess!). It makes us feel bad.

As EIC, I read every piece in full. In respect of my staff's volunteer efforts, I've asked them to read at least five pages of each submission and note if that request becomes an obstacle. Though we can typically tell in those five pages whether a piece is right for us, reading to the end allows me to better explain our decisions when personalizing our regrets to writers who have a great deal of promise but whose pieces aren't working for us.

Each and every piece received is read by at least 4 of our 5 staff members, whence feedback and notes are collected. We then discuss each piece together in person before a final decision is made. If constructive feedback is available, it is passed on to the writer in the spirit of clarifying our decision process.

We end up editing about a quarter of our accepted submissions. While we will correct small typos or formatting errors (think dialogue commas and numbers formatting) without any back and forth, substantive edits are passed on to the writer for review, discussion, and approval prior to publication. Writers are asked to review pieces prior to our standard social media promotion.

We nominate pieces for the Best of the Net and Best Microfiction Awards cycles, though we anticipate expanding our nominations as we enter our second year.