16

Putting on Our Editors’ Hats

I submitted work seventeen times to The Georgia Review before any was accepted. This makes me think that often we stop too soon, just when an editor is finally getting used to the voice or the style, just before an editor is sure that you have staying power. . . . I’ve only met one person who has never received a rejection slip.

—JUDITH KITCHEN

Every week, I spend many hours reading submissions for the Bellingham Review. I get as comfy as possible: a soft chair, a good view of our local, snow- and cloud-tipped volcano. I do this because reading submissions takes a lot of time. Like most editors-in-chief, I have several layers of pre-readers. Initial readers forward material that seems strong to my genre editors, who read in the areas of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and hybrid works. All my editors are keen and savvy and the work they forward to me contains much that is praiseworthy. And yet the great majority of what I read, I know I will have to decline. Like all literary magazines, the Review accepts only a small fraction of what we get—in our case, about 2 percent.

As I read through my forwarded submissions, two essays stop me. I return to them and reread them several times. Both have much to recommend them—striking characters, a unique story. Yet both also pose problems. One essay weaves together many narrative threads, yet rushes through them to an oversimplified ending. The other lacks characterization and detail. It is tempting in both cases to go back to the author with a provisional acceptance, contingent on revision. How do I make this call?

Well, Author One wrote a precise, yet detailed, cover letter making it clear that author knew our journal well and respected our editorial mission. This person used editors’ names and had read and thought about recent issues. Author Two sent a generic note addressed to “Dear Editor,” with no letter, only a canned bio.

With little hesitation, I write a detailed, provisional acceptance to Author One, and send a note of rejection to Author Two. Perhaps I’m wrong in my assumptions, but I have little to go on besides how these writers address me and my journal. The sense I get from their letters is that Author One admires us and would be pleased to work with us. Author Two appears to be doing scattershot submissions with little sense of each publication. If I am going to put my time into a complex letter with revision ideas, I want to feel I am investing my time wisely and directing it toward an interested writer. And in this way many editorial decisions are made (and unmade!).

—SUZANNE

I’ve been asked to be a judge for a national literary contest. The initial screeners for the contest have forwarded to me ten finalist pieces, all anonymous; these are the essays that have risen above the rest (most contests receive hundreds, if not thousands, of entries). Now it’s up to me to evaluate the essays side-by-side to determine the winner.

I begin by reading the first paragraph of each essay, no more. The first paragraph is so important in this situation (and really any publishing situation): it’s where you will establish the content, the theme, the form, and the writer’s unique voice. The first paragraph must be perfect. In this case, most of them are; they must be, to make it this far.

But even in this elite group, a few stumble: they use the first paragraph to summarize, rather than engage us directly with the story; or there’s a phrase that’s either clichéd or what I call “packaged language,” something we’ve heard so often that anyone could have written it. Some writers are too flippant in the first paragraph or too melodramatic. With some, the real essay starts later in the piece.

And then I turn to the end and read the last paragraph of each piece. That’s odd, you might think, to read the ending before seeing the entire piece. But just as with beginnings, the ending can often signal whether a writer has polished this essay to its brightest shine. If a writer summarizes with a “moral of the story,” the essay will fall flat. But if the essay just “stops,” without any sense of closure, it will leave the reader feeling a bit empty. The writer must walk a fine line here, providing closure while still keeping the essay open for interpretation. Ending on a strong image, rather than an idea, is usually what I’m looking for.

About half the finalist essays pass these tests. So I read those first, allowing myself to fully engage with them on their own terms. Before ranking them, I read the others, noting how these essays might succeed with a few revisions, and to make sure my initial impressions play out. Then begins the hard work of picking the winner, a big responsibility, knowing this decision might be huge in this anonymous person’s writing career.

