We covered this earlier in the guidelines, but recent submissions have proven that it bears repeating: Please proof your work thoroughly! Here are a few other general tips to keep in mind:
- Separate paragraphs with a blank line.
- Refrain from using fancy or script fonts. That old standby Courier works best.
- Make sure to include the title of your piece.
TIPS FOR PREPARING ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS
Prepare your submission as plain ASCII text.
Most publications that accept electronic submissions of flash literature accept them within the body of an e-mail message as ASCII text. Yet few provide any instructions for writers in how to do that. We hope to break that trend.
Assuming that most authors these days prepare their work in a word processing program, here are the generic steps to preparing your material as ASCII text:
- Open your document in your word processor.
- Open the "File" menu.
- Select "Save As."
- In most dialog boxes, below the entry for file name, you will see a pull-down menu for file type.
- Select "ASCII text," "text with line breaks (.txt)," "Generic word processor," or any other non-package-specific format.
- For Windows users, test the resulting document in Notepad (this is a generic word processor which comes with the Windows package). If you have saved the file to the correct format, it should be completely readable and should appear as you intended it. One telltale sign that it isn't in ASCII text format: if you see something like "’" where an apostrophe should be.
The old maxim "if at first you don't succeed, try again" applies here. The choices for file format when using the "Save As" feature of some word processors can be truly overwhelming. When you find the choice that works, make a note of it. You'll probably use it again.
Be sure to include the required information either before or after your work. To ensure fairness, submissions are "blinded" — that is, all information pertaining to the author is stripped off — before it is forwarded to our editors. There is no need to include a byline.
After you've converted your work into plain text format, paste it into an e-mail message. You will also need to include the following information:
- Your name;
- The title of your piece;
- The category in which you're submitting;
- Your e-mail address;
- Your land mail address;
- A brief (max. 100-word biography);
- Whether or not your piece has been published elsewhere
- Whether you wish to receive our editorial comments
Any submission received after a deadline has passed will be returned unread.