Literary magazines are increasingly converting to online submissions and on-screen editing, increasing efficiency, cutting costs and saving the rainforests.
Those editors reluctant to convert to online submissions have expressed concerns about economics and eyestrain. Printing out thousands of electronic submissions is not feasible for most journals, and the alternative—asking readers to stare at screens—does not appeal to editors like Stephanie G’Schwind, whose staff members at the Colorado Review consistently tell her “they don’t want to read submissions on-screen.” Michael Czyzniejewski, the editor of Mid-American Review, agrees. “Sitting at a computer terminal for so many more hours than I already do seems like a complete nightmare.”
Many editors do recognize the benefits of online submissions, however, and don’t want to miss out on the trend. “I don’t want to lose submissions because good writers are sending their work with a click of a button instead of wasting postage, stationery, and a lot of time,” says Czyzniejewski.
Before Glimmer Train switched to an online system several years ago, shouldering the stack of submissions was more than coeditors Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda Swanson-Davies could handle. “We’d come back from a three-day weekend and there would be eight mail buckets leaning against our office door,” says Burmeister-Brown. While not all writers and editors agree that the time has come for an exclusively online submission process, most would agree that eight mail buckets can hold an awful lot of paper—and in this time of heightened awareness of limited natural resources and green initiatives, the days of binder clips, SASEs, and slush piles may be numbered.
Link to the full Poets & Writers, Inc. article