—BRENDA

Between us—Brenda and Suzanne—we have twenty years of editorial experience. Both of us have served as editor-in-chief of the Bellingham Review, housed at Western Washington University. Suzanne has also guest-edited two online journals, and we’ve served as judges for national and university contests. Our editing has covered four genres and print as well as online platforms. Both of us know the exhaustion and exhilaration of editing—receiving far more submissions, even top-notch submissions, than we can use. And discovering new writers whose work we are thrilled to find and to present. Here are our best tips, as we don our editors’ hats.

•   The cover letter. A great cover letter, as we discussed in Chapter 15, “Publishing Your Creative Nonfiction,” should be one page at most, not jokey or overly familiar, and knowledgeable about the journal addressed. Tell us about yourself, but also show that you are familiar with our publication. Better no cover letter at all than the generic “Dear Editor” followed by a canned bio.

•   Polish your first paragraph to perfection. Make sure it will draw the reader in. Eliminate any clichéd language. As you do your final revisions, be open to changing your first paragraph, or moving a paragraph from later in the essay to the beginning.

•   Understand the successes that precede publication. Few writers go from zero to acceptance. To put our opening Judith Kitchen quote—citing the one rejection-free writer—into context, Kitchen knew thousands of writers. Editors look out for writers they find exceptional in some way, and even if they can’t make an offer of publication, write notes of encouragement. Do not underestimate the importance of these kinds of positive responses. In our experience as editors-in-chief, about 10 percent of submissions make it through the preliminary reading process to us. Out of that fraction, perhaps another 10 percent warrants a personal letter. If you receive a note of praise, mark it down somewhere and try that journal again when you have work that is top-notch.

•   Proofread. Nothing gets you out of the editorial queue faster than errors. This is true no matter how your work resonates on other levels. Cleaning up misspellings, grammatical errors, and typos is more work than editors are prepared to do. And a sloppy submission feels disrespectful. If you are not a proofreader, cultivate someone who is. Swap favors, bake that good proofreader some cookies. And practice. Proofreading is a cultivated skill, like any other.

•   Understand that truly, it is almost always not you. All journals share the need to mix up their content. Once at the Review we realized we had published several essays in a row featuring animals. Editors keep an eye out for repetitions, whether of form or of content, and they happen to us all the time. We also experience sudden increases in one genre, or geographical clustering. A surprising percentage of editorial decisions are based on these kinds of factors.

•   Submit widely and submit a lot. The greatest error committed by new submitters is not sending out enough. In this era of multiple submissions, each essay you feel is ready should go out to four or five venues. Having ten or more submissions out at a time, if you have multiple pieces, is reasonable. Don’t choose one “perfect” journal for each piece and submit only to that one. Take the “it is almost always not you” bullet point to heart. There are far too many reasons beyond quality that your perfect publication cannot take your work.

Look at it this way: a 2 percent acceptance rate is typical for a literary journal, and some are more selective than that. You have to be rejected ninety-eight times just to be normal!

•   Choose a submission tracking method that works for you. Sending more work to a journal that already has your work under consideration, or sending back the same thing, feels to us editors as a sloppy manuscript does—you’re not doing your homework. There are inexpensive submission tracking services. Excel spreadsheets work for other writers. For yet others, their tracker is a stack of note cards. Whatever you do, make sure you keep on top of your submissions.

TRY IT

1.   Most communities house presses and literary journals. Volunteer to read submissions for a publishing venue in your area (if you have a connection to a journal or press elsewhere, you may be able to read long distance through their submission service). This sort of reading can provide a quick and powerful education in the dos and don’ts of submitting.

2.   If you’re in a class, ask the instructor to have an editor visit to provide you and your peers with an overview of the publishing world as that editor sees it. Schedule a question-and-answer session to get a picture of how professionals make those selections of literary work to publish. Or ask an editor to visit your writing group.

3.   Do a feedback session where you look only at the first and last paragraphs of a piece. Be ruthless. How does the writing draw you in (or not)? Does the essay end on a vivid, original note? If you were reading hundreds of anonymous submissions, how would this piece stand out (in a good way)?