View from the Slushpile by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee

Christine Hyung-Oak Lee posted a gripe list recently on Facebook. She’s the fiction editor of the Kartika Review, a “national literary arts magazine that publishes Asian Pacific Islander American fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and art,” and she’s been weeding through the slush pile. The way to have publishing success–besides being willing to collect rejections and keep getting better as a writer–is by understanding editors and doing everything you can to help them in their mission which is, at heart, to fall in love with your writing.

To that end, Christine has graciously allowed me to post her list in the Book Writing World blog. I hope that it will, in the end, provide you with some clarity and relief. What editors want is actually simple. Be straightforward, professional. Keep it simple. Get out of the way of your own writing and let that win the day.

Read through the Kartika Review slushpile . . . tweeted the following:

1) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. Do NOT start ur story with 3 pages of ITALICS. No. Just, no. nonononononooo.

2) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. Do NOT start ur Asian-themed story w mentions of rice paddies/kohl/silk/lotuses/etc. NO. nonononono.

3) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. If ur NOT Asian, I do NOT want 2 hear abt ur travels thru Asia fucking prostitutes & smoking opium. (Don’t wanna hear if you ARE Asian, either–but so far, it’s not a trend for writers of Asian descent to write the above, thus the specificity).

4) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. Do NOT namedrop in ur cover letter. Do not care if u studied w Toni Morrison or not.

(in fact if u namedrop in ur cover letter the Famous Writers with whom u have studied, I might red flag u—ur writing shld speak 4 itself).

5) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. Do NOT talk about copyrights in ur cover letter. Do not stamp serial copyrights all over ur ms.

6) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. So far, these r the names dropped: JCO, @chrisabani, J.M. Coetzee, E.L. Doctorow, Peter Ho Davies…

7) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. If we have met irl or online, pls do mention that fact/remind me in ur cover letter.

8) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. I have discovered an alarming bias for stories set in the East Village. Bc I miss NYC.

9) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. Please do write a KICK ASS opening paragraph.

10) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. Do NOT provide a summary of ur story in ur cover letter. I’ll figure that part out.

11) Reading thru @KartikaReview slush pile. Send ur VERY BEST work. If not, don’t mention all the awards in ur cover letter 4 a story w typos.

12) Reading @KartikaReview slush pile. Keep ur cover letters short & polite. They can hurt u more than help.