Editor Interviews
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Read all the editors' answers to Duotrope's interview question: Describe the ideal submission. Learn more.
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Here is a small sampling from our recent Editor Interviews. We have interviewed over 1,950 editors.
Q: Describe the ideal submission.
A: Personal and specific while avoiding the trappings of cliché, over sentimentality, or too much repetition.
A: The American writer, Louise deSalvo, said, "It’s not what you produce as you write that’s important; it’s who you become as you write that’s important." The ideal submission is true, heartfelt, and expresses something essential. Love. Belongingness. Healing. Despair. Moments that just have to be shared with the world!
A: My ideal submission would be about some people recreating in the woods and they stumble across something (maybe an altar or obelisk or something of the sort) and then find out that there is some entity in the woods hunting them down one by one. Bonus points for ancient rites, stars aligning, etc... Or, I am a sucker for horror and westerns mashed together. If you can write me a slow-burn, creepy, weird, and disturbing horror western, I'll eat that up.
A: An ideal submission must have an in-depth understanding of our contest guidelines and most importantly the theme of our contest. It must not be published anywhere else both in print or online since it sometimes leads to copyrights violations among publishers. We want your writing to be the king of the submission. So please try to avoid unnecessary decorations or details other than your literary work in the pdf or doc, docx file that you've submitted to us. Keep the fonts readable.
Furthermore, we always look for submissions that depict originality, creativity, clarity of imagery and language, and cohesive form and structure. We hate plagiarism and strongly recommend our submitters to stay true to themselves.
A: A brief cover letter within the email (additionally attached to the poems is fine, too). Plus a brief bio with nothing personally expressive--- mentioning previous publications (if any exist---not necessary), where you're from and maybe what you do. Please attach the poems to the email, rather than putting them in the body of the email. The more poems, the better! (Maximum 4).
A: The ideal submission will just make me laugh! And I’m hoping that it does the same for other people.
A: A surprise—we appreciate something that's unexpected, something that awakes us, something that broadens our perspectives.
A: An original idea that gets to the core of the story as quickly as possible without sacrificing characterization or plot structure, formatted in Shunn's, and competently edited for grammar, punctuation, typos, etc.
A: A writer with a unique point of view that doesn't just describe baseball, but places baseball in a greater context.
A: Less than 100 words, building a rich world with engaging characters and a twist ending that subverts a humanist premise.
A: Strong poems or new translations
Since 1985, when Acumen was founded by Patricia Oxley, we have sought to publish the best in new poetry and poetry translations, alongside articles, debate, comment and reviews of recent poetry publications.
We publish new and established writers, and are proud to have discovered many new voices.
All poems are considered on merit.
We welcome unpublished poems, translations of poems, articles and debate on poetry covering a wide variety of topics and with different writing styles.
Please send no more than 6 poems (fewer if they are long) with your details on every page and an appropriate means to reply
A: Two poems with a good sense of what they want to be & the direction they want to go. Minimal, direct poems are particularly close to our heart. Interesting uses of device tends to catch our eye.