Five hundred stories, three times a year; three tips for your short stories
As I write to you, it’s been about a year since I left a literary magazine where my team of two associate editors and I would vet 400 to 600 stories for each tri-annual issue. (That’s three times a year, not once every three years, and no, publishing has never really figured out how to best distinguish.) I thought it was time to institutionalize some of the advice I passed on most regularly to writers looking for feedback on their short stories.
Before we dive in, let’s lay out some parameters: Yes, we hope our tastes continue to evolve and change as editors and as writers. And yes, we continue to learn, no matter where we are; Matthew Salesses’ ; Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, which is referenced by both Salesses and Chavez; and , by Carlin Borsheim-Black and Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides. Boy, you might say. This is a whole lot of work in the same vein. And, yes, you’d be right. These books and resources have me revisiting the way I teach workshops, which in turn is changing the way I edit, and so I thought I’d pass these methodologies on to you. Ready? Here we go:
