Hey friends,
Welcome to another round of Tell Us Something We Don’t Know… where we source a panel of literary experts and ask them questions about whatever the heck. Today, the heck is award nominations and our instructors are experienced editors from three top-tier literary magazines:
The Experts:
Derek Askey — senior editor at The Sun
Rachel Dillon — award-winning poet, teacher, and managing editor of Ploughshares
Steve Chang — co-founder of Lit Match Collective and fiction editor at Okay Donkey
The Takeaways:
How do lit mag editors decide which pieces to nominate for awards?
What are the qualities editors look for in an award-winning story or poem?
How subjective is the whole process? (And how to deal with rejection)
Advice on crafting and submitting your very best writing
By the end of this workshop, you might just be inspired to write an award-winning piece of your own…
Let’s Talk Writing Awards…
Every year, lit mag editors put forward their favorite pieces for a variety of writing awards. It’s a badge of honor and a massive confidence boost for writers, but what goes on behind the scenes? How do editors choose? What makes an award-winning story? (And how can we write one?)
We asked three experienced lit mag editors about the whole process and here’s what they had to say:
