My Life as a Lit Mag First Reader

Demystifying the lit mag reading process

I’ve been volunteering as a first reader at the wonderful Black Fox Literary magazine since last May. First readers are volunteers who read submissions and contest entries for literary magazines. (This may also be referred to as “slush pile” reading, but I prefer first reader.) Black Fox publishes flash fiction, short stories, creative nonfiction, and poetry: I read flash fiction and short stories. I get assigned 12 pieces each week, and I read every one of them. Through this process, I’ve learned so much about what goes into choosing the content of a literary magazine. I wanted to shine a light on the mystery of what happens behind the scenes at a lit mag.

If anything, the process has shown me how difficult it is for a piece to go from submission to acceptance. I’ve been reading 12 pieces a week since May. So far, none of those pieces have been published. One was part of a long list of finalists for one of Black Fox’s regular contests.

You can do the math. (Remember when you’re counting, though, that I get a few weeks off, but I’m also not reading all the stories.) This means that there are stories I think are brilliant, that I want to read over and over again, and that will live in my head forever—that don’t get published. I’ve also read some pieces that I, personally, didn’t like and then upon reading the author bio (which I do after reading the story to prevent bias) discover they’ve been previously published in a handful of ultra-competitive, top-tier publications.

What does this mean?

This means you can submit a wonderfully written, exquisite stories and receive a form rejection letter. It means the literary magazine process is human, messy, and flawed—just like the writing process.

Typically, a fiction piece goes through 2–4 readers, the fiction editor, and the editor-in-chief before it’s placed in the magazine. There are many stories that I adore; stories that are well-written, thought-provoking, and beautiful that don’t get published.

It means that if you write a story about bees that gets assigned to a reader who’s already read three stories about bees that week, it better be a really damn good story about bees. And even if it is the best story about bees that was ever double-spaced and put into a Word document, it might get rejected just because that reader has had it with bee stories.

Is it fair? Probably not. While we try to bring our most un-biased selves to each reading, we’re human. We each come with a truckload of baggage that even if we try to ignore it, it’s still parked outside our window. I, for one, would not want lit mags to adopt a less human process of reading submissions. Machines, as we know, have biases, too.

Being a part of this process has helped me to understand personally that a rejection doesn’t mean my story was “bad” or that the readers and editors hated it. When I get a rejection, I think of all the submissions I’ve loved that we haven’t published. Or the ones that I didn’t like where my fellow readers said yes. I think about how much of it is a numbers game. I add the rejection to my tally and cross that mag off my list.

There are some things you can do to prevent a lit mag first reader from being frustrated before they even read your story.

First, of course: follow the submission guidelines! They’re in place for a reason: standardizing the format of submissions ensures that readers aren’t plagued with bizarre fonts, odd spacing, and other formatting quirks. Black Fox doesn’t automatically reject for not following the guidelines to the letter—but some magazines do. Following the guidelines means the submission is readable. If it’s not readable, we can’t read it.

I can’t speak for all first readers and editors, but I generally don’t care what you put in your cover letter. Your life story is not going to influence my decision. If you need a paragraph to explain your story, it probably won’t be a good fit for us. There are three exceptions:

1. Include the word count. Sometimes I don’t have time for a 4500-word story. I would prefer to know what I’m getting into.

2. Include content warnings. At Black Fox, we pass on stories that we aren’t comfortable reading to another reader. I’d rather know if your story is about addiction withdrawal so I can pass it on before read 3 pages and realize I would rather not continue.

3. Include any groups you belong to that are relevant to the story. For example, if you are retelling an Anishinaabe folktale, I would like to know if you are a member of an Anishinaabe community.

Aside from gaining an understanding of the work that goes into putting together an issue of a literary magazine, I’ve also learned about writing from reading hundreds of flash fiction and short story submissions. I have a new understanding of what makes a piece shine—what makes the kind of piece I want to vote yes on. I’ll be sharing that in an upcoming newsletter.