Friday, November 6, 2009

Another Inconvient Truth

Al Gore speaks about his new book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Global Climate Crisis at Harvard Bookstore.

Notes from "Practical Tips on How to get Published"

On panel:

Boston Review is a bi-monthly, general interest magazine with lots of space for poetry,
idea pieces, investigative journalism articles. Always taking in new writers.

Plough Shares Literary Review send in paper submission, not folded, paperclip.

Harvard Review- Publishes twice a year. Committed to publishing beginners and student writers.

Pitching- A literary review has a lot of readers. These readers are usually post grads or working currently on their MFA.
A lot of good stuff gets rejected.
If you get a rejection letter that says send more writing then send more!

Newpages.com = list of just about every journal.

Length of online journal 500-1400 words.

If you are a serious writer most get as much experience possible by writing in as many genres and get published in many different periodicals.

Query Letters-
Try to promote yourself
Be very honest about accomplishments and be polite
Make it as easy as possible for your readers to get you
Be clean
Demonstrate familiarity with publication
Pay attention to when editors change
Everyone loves to discover unpublished writer
Since for a literary review your submitting your work just needs to be short and simple
First line say what piece is poetry, book review, short fiction etc.
Date the letter
Never staple use paperclips
Address and contact info.
Do tell if you are a grad student

Follow-up if you haven't heard back in three or four months

Most importantly literary reviews are looking for a high level of control in writing.