Diary of a Mad Editor

In all my years as a writer, I have never known a publication that didn’t absolutely require a Self Addressed Stamp Envelope or a prepaid postcard in order to facillitate the reply to a submission. Am I wrong? Have the rules changed? No? I didn’t think so. Nonetheless, of the first dozen or so submissions I read this morning, no less than five of them came to me sans SASE or so much as an email in order to communicate my reply. One of those individuals even had the nerve to note, at the bottom of his cover letter:”You can send your generous acceptance letter to the following address:” Yeah, sure chief, I’ll send my generous reply across the room into the trash can, thank you very much. And just when I thought I had moved through the idiot pile for the day, I returned to the stack after my morning walk and discovered yet another submission without a SASE or even an IRC (it was from Canada). The half a dozen handwritten poems were accompanied by a Canadian 20-dollar bill, which I assume is intended as a subscription, although there was no cover letter or note indicating that. For all I know it is intended as a bribe. What stinks about this is that if it is a subscription, I have no way of making good on it because in addition to forgetting a return envelope, he also didn’t include his name and address on his submission and the return address on the envelope the pages arrived in is absolutely illegible. That’s right, even if I was inclined to communicate with this guy to find out what’s what, I can’t because I have no idea who he is or where in Canada he resides! He could be the fucking Prime Minister for all I know.

Listen up. If you are going to submit material via snail mail you need to do the following things or you simply won’t get a reply:

1. make sure your copy is legible. I strongly suggest that your ms. be printed in dark black ink and that your name and address be on the page somewhere (upper left corner works for me).

2. Include a Self-addressed-stamp-envelope or postcard or IRC’s if you live outside the country. At the very least include an email address. I will not contact you by phone, so don’t assume that I will.

4. Make sure you have copies of the work you send. Never send originals.

5. And never send cash through the mail. If you want to buy a subscription it should be a check or a money order. If you don’t understand why, you are even dumber than I think you are.

And finally, double check to make sure everything’s in order before sealing that envelope and mailing your submission.

Just some friendly advice.