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Editor Interviews

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Read all the editors' answers to Duotrope's interview question: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication? Learn more.

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Here is a small sampling from our recent Editor Interviews. We have interviewed over 2,200 editors.

Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?

A: Please do not submit rhyming, religious, or generally philosophical poetry. First-person POV preferred. No horror, drug use, fantasy, abuse, self-harm, or cruel poetry.

A: Read the submission guidelines - they are there to make the submission process go smoothly for both you and us.
Suburban Witchcraft is what we describe as 'state of the soul', a moment on the intersection of our real world, your dreams and feelings, moments that feel surreal, improbable, painstakingly beautiful or painful when one does not expect them to be, and most of all it is Creativity as a form of existing when the world feels very scary and liminal. Our magazine's name often makes contributors think it is about practical and religious witchcraft, and it can be - but the emphasis is on expression and literary craftsmanship - there is no need for contributors to try and fit a non-existent theme.
Please feel free to TALK about your work - we welcome cover letters that include lore about your submission.
We welcome and celebrate self-published creators and we believe a creative work should never be deemed as 'old' or forgotten - do not shy away from submitting work from your self-published collections.
No need to be excessively formal when addressing the editor; all we ask is Be Kind.

A: Make sure somebody else has read your work — and that you’ve taken their notes to heart and revised accordingly.

A: It goes without saying that reading what a journal publishes will give you a good idea of the kind of work they like. Additionally, work that has been thoughtfully reviewed, revised and edited stands a stronger chance of making the cut. Get a friend to read through your work before you submit to avoid it being passed over because of poor editing.

Margaret R. Sáraco and Mary Brancaccio, Poetry Editors of Platform Review, 04 March 2024

A: Send us that gem of a strange poem of which you are secretly so proud. Send us your poems that live at the very edge of your life and language experience, that take risks. Remember we love a good sentence, and that Moist is not a place for comfortable binaries, of any kind!

A: Please read the previous submissions to get a feel of what we publish and take a chance on yourself. Hope. Dream. Execute. No success story happens without these.

A: Read the journal (and/or the online blog) to get a feel for the tone and style. And follow your passions! If there's something you want to write about - do write in with a pitch!

Phoenix Alexander, Editor-in-Chief, Vector of Vector, 29 February 2024

A: Read our guidelines and read our previously published work for free.

Doug Jacquier, Editor of Witcraft, 28 February 2024

A: Do it! The fact is, we don’t know what we want to publish until we read it. That said, read what we’ve published up until now to get a bit of an idea what we’re after. Submitted work doesn’t need to be nature writing (in fact, we wish we received more nature writing), but there should at minimum be an inherent fascination with the chance to be alive and breathing at a certain time at a certain place.

A: Please understand that we only publish a tiny number of books each year, and most of those are by established authors such as Lawrence Block or Donald Westlake or Erle Stanley Gardner or Max Allan Collins (to name just a few of our more prolific contributors), which means we usually only have one slot available each year for a new or newish author -- and more than 1,000 submissions competing for that one slot. That means we have to say no well over 99% of the time, so a no from us is far, far, FAR more likely than a yes. As long as you know that going in, there's no harm in trying, but please do understand that we're a nearly impossible market to crack.

A: I feel like this is a cliché but it's true: please read the full submission guidelines. The submission guidelines contain when we are open for submissions, what we are looking for (general/theme issues), how we want you to title your submission, and even a sample cover letter.

A: Don't be afraid! Submissions can be daunting due to preconceived notions about writing quality and editors' opinions, but what matters most is authenticity. All editors select work with a degree of subjectivity--there's no point in shying from their bias. Submit widely and submit all, especially to The Seraphic Review! We'll take profundity over perfection any day.