An Editor’s Eye: What Makes a Submission Stand Out
what I’ve learnt about submitting to lit mags as a staff reader and Editor-in-Chief
Submitting to literary magazines can be daunting. From the plethora of submission rules to follow, to alignments, indentations, spelling errors, crafting the perfect cover letter—there’s so much we worry about. Before I am a staff reader or editor-in-chief, I am a writer. I first began submitting to literary magazines in 2019 and I have a fair few publications and various experiences working for Outlander Zine, The Poetry Cove, Lavender Bones Magazine, and at present Frontier Poetry and Zhagaram Literary Magazine.
Being a staff reader and editor has given me a lot of insights as to what actually goes behind the scenes at a literary magazine and has guided me with the perspective for my own submissions. In this post, I’ll discuss some of these perspectives that I think people should know.
1. Formatting
Formatting matters. To some extent. If the magazine mentions a specific font and font size in their guidelines, follow it no matter what. If they don't, use any readable font (TNR, 12 point is usually the standard). I personally also like Garamond, Georgia and Courier New.
I've seen some submissions where writers use fancy 'handwriting' fonts, in bold, with margins and in glossy colours. I still try to take the work seriously because I don't want to be biassed because of font colours but please. If it's not going to help your poem, don't do it. Especially if the magazine's guidelines specifies so.
I once received a submission in my packet for Frontier Poetry where the poem was written primarily in black text but included coloured text as well. This was because it was a part of the poem and it significantly affected the experience of the poem. I absolutely loved it and made sure to upvote. Another poet used multiple fonts to differentiate between handwritten letters and the poems. These are examples of when non-traditional formatting is acceptable and encouraged even.
Sometimes people will include emoticons, funky photos of themselves, and I really can’t tell if they’ve submitted so as a joke. I know these are extreme cases but as a rule of thumb, try to maintain a decent, readable format.
2. Themes
If there's a theme. make sure your poems adhere to it. If you don't, your poem will be rejected simply on the basis that it doesn't follow the theme, no matter how good it is. Remember that themed issues are usually curatorial in nature. For Zhagaram’s Issue 02 (mythology), I’ve had to reject so many wonderful poems just because they had nothing to do with our theme.
3. Ordering Poems
Most literary magazines will ask for 3-6 poems per submission. This is usually because editors like to get a feel of the poet’s voice even if they are going to publish only one out of the entire packet of poems. Some magazines prefer single poem submissions.
In the case of multiple poems per submissions, how do you order your poems? Here’s what I’ve learnt.
Make your first poem count. If you're submitting about 3-5 poems, place your strongest poem as the first poem. This poem decides (in many cases) how much time they choose to invest on your submission. Whenever I’ve worked as a reader, the instruction I was given with was something along the lines of: read the first poem, see if it inspires you to read the next, and then the next. Pick the best and upvote it.
I know some magazines can be even more strict and will decide based on first lines or even titles sometimes. Not everything needs to be a hook but make your words count.
On Rejection
I didn’t want to end this without talking about rejections. When I first began submitting, I received A LOT of rejections with a few acceptances sprinkled here and there. Somehow, it never bothered me.
Recently, I’ve been taking each rejection to the heart and I’m trying to distance myself from each rejection letter. When I say this, I say this even for myself. There are two ways to look at a rejection.
The first, is that your work needs improvement. I joke about how so many of my submissions from 2020 and 2021 are entirely red on my tracker. Honestly, I get it. Those were just bad poems. I was still learning to write poems, slowly learning the craft and I feel no shame in admitting that they were even below sub-par.
But I cherish those poems because they made me fall in love with writing poetry and gave me such joy and wonder that I still feel each time I write something new. I think a part of me knew that there was a gap between what I wanted to create and what I was creating—and rejections revealed that to me.
The second way of looking at a rejection is that, it simply wasn’t your day. A lot of times readers have restrictions on the number of submissions they can upvote (send to the higher editors). That means your work may have made it to that submission batch's top 5. But if the reader is allowed to only upvote 3 submissions, your work ends up being assessed relative to the others.
Sometimes a magazine won’t have an exact theme but the direction of the issue would be determined by the first few poems that they read. And maybe your poem was one that they read towards the end, meaning it was good but ‘just not what they were looking for’. I admit, it stings each time, just a little bit (who am I kidding, it breaks my heart on most days).
In my recent bout of rejections, i wonder if it’s the first case or the second. Perhaps both. And I’m navigating that space for myself, trying to remind myself of why I write in the first place and how all these rejections and acceptances are secondary to what first drew me to the page.
Final Thoughts
It’s easy to get caught up in the submissions game of tracking submissions, acceptances and rejections. It’s very disheartening when you pour your heart and soul and effort into crafting a poem only to hear that it wasn’t ‘good enough’. And here is where we need to remind ourselves that we need a change in how we think about rejections. A rejection doesn’t inherently mean that your poem is bad. It may need improvement, it may need a sense of direction, or it just wasn’t a fit for the magazine.
However, submissions and an impressive literary portfolio are essential, especially if you’re trying to build a career in writing. So, how do we navigate this space? I’m still figuring this out for myself so think of me as a poet friend on the same journey as you. I hope this post helped in some way to de-mystify the submissions process and make it seem less daunting.
So, write that poem. If you only write poems and feel like writing a CNF piece, do it. Remember what first brought you to the page and let that lead your way. I think as long as our work has some soul and honesty, it’ll find it’s way to the right people at some point. I don’t know this for sure but I can be hopeful.
I wish everyone reading this the very best on all your writing endeavours. I’m always open for a conversation and would love to know your thoughts and experiences with submitting.
On that note, Zhagaram is currently open for poetry submissions. I treat each poem with care and it would be an honour to consider your work for publication. You can find more about our theme and submit here.
Before we leave, I had a question for everyone reading this. What are some things that you find very annoying about lit mag rejections and, what are some things that you appreciate in a rejection letter? Let me know in the comments or by email if you prefer a personal conversation.
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Very thoughtful, practical recommendations about how to submit poems and understand rejections. Having just completed my Excel spreadsheet today so I can easily keep track of all poems submitted and the outcomes, I found Suchita's remarkst very timely. Being an old poet, retired physician, I can handle the rejections which tell me to look critically, revise carefully, and submit again and early to the appropriate journals. Thanks for leading me to Zhagram Literary Magazine as well.