The Writers Coin

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I just listened to a Poets & Writers discussion that I downloaded from who knows where and finally got around to listening to. It was a panel of editors from different literary journals talking about the odds of getting your story published (not good). One of the panelists said she had worked for Michael Curtis of The Atlantic Monthly and he told her there were five reasons to pull a story out of the slush pile:

1. The writer has been recommended from someone else (cover letter is key here)
2. The writer has been published in well-recognized publications (New Yorker, Paris Review)
3. The writer has been through an MFA program or other workshop environment
4. The writer is referencing an earlier note (you’ve gotten a “good, but not great” note when submitting previously)
5. It’s good

You could hear the little smile on her face when she said that “good” was last on the list. Notice how important the cover letter becomes in this context—without it there is no way to tell if 1–4 are happening.

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