Editor Interviews

Read all the editors' answers to Duotrope's interview question: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process? Learn more.

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Q: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?

A: My guidelines are pretty simple and I'm not a tyrant about them. For instance, I ask that pieces be in Times New Roman 12pt, but if a story arrives in Garamond I'm not going to reject it. I've only rejected a handful of pieces for not following guidelines - one wasn't in English, the two or three others were not romance/love themed.

A: Poets may submit up to three poems. If the poems are NOT meant to be evaluated as a collection, they should be in separate documents. For example, if a writer submits three stand-alone poems, there should be three pdf or docx attachments.

A: We see a lot of emailed submissions bogged down with publication history, forty-year biographies, and links to every book they've ever published. We would rather just read your work and fall in love with you later! I understand the eagerness, but our submission guidelines note what additional information we need, which is simply your name, a 100-word bio, and 2-3 personal links. The faster we can get to your work, the faster you'll receive a response.

A: Most of our submitters read the guidelines. Occasionally, we will get a very long piece. We only publish work that is under 2,000 words.

A: They submit work that is religious, sexist, or too conservative.

A: Not respecting the guidelines. Even though they clearly state that poems should be within the email body and not in an attachment, I get submissions now and then with attachments.

A: One of the most common mistakes submitters make is not following the submission guidelines properly. Whether it's formatting, word count, or file types, these details really matter and can often result in automatic rejections, even if the content is great. And many people get discouraged after their first rejection. It’s a normal part of the creative process. If your work isn’t selected, don’t take it personally. Use it as a chance to refine your craft and try again!

A: The Empire's technology and the scope of its history take some study to get right.

A: We often receive submissions of more than four poems, which is the maximum amount we can allow from one poet during each submission period.

A: Their articles are often not aligned to our remit. They do not write cover letters.

A: I'm not sure. I think people may not realize how diverse the tastes of our readers are or how various our approaches to reading are. For example, I tend to skip people's cover letters and read submissions first. I do this to avoid letting past publications inform my reading of the new submission. However, I know others prefer to read the cover letter first to get a sense of where the writer has placed their work.
We weigh a lot of considerations when publishing. First and foremost: does most of our editorial team like the work? If the submission is poetry, we look for some balance between the theme, images, sound, and discovery the poem offers. Is the writer doing something new? Or something old but in a new or refreshing way? Have we published this writer before? How long ago? How are characters treated in the story or poem?
We also ask the same kinds of difficult questions that writers ask in the creation process. How do these characters reflect or inform a multicultural, humanistic readership? We resist publishing works that reduce individual characters to caricatures. Where stereotyping or essentializing seems at play in the work, we want to see a payoff--literary, cultural, or otherwise--for such literary choices.

A: They often send rhyming poetry (we never publish rhyming poetry and usually do not publish form poetry) or send fiction that tells, instead of shows.