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A dependable source of professional and creative advice, this regular series features anecdotes, insights, tips, recommended reading and viewing for writers, and more from leading agents and editors.
My motto as an editor started out as a design standard in the U.S. Navy: Keep it simple, stupid! I like to read writing and translation that’s kept simple. I do not mean that I am a minimalist, or that I only want to work with minimalist writers. I do mean that I love encountering a mind that shines, bright and unobstructed, from the page.
It’s important for writers who aspire to be published by a mainstream house to have an understanding of where their work fits in relation to like-minded books and authors publishing today.
Don’t labor over your cover letter when submitting to a journal or magazine! I mean, of course read the publication’s guidelines, and if they’re asking for something specific, by all means provide it. But honestly, the best cover letter is the simplest cover letter. If you address your submission to the editor by name, great. “Dear Editor” works too. Every editor will tell you they’ve received submissions addressed to another magazine—oops! It happens, we get it. I’ve even published a couple of those submissions. It’s not cause for rejection, but try not to do it.
One piece of advice I like to give aspiring authors is to think seriously before you start querying presses—or even before you start writing—about what publishing success means to you. There are so many approaches to getting your work published, and which one you pursue should depend on your individual goals. And these goals can absolutely change throughout the course of your career, or even project to project.
Since its inception in 2000, poetry has been in the DNA of Serendipity Literary Agency, which represents poets such as jessica Care moore and Marilyn Nelson, among other writers. In my work to stay current and keep my finger on the pulse of the market, I’ve noticed three big opportunities bubbling up and intensifying in the poetry world that poets should have on their radar:
At some point during the pandemic, I wrote a note to myself on a yellow Post-it and stuck it to my computer monitor: “I’m most interested in narrative nonfiction that feels like the author who wrote it is the only person who could have written it.” This may seem like a basic truth, but as my friend Ann Beattie once said, “It’s helpful to know to begin at the most simple level—even if I don’t always remember to do that.”
When submitting to a journal, don’t pay too much attention to the editors’ aesthetic statement. It’s better to read, if possible, the most recent two issues of the journal and what the members of the current editorial staff themselves have published to get a sense of whether the conversation you’re having with the world is anything like the one they’re having. I rarely find aesthetic statements on a journal’s website useful in any meaningful way unless the journal in question has a very specific formal schtick.
I often encounter developing fiction writers and memoirists who have voice in spades but who haven’t yet acquired full control over their story and characters. An inimitable writerly voice is the holiest of holies for all of us. But voice without accompanying mastery over the story is not enough, whether your work is a commercial thriller or capital-L “Literary.” A reader can sense when a writer is still puzzling out the meaning of the story they’re telling and, as a result, when the characters aren’t as dimensional and rich as they should be.
As a writer, I will always encourage writers to shoot their shot when they are passionate about their work. As an editor, I will always encourage writers to familiarize themselves with the rules and work of the publication they are submitting to. Publishing is highly subjective, yes, but there are also some key considerations that may tip the odds in one’s favor. This might seem like basic advice, but if the publication has a clear theme, you want to stick to it as close as possible. Is there a strict or suggested word count? Stick to it even closer.
At Tupelo Press, we typically receive anywhere between nine hundred and fourteen hundred submissions for a single slot in our production schedule. Writers will frequently ask me, “What can I do to make my manuscript stand out? How do I command an editor’s attention with such stiff competition?” The best advice I can offer is simple: Take risks with form. Do something interesting with the space of the page.
