Find Editors Who Like You

Poet reflects on the importance of knowing your community

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.

---

Write for an Editor

Back in the dim, predawn age, when cell phones were carved from sheer rock and journals were woven from bullrushes, I started sending my poems off to literary magazines. Every week I would print off four poems or so, painstakingly chisel the address on flint envelopes, include an SASE, and trot hopefully to the nearest mailbox. My career was underway!