UnderOneRoof

Main Points of the Lesson

1. The package. Three things: the manuscript, formatted exactly as the venue asks; a cover letter of about a hundred words; and a bio of 50 to 75 words. Nothing else unless the guidelines ask for it.
2. The cover letter is a courtesy, not a sales pitch. Name the editor if one is listed. Give the title, genre, and word count; note a simultaneous submission if you are making one; add two lines of bio; say thank you. Do not summarize or explain the essay — let it speak.
3. Keep a tracking sheet. Venue, date sent, fee, response time, status. A simple notebook page or spreadsheet prevents the two classic mistakes: sending to the same venue twice and forgetting to withdraw an accepted piece elsewhere.
4. Rejection is the weather. Most submissions everywhere are declined, usually with a form note. A personal line (“we’d like to see more”) is a real encouragement. The rule: when a rejection arrives, send the essay to the next venue on your list within a week.
5. When yes comes. Withdraw the piece everywhere else the same day, read the contract or rights note, answer the editor’s questions promptly, and tell any neighbor who appears in the essay before it runs.
6. A possible 2601 collection. Tonight we also talk, with no commitment on anyone’s part, about whether a follow-up course on writing a collection about 2601 would interest the group — and, if so, what that book would be about. We decide together.

Reading for Class — Click to Open

• Submittable, “How Can I Submit?” — read the Submittable help page
  How to create a free account and send your first submission.
• The Sun, Readers Write — upcoming topics — read at The Sun
  A free, sincere, topic-based venue: a good first target for many essays from this course.
• Under One Roof, Sending It Out — the course submission guide — download the guide (PDF)
  Step-by-step instructions, sample cover letters and bios, a tracking sheet, and the full venue directory.
• Textbook: Tell It Slant, Chapter 14, “The Power of Writing Communities”; Chapter 15, “Publishing Your Creative Nonfiction” — see the textbook guide

After Our Discussion — Critical Reception

• Duotrope — market listings and statistics — A subscription service ($5 a month after a free trial) with response and acceptance data.
• Poets & Writers — Literary Magazines database — More than a thousand vetted magazines, searchable by genre.
• The New York Times — “How to Submit a Modern Love Essay” — Unusually clear guidelines from a highly competitive venue; worth reading as a model of what editors ask.

In-Class Writing Prompt — Laptops Closed

Fifteen minutes. Then we pass the letters (names removed, volunteers only) and trim each to its essentials. We close with a reading — volunteers only — and a conversation about what comes next.

What happens with this: nothing is collected. It is yours, written on paper, in your notebook. No one is asked to read aloud who does not wish to.

Discussion Questions

1. What is the least you can say in a cover letter and still be courteous? Why does less usually work better?
2. How will you decide when an essay is ready to send, and when it needs one more pass?
3. What would count as success for you six months from now: a publication, ten submissions, a finished essay, a habit?
4. Would a follow-up course on a collection about 2601 interest you? If so, what should that book be about — arrivals, the mural, the people who work here, a single year in the building?