Editor Interviews
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Read all the editors' answers to Duotrope's interview question: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you? Learn more.
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Here is a small sampling from our recent Editor Interviews. We have interviewed over 2,250 editors.
Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?
A: Nothing. No bio. No name attached to the document. No cover letter. No credits. I only want to judge the work submitted.
A: We don't require cover letters, but it's always nice to read a little about the person behind the writing or art. One thing we'd rather not see is a summary of your piece in the cover letter--we prefer to form our own opinion while reading.
A: We just require a short bio and picture.
A: We only require a short bio and picture.
A: I can't access cover letters at all on Submittable until I send a response to the submitter. I usually then only read them if it's an acceptance. We do, however, request an acknowledgements page with our book submissions. This does not influence our choice (I've accepted books with very few publication credits!), but it can show that the writer is familiar with and engaged in the larger literary community.
A: Cover Letters should be simple if even included. A simple 'Thanks for considering my submission' means a lot to us as we want to focus our energy on your submission!
A: A short cover letter is always appreciated. Previous publication credits don't matter, per se, but it is nice to know where a submitter is on their publishing journey. If a submitter is under 18, we would like to know their age (we publish this information with their work). It is also nice to know where a person is submitting from (state/country) because we receive submissions from all over the world.
A: I do like a cover letter. It should not contain a synopsis of the story. We read all stories that fit our word count and are submitted following our guidelines. As such a synopsis only serves to spoil the story for us.
Publication credits have never been a good sign for us of whether or not a story, or someone's writing, will be good for us. I have noticed a trend, though: authors that list things like "Over 200 stories published" are NEVER a good fit for us. We have never once had someone send us an e-mail listing a really large number of stories published. In many ways doing so is counterintuitive: if you have published 200, 500, whatever stories... why don't I know your name? Are these quality/reputable publications? We publish our two magazines to help support writers and to read and share great stories. It feels like someone with 500 credits isn't really who we are trying to help out and it definitely comes across as bragging and not very humble. So my advice is that if you are going to list credits, list your top 3-5 most impressive ones or most recent ones and leave it at that.
A: I expect a cover letter to include any significant publication credits, a brief bio, and a description of the manuscript. If it's a submission to our poetry series, it's not necessary to include a description of the work.
I love to see personal details like hobbies, writing goals, pets, etc. It doesn't necessarily help the submission but it makes reading cover letters more enjoyable.
A: As much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing. The only thing we need to know is if you were in the foster care or child welfare system
A: I like to know something, out of curiosity, if only where they're from and what they do for a living.
A: 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.